Agra Visit (I)

Part I - Agra Fort and Reaching Fatehpur Sikri

Recently I visited Agra with my whole family including next and next++ generations.  I had made hotel bookings well in advance and also booked an Innova taxi that could carry all six of us.  However I remained apprehensive because of news of violence against some foreign tourists and huge crowds expected in Agra because of the weekend and Christmas holidays.

The journey to Agra on the newly consturcted Lucknow-Agra expressway was pleasant.  The expressway is very well constructed and a part of it is an airstrip where fighter jets can land and did land making a big news only a few months ago.  Three rest areas for being constructed on either side of the e-way.  Though these are still under construction, we did stop over at one for a biobreak.  The toilets were sparking clean.  As we talked about it, our driver remarked, "Just wait till people actually start using it!"

The toll on the e-way was still in trial phase, and we saved the toll tax both ways.  I understand that it is about to be launched in a few days from now.

The journey from Lucknow to Agra is about 4 hours and we reached in early afternoon.  We decided to visit the Agra Fort first and then check into the hotel.  We had purchased e-tickets in advance from the website of Archiology Survey of India.

There indeed was a huge crowd at the fort.  We noticed some people near the ticket window who were scanning the visitors and did look like guides.  However none of them approached us.  As we entered the premises, we were accosted by a guide who said that he was an ASI approved guide and showed his id to support the claim.  He said that his official fees were 685 but he would charge us only 500.  Though, he settled for Rs. 400.  We asked him to speak English for the sake of the kids who are more at home in that language.

The kids found his English hard to decipher and excused themselves so that they could roam around with me and just read the inscriptions on stone tablets.  The guide did not add much value to what we knew and what was available on the inscriptions. The only interesting thing that he told was that 75% of the fort was now in military’s control and off bounds for the public.  However he did click lots of pictures for us and that was appreciated.

We stayed back for the light and sound show.  We had to wait for a little more than an hour for the English show.  The show was terrible. Lights just moved from one area to another without much significance. People got bored and started leaving in the middle of the show.  A group of youngsters also raised slogans of “Bharat Mata ki Jai" for no reason except mention of Hindu wives of Mughal Kings. We, too, left before the end and proceeded to the Hotel where we had a good night’s sleep.

The next day we proceeded to Fatehpur Sikri. After exiting Agra, we had to drive on a really bad road which merged into a proper highway a few kilometers ahead.  A little before the entrance to the monument our car was stopped.  Our driver persisted and finally we were issued a parking ticket for ₹100 and allowed to go past.  After 100 meters or so, we cam to the entrance.  Our driver tried to bluff his way past the gate by telling the security that we were some VIPs from Lucknow but we asked him to back off.  As we stepped down, we were accosted by a person who offered to be our guide for a modest fee of ₹100.  The kids immediately rebelled, and we tried to shrug off the guide.  However, he persisted and lowered his fee to ₹70!  Finally, the offer was taken up and the kids had a pact with me to keep away from the guide and just roam around as they wished.

Later we realized the reason behind the desperately low guide fees, and that would be the subject matter of our next post in the series.

THE FINANCIAL RESOLUTION AND DEPOSIT INSURANCE BILL, 2016

THE FINANCIAL RESOLUTION AND DEPOSIT INSURANCE BILL, 2016

FRDI has surfaced in the Social media recently, thanks to a petition through change.org.  It is only after seeing the petition that I realized that I have already missed the window for offering comment.  It seems that FRDI did not figure in the news media with the intensity and urgency that it deserved.

I have downloaded the draft and browsed through it.  I also had to go through Banking Regulation Act to see the provisions in this act relating to winding up of banking companies that will be deleted by the proposed FRDI.

It cannot be gainsaid that economy and banking are based mostly on trust which governments and banks are under an absolute obligation to maintain and bolster.  Anything that even scratches this trust can prove disastrous.

The aforesaid is the reason that Capital Adequacy norms under the Basel Agreement are being continually refined and enforced worldwide by banking regulators.  The underlying idea behind Capital Adequacy norms is simple.  Banks have to use statistical tools to gauge the risk of losing money in their loans and investments portfolios and then provide enough capital to cover these risks so that the risk does not extend to the depositors.  This tells depositors that banks and regulators are dead serious about the safety of their money kept in the banks and will not allow it to be risked.

RBI, the regulator for the banking sector, has taken these norms in right earnest and has mechanism for Risk Based Supervision RBS) in place.  RBS ensures that no banks ever reaches the brink where its liquidation has to be contemplated:  And if it does, it loses no more than its share capital. As against this, FRDI proposes to wait till the institution reaches the brink and then pounce upon it and even breach the trust on which the financial sector rests.

FRDI proposes to move this risk assessment function to a Corporation. This hardly makes sense.  This Corporation will have 11 members on its Board.  Of these 4 will be representing the four regulatory authorities (Banking, Insurance, Pension, Financial Markets.) The remaining seven will be bureaucrats and other government appointees.  RBI and its Risk Based Supervision are working fine and cannot be bettered by this Corporation.

