Silicon Valley-based LinkedIn’s co-founder and chairperson Reid Hoffman is a well-known entrepreneur and angel investor.

In this 2-part interview Reid talks about his entrepreneurial journey, how he started LinkedIn, his plans to expand in India where mobile phones are the devices of choice to network and not computers and what technology means to him. What is LinkedIn’s exit strategy? An IPO?

LinkedIn has changed the way we network in more ways than one, and has become an important networking tool for professionals. Recruiters use LinkedIn to find prospective candidates, sales folks use LinkedIn to connect to their future prospects, while other use LinkedIn to expand their network.

In Part-1 of the interview Reid also talks general philosophy behind LinkedIn, how he started it and LinkedIn’s plan to expand in India. He also talks about other social network and where LinkedIn fits into the social network landscape. Here is how Reid put it: “Now the metaphor that I frequently use when we are talking about the three current giants’ is: MySpace is the bar, Facebook is home and LinkedIn is the office.”

LinkedIn has changed the way we network in more ways than one, and has become an important networking tool for professionals. Recruiters use LinkedIn to find prospective candidates, sales folks use LinkedIn to connect to their future prospects, while other use LinkedIn to expand their network.

In this short exclusive video clip Reid offers a couple of tips on how to use LinkedIn.

Don’t forget to listen to Part-2 of the interview with Reid.

This interview was originally published by LiveMint.

South Asia has emerged as a top foreign policy agenda under President Obama’s administration. Within the first 100 days of President Obama’s administration there were significant policy announcements and developments in  USA’s South Asian, and a new term AFPak (Afghanistan and Pakistan) quickly gained currency.

Earlier this year (March 2009) I spoke with Prof. Paul Kapur about Obama’s South Asian policy and his assessment of Pakistan, Kashmir, and the nuclear issue in South Asia. Where does India fit into President Obama’s South Asian policy?

Under the former President George W. Bush the US-India relationship achieved a lot of milestones. Could the same be said of President Obama’s administration? Tune in to see if there is a difference when it comes to foreign policy issues between the Democrats and Republicans.

Paul is an associate professor in the Department of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. Paul’s research focus is on international security environment in South Asia. He is the author of “Dangerous Deterrent:Nuclear Weapons Proliferation and Conflict in South Asia.”

In the June issue of Foreign Affairs journal has an article “The End of An Affair,” that Paul co-authored with Prof. Sumit Ganguly about Washington’s cooling passion towards India.

Professor Freeman Dyson talks about Srinvasa Iyengar Ramanujan, the well-known Indian, who studied and worked with Prof. Hardy at Cambridge University during the early part of the 20th century. Ramanujan was only 32 years old when he supposedly died of tuberculosis.  Prof. Dyson points out this might not be the case; Ramanujan may have instead died of amebiasis of liver, a common and treatable ailment.

Prof. Dyson studied under Prof. GH Hardy in Cambridge University, and worked on Ramanujan’s partition of numbers. Prof. Dyson first discovered Ramanujan from ET Bell’s book “Men of Mathematics,” while he was a student at Winchester. Incidentally this was the same school where Prof. Hardy studied.

An English-born physicist, Professor Dyson is Professor Emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Studies’ School of Natural Sciences in Princeton, New Jersey. He is a fellow of the Royal Society (just as Ramanujan was) and member of the National Academy of Sciences, USA.

In 2000 Prof. Dyson was awarded the Templeton Prize.

A prolific thinker and writer, Prof. Dyson has written many books including Disturbing the Universe, Weapons and Hope, Infinite in all Directions, Origins of Life, From Eros to Gaia, Selected Papers of Freeman Dyson, Imagined Worlds, The Sun, and The Genome and The Internet. He also is part of the Board of Sponsors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

Prof. Dyson has six children. His daughter Esther Dyson, an influential expert in emerging digital technology, is editor at large at C|Net. She was also the founding chairperson of ICANN.

This interview was recorded at Columbia University, New York and was originally published on October 2, 2006.

What is the social media landscape in India like? India has millions of users on Orkut, Facebook and other social media sites, but is there a disconnect between the users and corporations, marketing and media planning people?

Anurag Batra, CEO and editor-in-chief of Exchange4Media and Rajesh Lalwani of Blogworks discuss the landscape, challenges and future of social media in India.

Photo credit: British Council India

Baldev Raj Sharma is one of the countless faces of the new India, where every month 4.5 million new cell phone users are added, and where Internet connectivity is becoming a reality for many people.

I met Mr. Sharma, 72 years old, a couple of months ago when I was visiting New Delhi, and he drove me around the city. The first thing he did when I got into his cab was give me his business card. I also spotted a familiar looking black mobile phone peeping from his shirt pocket. I struck up a conversation with him and listened to him talk about the new and changing India, how he uses his cell phone, and how his children send emails on his behalf, and how he is very happy with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government.

Mr. Sharma migrated to India in 1947 after the partition of the country and says he has seen New Delhi grow into a sprawling metropolis. He lives with his four children and his grand-children. He owns a cell phone that he uses to keep in touch with his clients. He confessed that he hits the green button to talk and other than that has no idea how to use the phone.

The only regret that he has is that he does not own a home. However, he is confident that one of his children will end up buying a home.

This interview was originally published in 2006.

Vaasanthi is a writer and former editor of India Today, Tamil edition. She is the author of a fascinating book on  Tamil Nadu politics titled, Cut-outs, Caste and Cine Stars. Tamil Nadu was the first Indian state and perhaps the first in the world to consciously use films as a political vehicle and medium to spread their message.  Annadurai, Karunanidhi and MGR were all deeply involved with the Tamil film industry for many years prior to being elected to the goverment.

In this book Vasanthi  delves into the fascinating world of Tamil politics that has been dominated by two parties for nearly 40 years. In the book she examines the history and the contradictions in Tamil politics and how the DMK came to power and continued to forge a new political identity in the southern state.

In Part-I of our conversation Vaasanthi talk about the 2006 State elections in Tamil Nadu. She points out that former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa’s party did well in the elections even though her party did not form the government. Don’t write off Jayalalithaa yet she says. She also discusses the current CM Karunanidhi’s political acumen and the future of his party.

Vaasanthi’s first book was called Sirgugal (Wings).

This interview was originally published in May 2006.

Tune in to listen to Part-2 of Tamil Nadu Politics.