india on S Anand

The Jamnagar Chokepoint - Data Story

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 03:14:11 +0000

Vivek published an Indian commodity export/import dataset on 31 Dec 2025.

Codex and Claude increased their rate limits for the holiday season, so I had:

Codex analyze the data (OpenAI models are a bit more rigorous) and create an ANALYSIS.md file.
Claude create a visual story based on the analysis. (Claude narrates and visualizes better).

Analyze

I downloaded export-import.parquet from https://github.com/Vonter/india-export-import which has data sourced from the Indian [Foreign Trade Data Dissemination Portal](https://ftddp.dgciskol.gov.in/dgcis/principalcommditysearch.html)

Each row in the dataset represents a trade entry for a single commodity, country, port, year, month, and type (import or export).

- `Commodity` string: Name of the commodity
- `Country` string: Name of the foreign country
- `Port` string: Name of the port in India
- `Year` int32: Year for the import/export activity
- `Month` int32: Month for the import/export activity
- `Type` category: Type of trade (Import or Export)
- `Quantity` int64: Quantity of the commodity
- `Unit` string: Unit for the quantity
- `INR Value` int64: Value of the commodity in INR
- `USD Value` int64: Value of the commodity in USD

Analyze data like an investigative journalist hunting for stories that make smart readers lean forward and say "wait, really?"

- Understand the Data: Identify dimensions & measures, types, granularity, ranges, completeness, distribution, trends. Map extractable features, derived metrics, and what sophisticated analyses might serve the story (statistical, geospatial, network, NLP, time series, cohort analysis, etc.).
- Define What Matters: List audiences and their key questions. What problems matter? What's actually actionable? What would contradict conventional wisdom or reveal hidden patterns?
- Hunt for Signal: Analyze extreme/unexpected distributions, breaks in patterns, surprising correlations. Look for stories that either confirm something suspected but never proven, or overturn something everyone assumes is true. Connect dots that seem unrelated at first glance.
- Segment & Discover: Cluster/classify/segment to find unusual, extreme, high-variance groups. Where are the hidden populations? What patterns emerge when you slice the data differently?
- Find Leverage Points: Hypothesize small changes yielding big effects. Look for underutilization, phase transitions, tipping points. What actions would move the needle?
- Verify & Stress-Test:
  - **Cross-check externally**: Find evidence from the outside world that supports, refines, or contradicts your findings
  - **Test robustness**: Alternative model specs, thresholds, sub-samples, placebo tests
  - **Check for errors/bias**: Examine provenance, definitions, methodology; control for confounders, base rates, uncertainty (The Data Detective lens)
  - **Check for fallacies**: Correlation vs. causation, selection/survivorship Bias (what is missing?), incentives & Goodhart’s Law (is the metric gamed?), Simpson's paradox (segmentation flips trend), Occam’s Razor (simpler is more likely), inversion (try to disprove) regression to mean (extreme values naturally revert), second-order effects (beyond immediate impact), ...
  - **Consider limitations**: Data coverage, biases, ambiguities, and what cannot be concluded
- Prioritize & Package: Select insights that are:
  - **High-impact** (not incremental) - meaningful effect sizes vs. base rates
  - **Actionable** (not impractical) - specific, implementable
  - **Surprising** (not obvious) - challenges assumptions, reveals hidden patterns
  - **Defensible** (statistically sound) - robust under scrutiny

Save your findings in ANALYSIS.md with supporting datasets and code.
This will be taken up by another coding agent to create reports, data stories, visualizations, dashboards, presentations, articles, blog posts, etc.
Ensure that ANALYSIS.md is documented well enough so that all assets are clear, the approach, intent and implications are understandable.

Visualize

I downloaded export-import.parquet from https://github.com/Vonter/india-export-import which has data sourced from the Indian [Foreign Trade Data Dissemination Portal](https://ftddp.dgciskol.gov.in/dgcis/principalcommditysearch.html)

Each row in the dataset represents a trade entry for a single commodity, country, port, year, month, and type (import or export).

- `Commodity` string: Name of the commodity
- `Country` string: Name of the foreign country
- `Port` string: Name of the port in India
- `Year` int32: Year for the import/export activity
- `Month` int32: Month for the import/export activity
- `Type` category: Type of trade (Import or Export)
- `Quantity` int64: Quantity of the commodity
- `Unit` string: Unit for the quantity
- `INR Value` int64: Value of the commodity in INR
- `USD Value` int64: Value of the commodity in USD

Then I had Codex analyze it. The analysis is in ANALYSIS.md.

Find the most intesting insights from ANALYSIS.md and create a data story with supporting visualizations.

Write as a **Narrative-driven Data Story**. Write like Malcolm Gladwell. Think like a detective who must defend findings under scrutiny.

- **Compelling hook**: Start with a human angle, tension, or mystery that draws readers in
- **Story arc**: Build the narrative through discovery, revealing insights progressively
- **Integrated visualizations**: Beautiful, interactive charts/maps that are revelatory and advance the story (not decorative)
- **Concrete examples**: Make abstract patterns tangible through specific cases
- **Evidence woven in**: Data points, statistics, and supporting details flow naturally within the prose
- **"Wait, really?" moments**: Position surprising findings for maximum impact
- **So what?**: Clear implications and actions embedded in the narrative
- **Honest caveats**: Acknowledge limitations without undermining the story

Visualize like The New York Times Interactives. Ensure that all visualizations interactive and provide revelatory insights as well as some kind of delightful experience.

Follow the typography, color & theme, backgrounds, interaction patterns, and animation principles of The Verge's frontends.

Generate a single page index.html + script.js.

