India has a drought – not of Investors, but Customers

>Well, I don't see any problem in plugging one's event in a blog post.

The problem here isn't plugging his own event in his post. The problem here is that he cites the successes of start-ups and links to it. That is un-ethical. He stands to benefit from it by falsely citing it as a valid example. Many people here on HN DO NOT know that he runs it. His intention was malicious, if not unethical.

>You want office space for free?

You are missing the bigger point - Offering office space for {insert rate here} is something that anyone can do and that doesn't make one a contributor to the start-up ecosystem, atleast not as much as to the proportions to which you blow it up.

> He hosts free events like Chennai OCC, Chennai geeks at the startup centre. Also the space is free if you want to host any free event.

I've heard of these events. One of my friends tells me about it. I've also heard horror stories about Vijayanand mocking young college guys interested in starting-up. I also heard from him that he isn't just the one behind it, there are a lot of active young minds involved.

>You know how much he charged for the office space for the period of six months? ZERO(because he wanted me to succeed and i was a recent college grad)

Your personal positive experience with him is best kept personal. Because we're talking about the rest of the Entrepreneurs from whom he collects money.

I understand your experience is so far positive with him. But, please don't try to dilute a valid argument using your individual opinion. I also understand that you have co-founded a company which you and Vijayanand have mutual interests in (like someone here commented). Please don't try to support him in public just for that reason - When someone is at wrong, it's best we let the others know about it, otherwise the purpose of such a vibrant community will be poisoned by such profit-motivated posts.

EDIT: Vijayanand has edited the link that went to his in50hrs programme. Maybe that's why you didn't notice it.

Bottomline: the definition of early adopter as the west calls them, is a bit of a scarce populace in India. Thats what i was hoping to get at, and it looks like we agree.

Not at all complaining about whats all in place (in terms of security etc) - we might have avoided the credit card scams to a large extent thanks to that. No debates there. Just that the prevalence of all these checks and balances, makes India a harder market to grow a company like its grown in the valley (but the metrics set by the investors are predominantly the same), which comes back to bite indian startups.