एक चुनावी गीत

आयो-आयो चुनावी त्यौहार, नेता गावन लगे।
लगे करने चुनावी प्रचार, वादे लुभावन लगे।
सुशासन कहे कोई, कहे कोई भ्रष्टाचार, ढपली बजावन लगे। 

बाहुबली सब हुए तैयार, गन लहरावन लगे।
कांग्रेसियों के ऐसे सरदार, सब घबरावन लगे।
भारत माता तुम करो बेड़ा पार जो नेता डुबावन लगे।
वोटर सब के सभी हैं तैयार, देश बचावन लगे।

बोलो भारत माता की जय, गणतंत्र की जय, चुनाव आयोग की जय; बोलो भाई सब वोटर्स की जय।

Constitutional fanatics!

Whether or not one holds religion to be good, I am sure we all agree that religious fanaticism of any hue is bad, bad, bad.  It is so because religious fanaticism has little to do with religion.  It uses religion as a tool to advance its hideous agenda and its practitioners violate the very core of the religion that they use and also profess to adhere to.

I find something similar happening in the political arena too.  Those who have defiled the political system and democratic institutions by encouraging muscle and money power in politics and looting the treasury, those who have actively suppressed merit for creating vote banks, those who have divided the electorate along all imaginable lines, and also those who probably cannot properly spell the word constitution, have all come together to defend the constitution!  To their mind creating unruly scenes, walking up to the speaker's table and pointing a finger in his face, and also advising him on how to discharge his duties in a tone befitting a terrorist, are all very valid and constitutional means of defending the holy constitution.

And yet we all know that their hearts bleed not for the constitution but for the fruits of power that the public has had the temerity to deny them.  They all profess to be supporting the Lokpal bill, but they want it to be introduced constitutionally.  This will give them enough time to toss it around till it recedes from public memory.  This is the trick that they have been playing for over sixty years and that they would like to perpetuate.  We have all suffered this farce for too long and it is strange that some people still advocate patience and following all the silly rules invented with the sole purpose of browbeating change seekers.

AAP is a ray of hope and we must not let the old guard fool us into thinking that they are the fanatics that we need to guard against.

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!

Oppressors, Oppressed and an Absurd Saying.

There is a saying that those who put up with oppression are just as guilty as those who oppress them.  I find this truly diabolical.  This is the the equivalent of saying that if an enraged elephant crushes a tiny animal, the crushed animal is just as guilty as the elephant!!  Oppressors are always in a position of power.  On the other other hand the oppressed are helpless and have little option but to silently suffer at the hand of the oppressors.

The absurdity of the saying must have been obvious to everyone include the originator.  And it can be said with near certainty that the saying must have come from an oppressor.  It is so because declaring an oppressed man as guilty is the ultimate act of oppression indeed.  This is embodied in another saying in Hindi which goes like this - जबरा मारे भी और रोने भी ना दे!  This roughly translates to this - A heavy-handed person not only beats you up but also yells at you not to cry.

What probably was originally meant by the saying mentioned at the beginning was this - An oppressed person who stands up to an oppressor is far braver than him indeed.  But then some clever person turned it on its head and propagated the current version.  All right thinking people must boycott this diabolical saying in its current form.

What brought this saying to my mind is the current law that holds a bribe giver too as guilty and a clause in the LokPal Act that says that a complainant who is not able to prove the charges is liable to be punished with imprisonment.  So you are damned if you put up with demands of the corrupt - that is the saying (and also the law), isn't it? - and double-damned if you resist it and fail.  And the way system is rigged, you are more likely to fail than not. The question surfaces again - can perpetrator of a crime and its victim be treated alike?

Similarly, equality before law, though a noble concept, is definitely unattainable for the simple reason that those in power can always manipulate things to fool the law which is constrained to go by available evidences alone.  Thus for true equality there ought to be a much harsher and speedier law for those in power and all punishments awarded to them must be exemplary.  Will the supreme and powerful legislative bodies ever agree to this?

एक कविता और एक पैरोडी - AAP के नाम

उड़ाते थे जो आम आदमी की खिल्ली,
वो सभी हैं अब बन गए भीगी बिल्ली,
फकीरों की देखेंगे वो बादशाहत,
खुशकिस्मत जो हैं बाशिन्दा-ए-शहर-ए-दिल्ली.


===================================


बाबुल मोरा करप्शन छूटो जाय,
AAP तो पर्वत भया, कुर्सी भई बिदेस,
दे के समर्थन आप को मैं चली पिया के देस।
बाबुल मोरा ...

आठ विधायक मिल मोरी डोलिया उठावें
मोरा दिल्ली NCR छूटो जाय रे,
बाबुल मोरा ...

Ideas for a truly secular government.