Things I Learned - 27 Jul 2025

Sun, 27 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This week, I learned:

Here are some tech community builders in India. ChatGPT
- Atul Chitnis (Bengaluru) – FOSS.IN and Linux Bangalore
- Dr. Nagarjuna G. (Mumbai) – FSF India and ILUG Bombay
- Rushabh Mehta (Mumbai) – FOSS United & ERPNext Community
- Kiran Jonnalagadda & Zainab Bawa (Bengaluru) – HasGeek Tech Conferences
- Kenneth Gonsalves (Nilgiris/Tamil Nadu) – Indian Python Community (deceased)
- Thejesh GN (Bengaluru) – DataMeet Open Data Community
- Varun Aggarwal (Delhi) – ML-India (Machine Learning Forum)
- Prashant Sahu (Pune) – Pune AI Meetup
- Akshay Dashrath (Bengaluru) – BlrDroid Android Group
- Vikrant Singh (Bangalore) – ReactJS
- Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay – Mozilla India and Wikimedia tech outreach
- Neependra Khare (Bengaluru) – Docker/Kubernetes Meetup
- Atul Jha (Bengaluru/Hyderabad) – OpenStack & CNCF Communities
- Aseem Jakhar & Ajit Hatti (Delhi/Pune) – null Open Security Community
- Rohit Srivastwa (Pune) – ClubHack and Hackerspaces
- Anubha Maneshwar (Nagpur) – GirlScript Developer Network
Digital Public Infrastructure initiatives in India scale if there’s a clear use case and centralized orchestration. Prof R Srinivasan
The distance between the end of the thumb and little finger, when fullet stretched, is ~9 inches. Between the thumb and pointer, when at a right angle, is ~6 inches. I checked this today - and it’s right. A useful rule of thumb for measurement - literally. Vasuki, ~1985
GitHub Sponsors Explore shows you which developers code most of your dependencies. You can sponsor them. I sponsored isaacs who maintains node-tap and sindresorhus who maintains several NodeJS packages for $50/month each.
markmap looks like a promising JS-based interactive mindmap from Markdown. More interactive than Mermaid Mindmap.
- mind-elixir is another option that lets you edit mindmaps and serialize in its own format
- jsmind is yet another but docs are in Chinese
- elkjs seems a good option for laying out nodes in an architecture-style flow diagram
⭐ O3 seems a better data scientist than I am. Based on my Google Searches, I have 3 persona: developer, AI-builder, and India/Singapore geo-culturist. A great example of an analysis from O3 that’s better than anything I could have come up with. ChatGPT
⭐ Fast review of AI be a powerful skill and enabler. I built an Image Editing tool with Codex in ~4 hours, with 11 prompts taking 3.5 - 7.5 minutes each. 3 hours human review, 1 hour LLM coding. I’m 3X slower at reviews while AI will keep improving. ChatGPT: Faster LLM review techniques #ai-coding
- Auditize: citations, rationale, output screens, diffs, test results, risks, unknowns
- Auto validate. Evals, tests
- Prioritize. High z-values, big-useful-surprising areas
At the VizChitra Birds of a Feature session, here’s what people said AI enables:
- Complementary skills enable a team of 1. Non-coders can code. Non-domain people get insights from data
- Solves starting trouble. It offers a first draft
- Generation. New ideas (reduces blind spots), scenarios, non-existent people, new data, new persona for surveys
- Hyper-personalization. Parts of YouTube relevant for THIS asset manager. Implication of data for me
- Automated scaling. Generate 1,000 images. Evaluate 1,000 assignments
- Saves time: debugging, research, validation, documentation, copywriting
- New ways of working. Loading event schedules into my calendar
Qwen-Code is a fork of Gemini CLI and uses qwen3-coder – a model that can also be used with Claude Code and Cline. The model is not anywhere near as good as Claude 4 Sonnet. The app is costlier than using Claude Code directly. #ai-coding
The LLM industry seems to have matured quickly. Early adopters who are open to understand the generic capabilities of LLMs through demos are somewhat saturated. The early majority have come in. They aren’t interested in generic capabilities. They’re looking for solutions that solve their specific problem. Soon the late majority will come in asking for existing solutions that have already solved their problem for many others. ChatGPT: Creating demos for majority
Claude for Financial Services is an agentic version of Claude available on AWS & Google marketplaces tuned for financial services analysis. Video
catbox.moe is a file hosting service that you can upload a file to without any API key. It’s an alternative to 0x0.st. Both can be used for images. Catbox retains files indefinitely and openly publishes costs - might last longer. 0x0 deletes files between 1-12 months based on size.
Agents face 3 problems: compounding errors, quadratic costs, and poorly designed tools. Start with small scope & strong reviews while you solve these problems. Betting Against Agents
Leadership and vision will matter more. LLMs iterate fast. They can think for longer. So tasks where people need to work longer independently than LLMs can are what humans will be needed for. That requires understanding the objective. So leadership and specifically vision transfer will become more valuable. You need to be able to tell people what to do well enough that they can work independently for weeks.
Having LLMs go through engineering drawings, floor plans, etc. and understand them, find problems, etc. is an emerging use case. People are using Veo 3 to convert a floor plan into a 3D walk through too.
Digital adoption is slow partly because of a skill gap. “Old-timers” are slow to let go of traditional approaches.
Video recordings are used in manufacturing to evaluate quality (e.g. wafer inspection, assembly inspection, component presence) using AI. An interesting by-product of this data is that they can also measure productivity, task time.
“Common sense is a specialization”. That’s something I said accidentally when seeing that some schools/colleges tend to produce more broad, sensible thinkers (e.g. Naval College @ Goa) while others produce more narrow-thinking specialists (e.g. engineering colleges).
Three groups control the financial economy. To sell sustainability services, you need to have sold to one of them. via Sundeep
1. Banks, who will sell a loan against anything they can insure, and look to insurers for long-term thought leadership.
2. Insurers, who will insure anything they can re-insure, and re-insurers, who look at real-estate trends as a stable long-term asset
3. REITs who own the majority of the world’s real-estate
We could think of a copilot as an (agentic) LLM chat interface for an artifact. E.g. Code pilot (Claude Code. Cursor.). Data analysis copilot (Google Colab, sort-of. ChatGPT). That allows us to imagine tools that will create/edit artifacts. Here are some I’ve encountered as a demand.
- Documents. E.g. Docsearch, GPTs, Microsoft Copilot, Gemini
- Slides. E.g. Microsoft Copilot, Gemini
- Sheets. E.g. Microsoft Copilot, Gemini
- Code. E.g. Cursor, Claude Code
- Database. Create DB schema, ER diagrams, synthetic data, ingestion scripts, etc.
- Data (analysis). E.g. Datachat, Google Colab, Marimo
- Posters. E.g. Postgen
- Shell. E.g. Warp
- Topic modeling. E.g. classify
- Surveys. E.g. Personagen
- APIs. E.g. apiagent
- Drug regulatory submissions.
- Contracts (risk).
- Manufacturing SOPs.
- Curriculum.
- Data quality.
- Support tickets.
- Dashboards.
- IaaC / DevOps.
- Video campaigns.
- Resumes.
- Patents.
CLI optimization for LLMs will likely emerge. More CLIs (and wrappers / hooks in the shell) will improve output and error contexts for LLMs, e.g. printing current directory, caching slow outputs, suggesting alternate commands, etc. Ref
Frequent commits with linting & building seems like a good AI coding strategy, especially for Claude Code. Ref #ai-coding

