While we have been busy speculating on what is an export code and what it takes to get one issued from DGFT, paypal has issued a clarification that it is not an “export code” but a purpose code which needs to be entered into the paypal site to enable Indian account holders to withdraw from their accounts to the Indian bank account. They have also made the task easy by providing all the codes that would need to be used on their blog post itself.
So much for the storm in the tea cup and the emotional outbursts against the RBI and paypal and all the ravings and rantings of my fellow freelancers who wished to commit a business suicide where freelancing was concerned!
Before talking about the implications of this move and also what Indian freelancers need to look out for in the future, I would like to appreciate the extremely professional and collected manner in which Paypal has handled the crisis. While the Indian business is not very large, Paypal had a commitment to its clients and perhaps all the Asian clients were watching the fall out and outcome of the crisis. Paypal remained tightlipped during the initial phases of the crisis to avoid speculation and panic and calmly set about doing whatever it takes to set the situation right for everyone round. Kudos to Paypal!
Well, the purpose code as Paypal chooses to call it will give a hook for RBI to collect the data and also evaluate the amount of foreign exchange that is being transacted by Indians. It will also help the premier bank frame a policy for how it will handle this type of foreign trade in the future. In a sense this is real good news for the Indian freelancers and could be bad news for those who are making big money in this field and not paying their taxes on Income? There is now a tracking mechanism in place where transactions through paypal are concerned. The good news is that India is getting ready to regularize the largely unorganized sector that operates over the Internet. Maybe Indians will no longer be vulnerable to the scamsters and sharks that populate the Internet. Maybe cyber laws will offer some newer modes of protection to this largely helpless and vulnerable set of small businesses that are mushrooming in India.
One question that needs to be answered is: What about those thousands of Auction sites like Rentacoder, Elance, guru, getafreelancer etc which also do a kind of payment settlement for Indians? They act as intermediaries between buyers and sellers and collect money from buyers on behalf of sellers and then settle accounts with the latter at the end of every month. Do they also need to get a license from the RBI to operate in the Indian context? These sites have a tie up with Paypal and payment agencies like Payoneer or they send checks to Indians by snailmail. Will RBI be contacting them next with requests for compliance? The RBI does not seem to have contacted these sites as yet.
Let us wait and watch. Stay tuned in for more from me on this blog!
All our lives we have been taught to lay aside something for the rainy day. We have been shown examples of how the ant saves up while the grasshopper whiles away the time and regrets his laziness. Yet, if you look around you those who save up money meticulously are the ones who seem to lose out all the time. The ones who do not save up for the rainy day seem to do very well and seem to enjoy what life has to offer them! Are we fools?
Tracking the trackers is the game that we have played out again and again all our lives! I do not think there is a single human being in this world who has not used this game to strategize and learn how to manipulate events to an advantage. Are you wondering what I am talking about?
Search Engine Optimization is nothing but an online version of track the trackers. We have a product we wish to promote. We track user behavior by searching for frequently searched keywords that are associated with our business. We use tracking tools that are available online to track this behavior. Once we have tracked it, we use the keywords to make sure that search engines track us and place us where trackers(browsers) of the keywords see us and visit our sites!
Who says we should not put old wine in new bottles? The wine tastes just as sweet! The epics of yore, are still relevant, meaningful and interesting to readers of today. While the ancient language may make the reading of the content difficult, the story retold in modern tongues, makes fascinating reading. With the Internet connecting the world, mythological stories and content from round the world are available at the click of a button. So it should not be surprising to find an Indian retelling an American legend or a Russian talking about African tales! What is it that makes these stories evergreen?
Wordnet 
There is a growing content market out there on the Internet. Yet it has not found its level. You can have content for as cheap as $1 dollar for 500 words to $50 for 500 words and all the shades in between. The range indicates that quality is not the altar at which the content buyers and content sellers are worshipping. It is the quanitity of content that one can command at a cheap price, that seems to govern the market. If you browse the Internet you will find that there are a large number of project auction sites like 
He stood atop a set of stairs and he said “I have a dream, that one day……..” and thousands and thousands of folks who had gathered around those stairs listened. He stood outside his home and he said “We will gain our independence, but without the use of violence” and a whole nation obeyed. He stood beside his people and he called for revolution and they all believed. He stood on a podium and declared his desire to rule the world and it became the want of the hundreds of thousands present. Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Che Guevera and Adolf Hitler all wanted very different things, but they achieved their aims through the effective use of one common tool – speech.
If you are a fan of fantasy fiction, you must have read “The Inheritance Triology”. The characters in the book are extremely anxious that no one guesses their true name. The true name is nowhere defined, but one can infer that the true name is the real essence of the person and it can be figured out by people who know the innermost thoughts of the individual. If you know the true name of a person, you can have complete control over his thoughts and actions!
Product reviews! They’re everywhere and anywhere! Run a Google search on absolutely any product under the sun and you’re bound to return at least a hundred results reviewing the said product. But, make no mistake, it’s no small task to write a product review, a good, high quality one that is. And there is a desperate need for people who can write such quality reviews of products. So, if you’re looking to write a product review, and you want to set yourself apart from the other trash that is rampantly available on the internet, play close attention to these words of possibly life altering advice. Along with honesty and integrity, here’s a look into some of the things you must keep in mind when looking to write a high quality product review!
turf may be exclusive but there are certain basic ground rules that apply when writing a game review and by sticking to these said rules it will become much simpler for any one of you to create a competent review of a game! Of course, the true quality of the review will be determined by the quality of the content that you bring to it, but that’s for you to think about and decide at a later point. My aim here, is merely to introduce you to the fundamentals of game reviewing.