I want to vote through my mobile

It is a shame that even in this age of technology one must present himself at a particular location for casting his vote.  There are many who have to forgo their right to vote because they cannot do so.  These include our defense personnel and also those who man the polling booths.  The provision of postal ballot mostly remains on paper as a clause in some rule.  Then there are a large number of Indians who are in transferable jobs, posted at far away places, and have not taken the pains of having themselves enrolled in the local voters' list.  They would like to choose from candidates in their domicile only.  In fact it is this reason and not any excessive lethargy that keeps large number of middle class people from voting.

And yet the solution is pretty simple.  When capturing data for voter-id and voters' list capture a single piece of additional data - voter's mobile number.  If so desired a cross check can be made with the service provider to make sure that it is in the name of the voter only.  And now let the poor chap vote for his favorite candidate just as they do for participants in reality shows.  He could be anywhere in the world and yet exercise his franchise.

An objection that could be raised is that of secrecy.  It should be easy to handle this too through technology.  Let the servers receiving the data be programmed to separate out the vote from the mobile number soon after receipt. The vote is to be used for counting while the mobile number list is to be used to eliminate voting more than once.

I am confident that technology can be put in place to take care of surge in data traffic on the election day.  And once this is done we may be seeing a voter turnout close to cent percent.

Also think of the savings that can be made on setting up booth and arranging security.  And the term booth capturing will be lost to future generations.  For you cannot capture something that doesn't exist!

My experiment with MNP.

When I finally returned to Lucknow after my retirement, I chose Tata Docomo (TD) as my GSM service provider.  It had good coverage in the city, one paisa per second tariff with lifetime validity, and a passable 2G data service.  3G appeared on the scene later on but TD was not in the reckoning in Eastern UP.  Noises about doing away with national roaming came a little later.  Again I found that TDs pan-India coverage was sparse and thus it was not likely to be enthusiastic about it.  This is borne out by its rather expensive roam free plans as compared to other operators. Also, you know how expensive does data become when you are roaming on another operator's network.  With these considerations in mind, I decided to port my number to another operator who offered 3G services in EUP and also had a good pan-India coverage.  I was aware that I was not likely to get one paisa per second call rates with lifetime validity on any other network.  But I nonetheless decided in favor of porting.  After all, what is the fun of having a good Android phone unless you have 3G connectivity?

I decided to port the number to Vodafone.  After a couple of visits to their outlet I could make out that they were not enthusiastic about porting in a number under prepaid plans.  While they were willing to carry out the porting immediately under postpaid, their system somehow made it difficult for them to do so under prepaid plans: At least that was the excuse offered to me.

So I decided to go to BSNL.  Their service may not be the best but their coverage certainly is.  And aren't they the pioneers in 3G service in India?  So I went to the nearest Customer Service Center (CSC) located near Bhootnath in Indira Nagar.  The girl on the counter advised me to go to the CSC in Mahanagar.  When I insisted, she agreed to accept the application but warned me that it might take much too long as all the staff trained in porting had gone for another training!

So I heeded her advice and headed to Mahanagar.  As soon as I parked the car, I was presented with a parking slip for Rs.20/=.  Once inside I joined the queue on the counter with the legend "Mobile service."  The person behind the counter had an indifferent look that matched my expectations.  He directed me to another person sitting near the entrance with no placard.  This gentleman turned out to be quite helpful and  helped me fill out the requisite forms and got me a new SIM.

A couple of days later I got a message from SancharSoft on my mobile with the TD SIM requesting me to dial 1507 from my number to be ported for the purpose of televerification to activate the number.  I called 1507 from my TD SIM but was told that it was an invalid number.  In the meantime a similar message was received from a sender BA-CYMN requesting me to dial 1507 using my new SIM (from BSNL.)  I inserted the new SIM and there was no network.  Nevertheless I dialed 1507 and got a message saying that I am not registered on the network!

I left the BSNL SIM in the phone and kept looking for the network to appear but to no avail.  Also I configured call forwarding on my TD SIM.  All calls were to be forwarded to my alternate Airtel number.  After a day I received a call forwarded from my TD SIM and was told that it was for televerification.  By the time the caller got to the third question, the call was disconnected: I had run out of balance on my TD SIM!  I tried calling back the number but there was no response.  I put the TD SIM back in my phone.

 Finally I decided to visit BSNL once again undeterred by the stiff parking fee of Rs.20/=.  The helpful gentleman at the desk near the entrance consulted his register and said that order number so and so has been passed on this date by BSNL and TD should have stopped the service by now.  He advised me to get in touch with TD and assured me that this was no internal order but a computer generated one conveyed to TD.  I sent a mail to TD who told me that though I had generated an Unique Porting Code (UPC) on such and such date, they had not received any request from any operator for porting out the number till date and asked me to get in touch with the recipient service provider.  Needless to add that in my case TD was the donor network and BSNL the recipient network.