To keep Claude Code in line on my project, I’ve relied heavily on linters, build scripts, formatters, and git commit hooks. It’s pretty easy to get Claude Code to commit often by including it in your CLAUDE.md, but it often likes to ignore other commands like “make sure the build doesn’t fail” and “fix any failing tests”. All my projects have a .git/hooks/pre-commit script that enforces project standards. The hook works really well to keep things in line.
Google Apps Scripts are actually a web apps platform in JavaScript more than a macros equivalent. Ref
⭐ DuckDB supports joins based on embedding similarity and even hybrid similarity! Ref
Human persuasion techniques like Cialdini’s work well with LLMs Ethan Mollick
gitwatch is a clean way of auto-committing & pushing files into GitHub. It effectively converts GitHub into a Dropbox-like service.
Adding ?udm=14 to Google Search URLs removes AI mode and other clutter. Ref
⭐ Never embed LLM‑generated summaries without a disclaimer, source links, and flag‑as‑wrong feedback button. Build a fast appeal/edit pipeline before release. via Death By AI

Fri, 09 May 2025 07:37:50 +0000

I’m completely aligned with the small majority in India on whether Regulation of AI is needed.

… the majority of people in all countries view AI regulation as a necessity. India is the exception, where just under half (48%) agree regulation is needed.

Source: Trust, attitudes and use of artificial intelligence - a fascinating report surveying ~1,000 people in every country. https://mbs.edu/-/media/PDF/Research/Trust_in_AI_Report.pdf

Auto vs GPT

Fri, 26 Jan 2024 06:14:09 +0000

I was crossing a not-too-busy street on a not-too-busy day in Chennai.

I was having a voice conversation with ChatGPT (about the log probabilities of tokens on LLMs, if you're curious) when I was rudely interrupted by an auto rikshaw rapidly honking at me. "Honk honk honk honk honk" in rapid succession.

Not unusual. Mildly annoying. The street was empty. The auto was empty. The traffic policeman was visible. I gave way and carried on.

A few seconds later, I heard a voice in my ear.

"It sounds like you're in a good mood! Anything else you'd like to discuss or know more about?"

ChatGPT was still listening (perhaps to background noise) and responding. But I didn't realize what random noise it thought put me in a good mood. Here's what I saw on the chat window.

A client once told me, while visiting Hyderabad, that "these honks in India are a language of their own." If ChatGPT is to be believed, the autos are laughing at us.

This is, incidentally, the very first time ChatGPT added an exclamation point to my words. I've never managed to achieve that so far. No matter how emphatically I spoke.

Also, I'd never have learnt this walking in the streets of Singapore. Friends have warned me about the dangers of long walks on Indian roads. Here's an example of the lessons we learn -- if only we keep our eyes and ears (and microphones) open.

Postscript

While cycling in Singapore, ChatGPT interprets the sounds very differently. At least twice, it transcribed the traffic noise into "Thank you. Thank you." Clearly even traffic noise in Singapore is more graceful than in Chennai!

Thu, 05 Nov 2015 12:25:36 +0000

Apparently, I’m one of the top 10 data scientists in India. http://analyticsindiamag.com/top-10-data-scientists-in-india-2015/

Motorbike science lab

Thu, 24 Oct 2013 11:48:05 +0000

My cousin’s working on an interesting project at the Agastya Foundation. A group of scientifically inclined volunteers go around on a bike to schools, taking with them a science lab kit, and show children in rural schools a variety of experiments.

Google will award this and 3 other projects (out of 10) Rs 3 crores based on public votes. You can vote for and read more at https://impactchallenge.withgoogle.com/india2013#/agastya|vote

Comments

Motorbike science lab http://t.co/WWsD9YxGEX - Thej Live 25 Oct 2013 2:14 pm (pingback): […] Motorbike science lab s-anand.net/blog/motorbike… […]

The next chapter of my life

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 01:01:56 +0000

I’m writing this post on a one-way flight from London back to India. I’ve moved on from Infosys Consulting, and am starting up on my own.

I’ve wanted to do this for a long time. There’s always more freedom in your own company than someone else’s. There’s often more money in it too, if you’re lucky enough. But my upbringing is a bit too conservative to make that bold step. However, given that my father runs his own firm, I figured it was just a question of time for me to do the same.

