Indian Village Renamed Snapdeal.com. And It’s Not A Cheap Marketing Stunt | Hacker News Reader

Indian Village Renamed Snapdeal.com. And It’s Not A Cheap Marketing Stunt

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33 pointssuneliot15 comments

My Dad spent much of his life involved in developing-world water supplies. The class of problems they'd come up against seem to be the prototypical "Westerner Meets World" experiences eg: local priests convincing Brahmins that they'd lose their caste if they drank from newly installed village taps, as they were standing water - the result being that they'd knock the heads off all the taps, destroying the water pressure...

Was it in 1920s?

Dont spend canards. Probably your dad was a missionary.

What does any of that mean? He was a civil engineer working for DFID, then called ODA

5000 USD for 15 pumps. 333 USD/235 EUR/206 GBP per pump.

That sounds reasonable. I'll put 50% of one if anyone wants to co-ordinate a few of these?

Sounds like http://www.charitywater.org/.

Your email isn't in your bio. Add it and I'll ping you. I have a few contacts in India I could put you in touch with.

It's a little frustrating that every article I've seen on this goes with the "town renamed after corporation" headline instead of the "$5000 equipment donation gives town clean water for next 10-20 years" option.

I don't know, maybe I'm expecting too much.

I remember the first time I looked at a map of New Mexico and saw there was a town called Truth or Consequences. It sounded like the most awesome name for an old west town ever.

I was so disappointed when I found out that it was named after a 1950s radio game show.

Nitpick: The village name is "Snapdeal.com Nagar". Not just Snapdeal.com. I guess it's the difference between 'Orange' and 'Orange County'.

Nagar is a suffix just like county.

as in... Orange County?

Nagar means City/Village in Hindi which originally comes from Sanskrit "nagaram"

Actually, the original name of the village used to be "Shiv Nagar" (written in brackets in hindi).

So changing Shiv Nagar to Snapdeal.com Nagar is good enough i guess.

I've had a chance to attend one of his guest talks and talk to him for a few minutes after it. He came across as a very modest and smart guy. He has graduated from Wharton, had previously launched a detergent product Dropps which was very successful. I am not surprised that he is doing something nice.

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