Next I found out customer service / complaint email ids of BSNL and sent a mail to them.  Surprisingly, I got a call on my alternate number soon enough.  After some buck passing and talking to a couple of persons, I was assured that they will look into the matter and perhaps the fault lay with the donor who was acting up.  This was followed by another call for televerification.  Fortunately I had the TD SIM live in my phone or else this call would have gone to my voice mailbox for want of balance.  Televerfication was completed and I was told that I should find myself on BSNL network in 6 day's time.  They didn't attach much importance to my reminder that a week was already over since the date of application.

I reverted to TD.  After sometime a poorly drafted SMS landed on my TD number reading "Your prepay to postpay request is cancelled due to MNP port out request is initiated by you."  I was surprised and wrote to TD saying that I had made no request for change to postpay and again requested them to expedite the porting.  After sometime I received a call from TD saying that my MNP request has been cancelled by them at my request!!  When I raised my voice to tell the caller that this was a lie and I had not withdrawn my MNP request, she advised me to go through the whole MNP process afresh.  I told the lady that this was outrageous and unless porting was carried out immediately I was going to report the matter to regulators.  I followed this up with a mail and got a response advising me to bear with them!  I escalated the matter to the appellate authority at TD.  He responded the next day saying that requisite documents from recipient network had been received only a recently, a week after initiation of the process by me, and that the number will be ported out after 5 days in accordance with the rules!!  This was followed by gobbledygook trumpeting their dedication to customer service.

I am now on the third day of the five day cooling down period.  TD service is running and I am hoping to get the BSNL signal two days down the line.  And this is the 11th day since I submitted my request for porting.

Wish me good luck!

Search for the Right Sized Gadget(s)

First we had desktops that needed a huge carton and help for transporting around.  Then came laptops that one could lug along in a backpack.  Recently tablets are on the rise and these can be carried even by the 'suits' in a briefcase.  But in between laptops and tablets we also have phones which are aspiring for total convergence by becoming phablets!

This is all the outcome of hardware that is shrinking just as fast as it is becoming powerful and a desire to have an omnibus device into which all electronic devices converge.  People have already started wondering if someday we will have a tiny device implanted into us that will be wired directly  into the visual, auditory (and maybe olfactory and touch and taste) centers of the brain obviating the need for output devices like screens and speakers etcetera.  The input devices are already on the path to redundancy with the rapid advancements in voice and gesture recognition technologies.  In the meantime keyboards have shrunk to occupy a small part of the screen with just two thumbs sufficing for operating it instead of all the ten fingers.

By way of a side note, I wonder if the implants mentioned above were to become a reality, will CEOs be the first to go for them.  Thus far they have always been at the head of the queue for all new sophisticated gadgets, their inability to make full use of it without secretarial assistance notwithstanding

In any case the implants are going to be a long time coming.  So for the present the right size for a phablet remains a contentious and vexatious issue.

As far as screen size is concerned, bigger will naturally be better.  But then we have to keep in mind that a phone, unlike a tablet, has to be carried in your pocket and not in a briefcase.  While suits may find even a bigger size okay, those accustomed to casuals or semi-formals may become uncomfortable with a size exceeding 4.75".  Then weight too increases with the size and the pocket sagging index poses stricter limits.  Inflexibility of the screen and accidental pressure on the hardware button for awakening the phone become a problem if the phone is carried in a jeans' pocket and one has to sit down.

As one of the billion consumers, I would be quite happy if someone could come up with a tiny phone that could be used only for voice calls together with a tablet that could be carried in a carry case with a wrist-strap.  The tablet must have 3G / 4G and wifi connectivity while the phone could very well work on 2G.  Also it should have wi-fi connectivity and applications like Whatsapp and Viber preloaded.  All other apps not meant for voice calls or texting should reside only on the tablet.

I will be even happier if manufacturers could come up with batteries that will recharge themselves through normal movement / body heat / electromagnetic radiation all around us or whatever except a mains which effectively renders these mobile devices immobile.

My new Droid

I recently purchased a new mid-range Android phone for myself.  It is LG Optimus L-9, also code named P-765.  It has ICS (Ice Cream Sandwich) operating system, 1 GHz dual-core processor with 1 GB of RAM.  However don't be surprised if the Task Manager reports only 767 MB as the total of used and free RAM.  I checked with LG and they told that the balance is dedicated to GPU (Graphics Processing Unit.)  It has a decent 4.75 inch qHD screen and is available in black and white colors.  I went for the black one.  The internal storage is stated to be 4 GB of which 2.33 GB is available to the user for installing apps.  There is a slot for external memory card.  It can take up to 32GB.  The battery is a decent one with 2150 mAH rating.  It has a 5 MP camera and a VGA front camera.  The regular camera is capable of full HD video recording.  A FM radio is included.