Religions, sans a small obligatory core of spirituality, are essentially a code of conduct and framework for governance for a society.  This framework extends to all aspects of mundane life - gender rights, property rights, definition of and penalties for crimes, duties towards family and society etc.  It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that religions arrogate to themselves the authority that should belong to the government.  I feel that initially, in homogeneous societies, governments must have necessarily been theocratic with a Rajguru or consultant priest in place.  Problems would have started arising when explorers / traders / invaders started moving into alien territories and overpowering them or mixing with them.  The differing frameworks and codes of conducts could perhaps only be reconciled by suppressing all but one or coming out with a new one to be followed by all the different groups.  Most modern governments go for the second option.  But there are compromises too.  Governments like ours have common laws for other spheres of life but the civil laws governing property, marriage, and gender rights are offered only as one more option with each group free to choose between this and those prescribed by its religion.  However this leads to conflicts and the best option remains to have a common code for all subjects.

In my opinion it may be a better option for the state to assert itself as an alternative to religion rather than feeling obliged to find a way to comply with conflicting demands from differing religions and appeasing the more militant ones.

Thus the State should actively promote conversion of people to its ways.  Those who abjure all personal laws in favor of the common one promoted by the State should be given a privileged status.  By the same token absolutely no concessions, or incentives, or encouragement should be provided for practicing any (other) religion.

However for this to happen it must be realized that regular religions provide not only a code of conduct and framework for governance but also provide formats for solemnization of important landmarks in one's life, for example, birth, start of education, marriage, death etc.  Each of the regular religions also provide a core imagery and content that foster art forms like music, dance, painting, drama and others that add zest to life.  The state must necessarily provide all of this to posit itself as a credible competition to religions.  All registrars for various life events have to be cheerful masters of ceremony and not just drab and officious officials.  There also has to be a vibrant wing for arts and culture inspired entirely by the values promoted by the governments.  Their services should be offered free to all the citizens who have gained privileged status by abjuring their religions.

A truly secular state ought to try this out even if it all sounds impractical and difficult to achieve.  You may argue that substituting a single religion for the numerous that exist today will take away all the variety from life.  But then it has to be realized that it will also take away all the unnecessary strife.

Ill defined processes and corruption at the grassroots level.

Many theories have been advanced to explain higher levels of corruption in our society, especially that at the lower levels of hierarchy, as compared to certain developed western countries.  One theory attributes lower levels of corruption in the west to their individualistic tendencies while an individual in India is defined only in terms of his family, community and society.  Another theory attributes corruption in our society to our firm belief in placating planets and gods and, by extension, all authority figures through offerings.  There are other theories too.  I would like to add one more theory to this collection.  I have constructed this theory on the basis of my observations during a few brief visits to USA.

I have noticed during my visits that operating procedures are very highly standardized and are modeled as an assembly line.  You notice this in fast food joints, retail stores, government offices and everywhere.  As a friend put it, USA is an SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) driven country.  I am sure that the standard procedures are defined at the very top level where people have a complete view of the business and apply careful thought to processes.  As against this each operative at the customer contact point has a rigorously defined process to execute.  They are so focused on their process that they neither have the time nor the inclination to go or learn beyond it.  Even the language for interaction with the customer is standardized and any deviation from it often leads to confusion.  This ensures efficient delivery of services and eliminates any discrimination.

I feel that the situation is very different here in India.  Of course we are excepting the organizations that are an offshoot from the west or have deliberately modeled themselves on that pattern.  In our country the top only defines things in broad terms, if at all, and seldom takes the trouble of structuring the processes and procedures in complete detail and this is left to the people at the lower level who actually deliver the service.  I used to work in a bank and had the opportunity to see the manual operations being computerized.  There was frequent bewilderment while defining the standard procedures for implementation in the software because several branches and regions were found to be following a different procedure of their own.  I have seen most formats received from RBI or the government at the head office level for certain data being passed on to the branches exactly as they were received.  Nobody bothered to consider why should a format to be filled out by a single branch have rows for district-wise and state-wise totals.  As the government bureaucracy was the role model for Public Sector banks, I presume things must be the same in the government offices too.

The result is that while the top is busy with unabashed exercise and enjoyment of power, people at the lowest levels evolve all the detailed processes.  Their motive is seldom to provide the very best service to the customer.  Things are often kept vague to enable staff to evade responsibility and to browbeat the customer into submission to their demands.  The system is designed, rather misdesigned by them and they know it too well to twist and bend it as they like.  So if you are from the VIP class and have the contacts to get me chastised, your job gets done in a jiffy using embedded alternate shortcuts.  If you are not, God help you.  I do wonder if it is the lack of discrimination between VIPs and non-VIPs that offends the sensibilities of our VIPs when they travel abroad to more egalitarian and process-driven parts of the world.

The insistence by Kejariwal and his party for having well defined Citizens' Charter and ruthlessly implementing it is only an attempt at straightening out the garbled up processes in government offices.

This is also the reason that IT-enabling the bureaucratic processes is seen as one way of curbing corruption.  IT-enabling forces you to define your processes clearly and also provides efficient tools for monitoring (by a Lokpal!?)