Two years ago, in Jan 2010, I picked up Rashmi Bansal’s Stay Hungry Stay Foolish at an airport. That book killed the last bit of resistance I had. If the people in that book could succeed, I felt I could too. And if what they did (building small companies, not huge ones) could be called a success, I could be successful too.

After the flight, it was clear in my mind. I would be an entrepreneur. I would create a small company that would probably fold. Then I’d do it again. And again, 10 times, because 1 in 10 companies survive. And finally, I’d be running a small business that’d be called successful by virtue of having survived. A modest, achievable ambition that I had the courage for.

I usually make big decisions without analysis, by just sleeping over them. I slept over it and announced it to my family the next day. I’m not sure they believed me.

Two months later, along with a friend, I built a dynamic digital image resizing product. We had our wives start a company in the UK, and tried selling it to retailers. There clearly was a demand. The problem was, we didn’t know how to sell. After a year and having spent £500 with no sales, it was clear to us that venture #1 had failed. We eventually shut it down.

In the middle of this, my ex- boss from IBM told me that he was looking to start a venture, focusing on mobile, rural BPO and energy management. This later on changed to data analytics and visualisation. They all sounded like fun, so I said I’ll help out in my spare time.

A few months later, a classmate told me he’d started a business digitising school report cards. That sounded like fun too, so I said I’d help out in my spare time.

Now, if that sounds like I had a lot of spare time on my hands – you’re right, I did. And it’s time to talk about the jobs in my life. My first 3 years at IBM were fun. I was coding, learning, and leading a bachelor’s life with friends, money, and no responsibilities. My 4 years at BCG were strenuous with 80-hour weeks, but it was interesting and challenging. I was newly married, and between work and home responsibilities, I had no time for fun.

I moved to Infosys Consulting in the UK with the specific aim of rectifying that (and for health reasons as well). In the last 7 years, the work has (except on occasion) been a bit boring, but very relaxing. On most days, I would spend 4 hours working, and 4 hours learning new stuff. The things I learnt only helped me be more efficient. So I ended up getting even more work done in less time.

Many things came out of this. Firstly, I recovered my health. We had a daughter, and I spent more time with her. I started coding in earnest again. By 2007, I was writing code as part of my projects – stuff that others whose job it was were unable to. By 2009, I had a few websites running, like an Indian music search engine, an IMDb Top 250 tracker, a few transliterators, and so on.

So when I said I’d help out with these startups, it wasn’t an empty promise. For the last 18 months, I’ve had a day job and three night jobs. I never did justice to any of them in my opinion, but I had more fun than ever in my life, I learnt more than ever in my life, and I produced more tangible output than ever in my life. Sometimes, quantity beats quality or reliability.

Both these startups are doing well today. Gramener.com offers data visualisation and IT services. I will be joining them as Chief Data Scientist. Reportbee.com offers a hosted report card solution. I will continue helping them out. And I will continue working with a few NGOs.

You’ll see me a lot more active online now. I can publicly write about my work – something I’ve been unable to do the last 11 years.

I am relocating to Bangalore. From a professional front, it’s an obvious choice. That’s where the geeks are. In my last visit to India, I was at Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad. In the latter two, it’s tough to meet geeks. And when you do, it’s no easier to find the next. Bangalore has many more geeks, and they’re fairly well networked.

From a personal front, too, Bangalore works well. It’s close enough to Chennai without actually being in Chennai.

It’s 10am on Thu 12th Jan. Our flight is descending into Delhi airport. It’s the start of a new chapter in my life. Scary, but exciting. Wish me luck!