The other phone that I had in mind was Samsung Galaxy Grand.  It has Jelly Bean OS, 8 MB of internal storage (4 available to user), and a 8 MP camera.  The screen is also a little bigger at 5".  However the battery has lower capacity and the display has a lower resolution.  Also it costs nearly Rs.4000/= more than L9.  But then you get a anti-glare screen and a flip case free with the phone.  These cost me an additional Rs.700/=.  An anti-glare screen is definitely recommended, especially for outdoor use.  I bought Scratchgard screen at an exorbitant price of Rs.350/=, but the results are good.  The Table-Talk flip cover that I purchased from e-Bay is okay.  The only problem is that it interferes with the proximity sensor.  The proximity sensor's job is to turn the display on when you move the phone away from your face (ears) and turn it off again if you take it close to your face.  Of course this happens during an active call only and you may take advantage of proximity sensor by folding back the flip cover instead of talking with the cover on.

Additionally you need to invest in a micro SD card.  I went for a 16 GB card instead of the maximum of 32 GB.  The cards are available in several classes - 4, 6 and 10.  The data transfer speed increases with the number of the class. A 10 GB card, I believe will provide good jitter-free HD videos.

I was baffled to note that all the apps download and install only on the internal memory.  As stated earlier you have 2.33 GB of internal memory.  LG told me that ICS and JB versions have this behavior and the external SD card cannot be used for installing applications.  Some Googling shows that it can be done but only after rooting the phone.  I don't want to do that; not during the warranty period.  But then luckily the camera application uses the card for storing photos and videos.  The card can also be used for storing your music and e-books.  A good app for reading e-books is "Cool Reader."  And of course don't forget to load the Adobe Reader for a large number of books are in PDF format.

For even more storage you can, of course, use Google Drive, Skydrive, Box etc.  The native file manager also allows you to add these as additional directories.  Google Drive offers the advantage of editing your files too if they are in the Google native formats.  It is like having full-fledged Office equivalent on your mobile.

The phone responds well to your touch commands.  It was on account of long response time that I had to upgrade to this phone.

One nice feature of ICS & JB is live wallpapers.  So you can have an aquarium or a plasma globe for a wallpaper to amuse you.  Task manager and battery optimizer come built in and there is no need for adding an app.  Google books, like Spotify and Netflix, is unfortunately not available in India.  Google music works fine on ICS, and then there are Saavn and Dhingana.

The camera is good in daylight but only average indoors.  The earphones are good for enjoying music.

Thus far it seems to be a good phone and I have configured it with my usual choice of apps from Google Play as well as LG Smartworld.

I am happy to note that LG has announced a JB upgrade for this phone during the first half of the current year.  Let us hope it comes about.

After having benefited from various reviews on the net, I thought I was morally obliged to share my own experience with the phone.  Hence this blog.

A Mobile Population and Need for Internet Constituencies

All our governance systems are based on the idea of people being rooted to a place.  So address is an integral part of all documents issued by the government and bulk of government services have to be availed only at the place of domicile.  The most fundamental right of voting is also restricted to choosing from candidates from the constituency where your residence is located and can only be exercised at a designated polling booth near your residence.

This concept of rooted people may have been a workable idea in the yesteryears when most people were employed in agriculture or small businesses at their native place.  Today a large section of society has become mobile.  They relocate frequently in search of better prospects and it is a marathon task to obtain new documents from a government machinery that doesn't think in terms of customer service but only in terms of dispensing favors.

This mobility got a kind of formal recognition from the government when TRAI talked of MNP across circles.  So your mobile number remains unchanged even if you move to another state within the country.  RBI also acknowledged this when it mooted the idea of account number portability across banks and branches.

This increased mobility coupled with the difficulty of getting oneself registered with various government agencies at the new place, including those maintaining the electoral rolls, is a great impediment to democracy.  Many in the working class are not able to cast their vote precisely for this reason.  And then instead of blaming our systems we put the blame squarely on the working class.  The suits the political parties too because they can then afford to ignore the aspiration of this class.

Technology provides an easy solution to this.  Let there be Pan-India Internet Constituencies somewhat like the graduate constituency.  The number of such constituencies may be decided on the basis of number of people willing to register for it and vote through internet.  These people may identify themselves biometrically using their Aadhaar registration and cast their vote online.  An alternate way could be to vote through their registered e-mail id.  The e-mails may be processed by a software program which ensures secrecy.

If this suggestion is implemented a large number of working people who are currently not able to cast their vote will be able to and happy to do so.  This will make the democracy a true and inclusive democracy.