A little less than a year ago, Mumbai, the financial capital of India, came to a standstill as terrorists went trigger-happy. The ordeal was a rude awakening for the government and security forces, as citizens came forward with angry reactions. Protest marches and candle vigils were held throughout the country to express a unified voice of resentment.

I, on behalf of all my fellow Indians salute those brave hearts who sacrificed their lives for me and my countrymen. The government however has done little to them and their family in the past one year. Nor is there any assurance that such attacks won’t happen in future again.

Idea cellular, to pay tribute to these brave soldiers have announced their initiate ‘Talk for India Hour’. As per the details on their site whatever the net income is generated between 8:36pm and 9:36pm will be donated to the police forces so that they could upgrade their weapons and get better infrastructure. You may ask why this particular time, well because it’s the peakest hour of the day and hence the revenues generated will be maximum. Great initiative one thinks initially. Honestly I don’t think so because:

• Idea’s net revenue for Q3 of 2009 was about Rs. 2900 million or about 300 crores, in simple language.
• So in one month on an average Idea would have earned approximately Rs.100 crores of net revenue.
• That means per day (100/30) would be Rs. 3.33 crores approximately.
• Thus even if you take ANY peakest time on any day, the revenues would not exceed more than Rs.25 lacs (practically) and Rs.3.33 crore technically! (What a HUGE contribution huh!)

Now, take a look at how heavily Idea is advertising everywhere and asking people to contribute by talking more and more at that particular time frame so that they would ‘donate’ maximum revenues to the armed forces, REALLY?!! If instead of spending crores of rupees on advertising had they spent even half of that genuinely on donation, it would have done much more. Was donating really your motive Idea Cellular?

This clearly shows that ‘Talk for India Hour’ is nothing but purely a marketing gimmick by Idea under the pretext of looting emotional customers and creating a space in their heart by pretending to be a socially responsible company! So if you are really eager to contribute to those martyrs then don’t talk on Idea but instead send all that money directly to the PMO’s fund or any other institution you think will ‘really’ help! That would help much much more than this.

These bastards know nothing but to exploit people and can’t even spare an incident like 26/11 just like our politicians who were fighting even today in the assembly over compensation for those who lost their lives last year in the attack!

So SAY NO TO TALK FOR INDIA HOUR!

Sources:

1. Idea net revenue source
2. Idea initiative official site