Comments

Thejesh GN 13 Jan 2012 9:19 am: Welcome back.
AnanthRK 13 Jan 2012 8:51 am: Great to hear that you are taking the plunge full-time. All the very best!!
Madhur Singhal 13 Jan 2012 12:47 pm: Anand, best wishes!! Well - I never had a doubt that you take only 4 hrs for 8 hrs of work anyway. I have been guilty of being lazy in calling but thankfully, I travel to Bangalore sometimes. I am at 9873901163 and if you tell me your #, I will call you. cheers!!
Ashish 13 Jan 2012 12:31 pm: Hey Anand! Good to hear that, best of luck for your ventures……happy Independance!! Do let me know if i can be of any help Ashish
Raghu 13 Jan 2012 12:42 pm: Enjoy always and lead from the front! All the best and do well!
Kalpesh 13 Jan 2012 10:22 am: Anand, I am sure, you have all things needed to do better things in life. Hopefully, we will meet & work together in future. Best Wishes Kalpesh
Vanaja 13 Jan 2012 11:28 am: All the best Anand! I have always wondered why you were stuck with Infosys when you were so much more. This looks like the way to go. Good Luck and God Bless!
Pawan Bhargava 13 Jan 2012 9:55 am: Hi SAnand, good call. It does not matter how it works out (trading in handsight), but all that matters is enjoying what you do. I am sure it would be immensely satisfying. Good luck.
Ravish 13 Jan 2012 10:00 am: People said “search” was too late for Google.. they also said “social networking” was too late for Facebook.. good that neither Larry Page nor Mark Zuckerberg listened to them.. All the best Anand.. Good Luck !! Its never too late for new ideas!!
Gaurav 13 Jan 2012 1:29 pm: Way to go Anand! You will love being an entrepreneur - the freedom to try different things and the satisfaction you get when something works…
408wij 13 Jan 2012 2:17 pm: Good luck. –Joe
sriram 13 Jan 2012 2:49 pm: All the best Thala.. :)
Somnath 13 Jan 2012 3:35 pm: Just goes to show the fan following you have. I am really late in checking your latest post. Welcome back to Bangalore and India. I see couple of batchmates have posted to. Wish I can join small organization / startup but am hesitant to take the risk. Then again what is my true skill set :D Somnath
Harish Kashyap 13 Jan 2012 4:59 pm: Welcome to place where you belong! I am sure you will do well. You can reach me at 99010 32469. It will be good to have a cup of coffee with you!
Suresh 13 Jan 2012 5:27 pm: Wish you success. “Real success comes not from being invited onto the yacht, but from being able to paddle one’s own canoe” - Hugh McLeod
Sridhar 13 Jan 2012 5:34 pm: All the very best Anand! I am sure you’ll have no problem adding tremendous value to whatever you produce and that will ensure your success.
praphul 13 Jan 2012 6:54 pm: Congratulations!
San 13 Jan 2012 9:12 pm: You’ve always been an inspiration and it seems like you always will. All the best!
Sathish 13 Jan 2012 10:13 pm: Didn’t actually get the technical part you are talking about… but looks like your are excited and I’m happy for you… ALL THE VERY BEST!!
Madhu 14 Jan 2012 2:53 am: Good luck, many dream of doing it and few take the bold step. I am glad you did. Congratulations and wish you the best.
Vasant 13 Jan 2012 4:25 am: Awesome! Welcome back. And best of luck ahead.
Girish 13 Jan 2012 3:07 am: Congratulations for new change Anand :-) S-Anand.net is always at the back of my mind for the content it has.
satish 13 Jan 2012 7:09 am: Wow. Good to know sir. Wish you all the very best
Krishna 13 Jan 2012 6:43 am: Nice to know this Anand. I’ve been following your exciting works in our intranet blogs. For sure, this is going to be the best decision you ever made :) Wish you loads of luck!
Cipher 13 Jan 2012 6:55 am: Congrats and the best for your future Anand.
Veera 13 Jan 2012 4:53 am: Whoa! that explains the number the data visualization posts in your blog. :) Congratulations for starting up on your own! Me too in the same situation, going to work on my own start up from coming March onwards :)
harish 13 Jan 2012 3:44 am: Hi Anand….. wish you the very best and am sure you will have no problems succeeding…
Venkatramanan 13 Jan 2012 3:51 am: Anand Surprising to see you very late to entrepreneurship! I thought you were managing your business! All the very best! As they say in school ‘you will definitely come with flying colours!’ Regards Venkat
chaitanya 13 Jan 2012 1:35 am: All The Best, Anand. It was always knowledgable and pleasure to follow you. Good luck.
saurabh nitin 13 Jan 2012 4:33 am: best of luck brother! cheers
S_Thomas 13 Jan 2012 3:20 am: Congratulations Anand, we look forward to hearing more
Manish 13 Jan 2012 4:36 am: Anand, congrats I was also struggling with the same thoughts to take up a job or start on own
Ayyappa 13 Jan 2012 4:40 am: Best of luck Anand! Btw -I am a daily user of your mixamail for twitter and never said thanks! Thanks a lot for that! Also, I hope you write your experiences in the startup life for “other conservatives who are afraid to jump” to learn how it feels to be in the wild outside.
sadhasivam 24 Jan 2012 9:33 pm: Good Luck Anand. Being associated with you as read for a decades i am thrilled to go through post. We wish a great journey ahead.
vivek 22 Jan 2012 5:49 pm: Best of luck Anand.
Sankar 23 Jan 2012 2:05 am: All the best Anand!
MohaN 23 Jan 2012 3:26 pm: As someone mentioned, I stumbled across on a pursuit…Life an Unwrapped GIFT……Tear it or Peal it or Break it…something underneath it…
Karthick 13 Jan 2012 8:41 am: All the best.
Naveen 14 Jan 2012 5:37 am: Anand- Congratulations , the day I had been waiting for long time. You will make a big impact where ever you are. Good Luck to you and Gramener
Rajesh bhura 14 Jan 2012 2:10 pm: Finally! This is teriffic news. From our campus days I always thought that this was the way to go for u. Remember the digital signature idea which u had come up with as our e-commerce project? It’s a big industry now in 10 yrs. I don’t have any doubt whatever u do will be successful in it’s own way. All the best. Your fan for always - rajesh
Ashwin 14 Jan 2012 5:42 pm: Anand - I have been following your blog for several years now. I wish you all the best !!
Nirav Kanakia 3 Feb 2012 6:09 pm: Good luck
Shobha 9 Feb 2012 9:27 am: Hi Anand, You do not know me. But I had read your posts in 2007 and I was inspired by your diverse interests in almost every area. Suddenly I remembered you today and read your recent post and gotta know you are starting your own firm in India. All the best and kudos to you. -Shobha-
Karthik A 12 Feb 2012 3:30 am: All the best - have thought several times of making the leap but never got out of the comfort zone - Very happy you did. Maybe probability of this visualization thing becoming the next infy is 100% All the best
