The latest Kerala Tourism Ad campaign - "Your Moment is Waiting" - is evoking mixed responses from the ad fraternity. As Gopinath Menon said in Business Line - "It is tangentially different from all that has been done on Kerala Tourism till now. There are two kinds of mindsets that visit Kerala: There is a ‘traveller' mindset and a ‘tourist' mindset. The traveller is the intelligent guy, the explorer instincts are strong and the journey is as important as the destination. The other one, with the tourist mindset, is the LTC traveller, the pre-decided one. This communication is clearly talking to the traveller mindset." and adds "if you look at the thousands visiting Kerala every year, the traveller mindset is unlikely to fall into the majority." This campaign is predominantly targeting foreign visitors. But what do they come for? It is for the unique Kerala experience and the ad would disappoint them for sure. Their experience in Kerala is bound t...

Manorama paper reports that, in 2010 Onam season household goods clocked a record sales turnover of Rs.700 crores. The report says almost 2 lakh refrigerators were sold in three months from July to September. Washing Machines, LCD TVs, Mixies, DVD players, Induction Cookers and Digital Cameras also recorded good sales. Onam remains to be the biggest shopping season in Kerala. Refrigerators and Washing Machines would keep riding the market with good numbers as there exists a big market for them to penetrate.

Rubber latex is found to have applications in the cosmetic industry. Rapepun Wititsuwannakul, a researcher and professor in Biochemistry at Prince of Songkla University in Thailand holds Intellectual Property Rights on the use of latex as an effective agent in whitening products. More about this can be found here . Rubber latex is found to have inherent abilities to make skin brighter or darker! This is interesting and holds huge economic prospects for rubber growers in Kerala and India.

Smoking in public places is a punishable offence in Kerala since 1999 following a High Court directive. It is strictly followed inside public places like hotels, cinema halls, hospitals, bus stands, railway stations, airports, shops, malls, etc. But not on roads. This is a good law but almost impossible to implement. Policemen enforces this law mostly for some petty personal gains. The trick lies in making public knowledgeable about harmful sides of smoking rather than enforcing it by law. Yes, law is needed to punish people smoking in places but, policemen should not invest their time and energy to stop every smoker. Policemen have better things to do on their job.