Ravindra 3 Feb 2012 12:17 pm: Thaliva…All the best! Looking forward the IPO in Year 2015 or earlier! Cheers
Ramana 16 Jan 2012 3:13 am: All the best Anand!
Anand S 16 Jan 2012 1:08 am: Anand Good luck. Our paths are similar (I am anand @ anands.net). After 12 years in silicon valley, I returned to Bangalore an year ago to run my own venture (started this 4 years ago). Let’s meet in Bangalore.
Venkataragavan 25 Jan 2012 5:25 pm: Hey Anand, wish you good luck and great success ahead. I got interested into data visualization after reading your blogs and now I am actively learning it. Hope to move on someday. Cheers
ravi atluri 13 Jan 2012 2:19 am: this is great. Congratulations. Data in India is going to get more exciting :D
Ravi 13 Jan 2012 6:01 am: All the best Anand. I’ve loved your site and all the tools you’ve built around it. I’ve always wondered how you got so much time to do all that you do. Gramener seems to be a happening place now and I am sure you will make it a grand success.
Amitesh Jasrotia 13 Jan 2012 1:24 am: Hey Anand, I was not really inspired by Rashmi Bansal’s book but I am mighty inspired by the piece you have written. Nothing else is more self-liberating than becoming the master of your own destiny. I have been following your blogs/site for quite some time now. Something tells me you will be successful. Still, Best of luck for your future endeavors!
Nithin 16 Jan 2012 11:50 am: All the Best Anand…
Anuradha Shastry 16 Jan 2012 3:46 am: Lots of good luck!! Landed on this blog just an hour ago. best, another Infoscion
Sumit Dhar 16 Jan 2012 6:32 am: Now that you have moved to Bangalore, we should exchange numbers and plan on catching up. Where, in Bangalore, are you based out of ? Cheers, D.
D 2 Mar 2012 12:10 pm: Anand, Wish you tremendous amount of luck.
Nikhil 31 Jan 2012 9:31 am: Might be of interest to you http://kurt.karmalab.org/2012/01/30/building-a-data-team/
Sreenivasan L 1 Feb 2012 11:11 am: All the best Anand. Wishing you a great success ahead in your new journey.
Judy H 23 Feb 2012 7:22 am: I have no idea how I found your website today for the first time, but I’ve enjoyed reading it. I wish you all the best in your endeavors!
Sri 19 Jan 2012 2:50 pm: Hi Anand I have followed your blog several years now. It’s great to hear about the new venture. Very inspirational post. Good luck and all the best. Vaalga Valamudan Sri
Sajiv 18 Jan 2012 4:20 pm: All the best Anand.
pankaj 18 Jan 2012 6:39 pm: Good luck with your new venture. Keep us posted. :)
Ranganathan 18 Jan 2012 7:53 pm: Hey Anand, I used to follow ur blogs for the past 2 years. I think i came to know about ur blog when i was searching about the tips in excel . Sometimes if I am bored i used to check ur site for the movie list..:-) .. I just want to say ‘All the very best ’ for ur new journey.. I am sure definitely u will succeed…..this will be an inspiration for me some day for starting a new company….
S Anand 16 Jan 2012 1:26 pm: @Sumit: definitely. Still haven’t move into Bangalore just yet, but my contact number is on the home page. Please feel free to call any time,
Shankar V 16 Jan 2012 2:04 pm: hey Anand All the very best and trust me…..I knew this was coming! :) Welcome back to India and welcome to Bangalore. Hope you continue to post interesting stuff. Please do stay in touch. I had your Infosys email id. Don’t think I have your personal id. Please pass it on.
ranjit bawa 16 Jan 2012 4:09 pm: hey Anand - great to hear!! good luck with the new chapter and look forward to seeing you soon. hope to follow suit, but till then, shall live vicariously…
S Anand 18 Jan 2012 1:46 am: @Shankar, I keep my latest phone number at the top of my home page. Will be good to hear from you!
Rajesh B 18 Jan 2012 7:00 am: Great to know you are starting off on your own. Good luck. I took my one way ticket to India 3 years ago. Still burning through my first venture. Inspiring post. Am planning to start 9 other on the side just to be on the correct side of the odds. Jokes apart, can think of few others more equipped to start off on something. If ever you are interested in doing something on the education space, drop me an email. Will try to make that as my night job. Am good with creating content, abysmal poor in trying to sell it. So, ideal for a night-job. Best wishes. Cheers, Bee
Ravi Tiruvaipati 18 Jan 2012 1:13 pm: Hi Anand, I have been following your posts and your applications…It is good hear that you are planning to start your own. I wish you all the best!!
Sriram S 15 Jan 2012 6:14 am: Welcome back and all the best…I stay in BTM Layout in Bangalore..lets catch up sometime
Sudheer 15 Jan 2012 9:35 am: All the best Anand! Looking forward to hear more and more about you in the coming days from sources other than the blog
Jitendra 15 Jan 2012 3:25 pm: Wish you luck Anand! I am sure with your attitude and energy you’d do well in whatever you try to do!
Raja 24 Aug 2012 3:25 am: I try to visit you website since 2008 whenever I get a chance and look for what geeks are doing lately :-) and just noticed today that you moved to India starting out your own venture. Hard work pays off for sure. I am sure you will succeed. Good Luck!
Michael 22 Oct 2012 7:16 pm: Good luck with this Anand. hope it is going well.. Michael
mohan 11 Nov 2012 7:50 am: all the best mr anand keep going your website is so informative with high entertainment value , you will suceed god bless you mohan. you will definitely suceed in
Amutha 25 Nov 2013 9:37 pm: It’s very late if I say gud luck,:) and I hope you are going great with your plans.
Ankur 15 Apr 2013 8:22 am: Hi Anand, I first heard of you courtesy Rahul Guha during my first year at BCG in Mumbai in 2006. He mentioned you as a Consultant he had a very high opinion of. I came across you next a couple of years later, as I was trying to index by IMDB 250 list - I used the app you’d created and recommended it to many friends too. Today, I reached your blog while browsing through some data on poverty in India (datastories.in). Just wanted to let you know. I wish you all the best in your venture(s). Ankur
Father of the bride - S Anand 1 Nov 2023 8:25 pm (pingback): […] In 2012, I started Gramener with half a dozen friends. […]
10 years later - S Anand 17 Mar 2022 1:24 pm (pingback): […] 12 Jan 2012, on a flight back from London, I […]
Moving to Singapore - S Anand 2 Aug 2022 6:37 pm (pingback): […] “I lost my job. Please don’t tell anyone. Let’s go back to India.” We left 2 weeks later to join […]
A challenge of blog questions - S Anand 4 Mar 2025 4:44 pm (pingback): […] The next chapter of my life, which I wrote on a one-way flight back from the UK to India to start Gramener. […]

India district map

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 16:50:33 +0000

I put together a district map of India in SVG this weekend.

So what?

You can now plot data available at a district level on a map, like the temperature in India over the last century (via IndiaWaterPortal). The rows are years (1901, 1911, … 2001) and the columns are months (Jan, Feb, … Dec). Red is hot, green is cold.

(Yeah, the west coast is a great place to live in, but I probably need to look into the rainfall.)

districts.svg has has 640 districts (I’ve no idea what the 641st looks like) and is tagged with the State and District names as titles:

<g title="Madhya Pradesh">
  <path title="Alirajpur" d="..." />
  <path title="Jhabua" d="..." />
  ...
</g>

How?

I made it from the 2011 census map (0.4MB PDF). I opened it in Inkscape, removed the labels, added a layer for the districts, and used the paint bucket to fill each district’s area. I then saved the districts layer, cleaning it up a big. Then I labelled each district with a title. (Seemed like the easiest way to get this done.)

Thanks to @planemad, @gkjohn, @arjunram for inputs. Play around. Feedback welcome.

Comments

Thejesh GN 22 Jul 2011 9:27 am: Thanks for the map. Very useful. Btw you can cname map your bitbucket account. Its free.
S Anand 23 Jul 2011 9:39 am: @Thej – AHA! Didn’t know about the CNAMEing bitbucket. Thanks.
Rishi 23 Jul 2011 9:15 am: Wonderful stuff Anand!!! I would say - upload this on Wikipedia - but then we would have several flamewars with our dear neighbours on the borders shown.
Arulalan.T 29 Dec 2011 10:17 am: Thanks a lot for the India District Map in pdf and svg. From this post I got few ideas to generate shape (shp) files. I edited the India map in CDAT [1] shape files by generate the lat,lon points by hand itself [2]. I want to develop the India district shape file by automatic. Your project and code lights in my way. Thanks a lot. [1] http://www2-pcmdi.llnl.gov/cdat [2] http://tuxworld.wordpress.com/2010/02/13/how-to-edit-world-map-in-cdat-documentation/
Dibyo 11 Aug 2011 4:29 am: Awesome - I’ve struggled with this for a while now.
Minh 12 Dec 2012 8:11 pm: Thanks a lot. Do you have the shapefiles for your svg data? I could not find the new district level (2011 census) anywhere? Can you share with me? Many thanks.
mahir 19 Dec 2012 6:11 am: Dear Anand, Great work. I have made a tool to translate these location names using wikipedia’s toolserver. people can translate these svg maps from http://toolserver.org/~mahir/ I have successfully translated India political map from english to tamil for tamil wikipedia. http://ta.wikipedia.org/wiki/படிமம்:Ta_India_National_Highway_17.png Please try once. thanks
Arijit Upadhyay 26 Dec 2013 3:37 am: Some district names have changed since you posted this. Do you have an update for this map. Or how to edit them. Linkscape destroys the XML tags.
Prakash 18 Jan 2014 10:43 am: Dear Friend would it be possible to get shp and dbf file of indian state with undivided bihar, up and mp.

What does India search for?

Thu, 02 Dec 2010 14:33:19 +0000

Over the last couple of years, I’ve been tracking the top 5 hot searches in India on Google Trends (http://www.google.co.in/trends). Here are the results:

If you're interested in making visualisations out of it, please feel free. But there's one particular thing I'm trying out, which is to categorise these searches and see if there's a trend around that. I've added a "Tag" column.

Could you please help me tag the spreadsheet: https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Av599tR_jVYgdE5zTU5QWjcxVWVCaTBuY3d0NkUtc1E&hl=en_GB

It’s publicly editable, no special access required. If you could stick to the tags I already have (Business, Education, Entertainment, News, Politics, Sports, Technology), that would be great. If not, that’s fine as well.

And if you’ve made any visualisations or done any analysis using this data, please do drop a comment.

Comments

Rockey Nebhwani 2 Dec 2010 11:50 pm: I think simple conclusion may be Bollywood, Politics, Jobs, Stock :-)

Arrested in Paris

Thu, 11 Jan 2007 12:00:00 +0000

In November 2000, I visited Paris one weekend. Two classmates, Anand Binani and Ram Venkat were studying there, and we roamed around the city.

At around 6:00pm, we went over to Montmartre. It’s up a hill, and there’s a cable car that takes you up there. We went all the way up, and got out when a lady behind us asked:

“Is that yours?

We’d left something behind. Went back to retrieve it. The car was almost leaving for it’s return journey. We just got out in time…

… to be confronted by the French Police.

Now, this is a scary thing. Foreign country. I don’t speak a word of French. And I was dressed like a thug.

The policemen didn’t say a word. One of them just made us stand right a the corner of the entrance to the cable car – politely at first, and then physically, when he realised we didn’t understand a word of French.

Now he goes on the radio. He hasn’t said a word to us yet that we could understand.

After a minute, he comes back, asking for our passports. I hand mine over. So does Anand Binani.

Ram Venkat doesn’t have his passport on him.

Shit!

While he was panicking and I was rooted to the spot and Anand Binani was trying to explain something to the policeman, he walked away with our two passports.

Busy talking on the radio.

Relaying the names on our passports.

Worried that they were both “Anand"s. (We could here that repeated many times.)

Something about wearing a jacket. (We were all wearing jackets.)

Five minutes pass. In the meantime, we had various theories. Three terrorists had illegally entered the country and were going to blow up Montmartre, and we looked like them. Or, an Asian student group was going to murder a senior polician. Or maybe we just looked like the mug-shots on their Top 10 Most Wanted list and just about like someone who’d end up on the internet on websites like https://www.checkpeople.com/reverse-phone-lookup.

In my case, I didn’t even have a French student visa. Just a standard Schengen tourist visa, with a UK student visa. I wasn’t even studying in the country. If I were deported, would he put me back in the UK or in India? Which embassy would I have to speak to if he arrested me?

Five minutes later, he comes back, hands us our passports, and walks off.

Just like that. No goodbye. No “You’re free to go”. No “Don’t ever do that again”. Just walks off.

We just stood there for a couple of minutes, got our breaths back, promised never to venture without a passport looking like thugs, took a snap as evidence, and went on inside the Montmartre chapel, followed by a far more educative visit to Pigale.

Comments

anand binani 11 Jan 2007 5:11 pm: Amazing stuff ! brought back memories of great small times we had. Hope you are doing great! Do let me know your email id and your whereabouts
somnath 18 May 2007 8:47 am: anand was it you looking like a thug or ram : ). How is the photo at the bottom connected with the whole story. Even if ram and binani have been oogling over there french police should be least bothered …

Guy Kawasaki on Mumbai

Tue, 03 Oct 2006 12:00:00 +0000

Guy Kawasaki on Mumbai via Kaps @ DesiPundit

Retailing in India

Mon, 17 Apr 2006 12:00:00 +0000

The Economist takes a good look at retailing in India.

Why is nanotechnology popular now

Sat, 15 Apr 2006 12:00:00 +0000

Why is nanotechnology in the top Google queries from India?

Comments

ravi 15 Apr 2006 10:48 am: from all countries in the list indians are the only one with something technical in their queries. hurrah for that
Prabhu 17 Apr 2006 6:03 am: Could be due to the fact that Sujatha is writing an article about it in a tamil weekly
S Anand 17 Apr 2006 7:37 am: If so, Tamil Nadu would have to be a big chunk of India’s Google searches. Given the absense of other Tamil queries, I doubt this was the only factor… but it sure must have contributed!
Gautam 26 Apr 2006 6:05 pm: funny how sania mirza ranks over aishwarya, though !

Rushing out of planes

Sat, 01 Apr 2006 12:00:00 +0000

Why people rush out of a plane at Bangalore but not at Delhi. via Kaps

Romance on the cricket pitch

Mon, 17 Oct 2005 12:00:00 +0000

Romance on the cricket pitch. Fan proposes. Zaheer Khan gracefully accepts. Watch it on Google Video.

Comments

Dhar 23 Oct 2005 10:47 am: I have had great difficulty in watching videos from Google and this one is no exception. I wonder if I am the only one facing this problem.
AlphaGeek 23 Oct 2005 6:26 pm: Me too.. Facing the same problem !!! Anyone can u pls help us ?
Amit 24 Oct 2005 6:47 am: the India head of Google said this a few days ago that video.google.com is not allowed in countries like India, Germany, etc because of some compllicated laws. Guess thats what is causing these problems.
Dhar 24 Oct 2005 9:13 am: Wow… this is very interesting. I tried accessing this through a proxy server in Britain and was able to view the video. There may be something in what Amit said….
S Anand 24 Oct 2005 9:17 am: Hey, that explains why my family is not able to view my videoes!

Mritak Sangh

Wed, 12 Oct 2005 12:00:00 +0000

Lal Bihar formed a society of dead people. In 2003, he won the Ig Nobel Peace Prize.

… to prove that he was living sought arrest, tried to run for parliament, kidnapped the son of the uncle who had stolen his property, threatened murder, insulted judges, threw leaflets listing his complaints at legislators in the state assembly and demanded a widow’s pension for his wife.

Healthy Foods

Wed, 13 Jul 2005 12:00:00 +0000

100 quick and easy healthy foods. Foods which need less than 30 minutes of preparation and cooking times.

Comments

Jayant 13 Jul 2005 2:48 pm: An apple a day keeps the doctor away!. Just wash with plain water nd eat
Ram 14 Jul 2005 3:34 pm: Morning: Idly’s with Kara chutney, Lunch: Thayiru sadam with manga urugai, Dinner: Idly’s with Thakkali chutney will keep you energetic, smart, slim and trim. Why to squander on those junkies!!! (Above listed names are popular South Indian dishes)
S Anand 14 Jul 2005 5:40 pm: Don’t forget sambar!

Expensive

Wed, 01 Jun 2005 12:00:00 +0000

Here's how expensive London is, in terms of clothing.

Item	London (GBP)	India (Rs)	Costlier by
Socks	5	100	4X
T-shirt	10	350	2.3X
Reversible jacket	30	2000	1.2X
Formal shoes	25	1500	1.3X
Cooling glasses	10	150	5.3X
Suitcase	56	1500	3X

Nothing's less expensive than in India. Similarly for groceries.

Item	London	India	Costlier by
Curd 1/2 kg	0.45	18	2X
Cucumber (one)	0.49	3	13.1X
Beans (250g)	0.99	20	4X
Baby corn (125g)	0.99	18	4.4X
Carrot (kg)	0.45	24	1.5X
Cabbage (kg)	0.52	18	2.3X
Cauliflower (one)	0.69	25	2.2X
Spinach (kg)	4.3	??	0X
Onion (kg)	0.46	10	3.7X
Chilli (kg)	4.39	8	43.9X
Cashew (kg)	15.9	360	3.5X
Apple (kg)	1.29	60	1.7X
Milk (litre)	0.6	18	2.7X

Bloggers Meet April 2005

Wed, 13 Apr 2005 12:00:00 +0000

Pictures from the Mumbai Blogger’s meet with Aadisht, Altaf, Amit, Anand, Arnab, Nandan, Ravikiran, Saket, Sameer, Yazad, Zainab, and myself.

Comments

S Anand 15 Apr 2005 5:33 am: More photos from Sameer

Amul ad hits

Mon, 14 Mar 2005 12:00:00 +0000

Amul ad hits.

Comments

BINDU NAIR 8 Dec 2011 12:50 pm: LOVE THE JINGLE OF THE AD UTTERLY BUTTERLY DELICIOUS AMUL