This proposed Corporation seriously encroaches upon the turf and erodes the credibility of regulators who are best placed to gauge and manage risk in their specific areas.  Though, their autonomy may not be liked much by the political establishment.

The act is strewn with provisions that make depositors suspicious and uneasy.  Read the subsection 1.15.ii.  It goes like this: Deposit means ………. but does not include “any amount due on account of any deposit with any insured service provider which has been specially exempted in this behalf by the Corporation with the previous approval of the Appropriate Regulator or, by a notification in the Official Gazette.”   Thus the corporation may, in its bureaucratic wisdom, exempt FD or / and RDs through a notification.  By the time this notification comes to our knowledge, the money would be gone.

The dreaded bail-in that forms the subject matter of section 52, is defined as under.

52.3 A bail-in provision means any or a combination of the following: –

(a) a provision cancelling a liability owed by a covered service provider;

(b) a provision modifying, or changing the form of, a liability owed by a covered service provider

(c) a provision that a contract or agreement under which a covered service provider has a liability is to have effect as if a specified right had been exercised under it.

In case of depositors, these means that your account balance could be written-down or written-off straight away, or could be swapped for shares in the worthless bank!  I am not able to make out what the subsubsection c means.  I guess that for FDs it could mean that your right to premature payment could be exercised by the Corporation.

There is a saving grace, though, in the form of section 55.  The relevant portion reads as under:

55.2.b "only those liabilities may be cancelled the instrument creating which contain a provision to the effect that the parties to the contract agree that the liability is eligible to be the subject of a bail-in."

If the proposed Bill goes through, we can be sure that account opening forms of banks will include a fine print saying that this deposit is eligible to be the subject of a bail-in.  While big depositors may be able to negotiate this clause out, the same leeway may not be available to people like us.

If the Bill goes through, even the existing depositors may get a communication congratulating them and announcing that their deposits have been made eligible for a bail-in!

Further, the proposed Bill effectively does away with Deposit Insurance.  As banks pay premium for this insurance, in the unlikely event of a bank reneging on its deposits, the insured amount must be paid by the insurer from its own funds.  The depositors then have to salvage whatever they can of their deposit from the liquidation proceeds.  This bill says that the first thing to be recovered by the Resolution Corporation from liquidation proceeds will be the amount it has paid to the depositors under the insurance scheme!! (Sec 29.4)

Also section 55 (1b and 1c) puts depositors and other creditors on the same footing, whereas the deleted sections of the Banking Regulation Act clearly state that depositors have to have the first preference.

FRDI also seeks to replace common sense with red tape.  Sec 68.1.3 states that, “A depositor or operational creditor may submit a claim to the liquidator in such form and in such manner and along with such supporting documents required to prove the claim as may be specified by the Board.”  Whereas the Banking Regulation Act clearly stated that depositors need not submit any claim and the balance in the books of the Bank will be automatically taken as the claimed amount.  Well, red tape is the first thing to be brought in by a bureaucrat ruled organization.

To sum up, the following questions on FRDI needs an answer from the government:

•         Basel Accord on Capital Adequacy and the current Risk Based Supervision are meant to ensure that a bank never reaches a stage where depositors’ money is jeopardised.  If, at all, it has to be liquidated it must not lose more than its capital.  In this regime where is the need for FRDI?
•         The Resolution Corporation is a serious encroachment on Regulator’s turf.
•         How is the Resolution Corporation supposed to carry out liquidation or merger of banks any better than the Regulators when bureaucrats and government nominees far exceed the regulators’ representatives on its board?

PostScript: I think I got part of the answer!  The bill says at one place that the bail-in will be used not only to absorb residual losses after entire capital is lost, but also be used to recapitalize it so that it can become viable again.  So, the government wants depositors to contribute their deposit towards share capital!

Fine Fifty Grands!

What is now known as a Dollar Shop, used to exist even in my childhood.  My contemporaries will recall itinerant vendors as also kiosks with a voice or poster tag of something like "Har maal milega 4 aane."  The tag translates to "Any item for 25 paise."

The government seems to have seen taken a fancy to this style of selling.  Only it is not selling anything but imposing fines.  As any government worth its salt has to think big, the uniform fine is not for a piffling dollar or 25 paise but a grand ₹50,000, roughly $800!  Here are some of the fines on the list:

• Rs 50,000 fine for dumping waste within 500 metres of Ganga,
• NGT orders Rs 50,000 fine for dumping waste into Ganga,
• ₹50,000-fine for plastic ban violation,
• Fine flight caterers Rs 50,000 if their vans lack rodent repellents,
• 5 year Jail-time, Rs 50,000 fine for doctors involved in cut practice,
• Up to Rs 50,000 fine for holding old notes,
• Rs. 50,000 fine for airlines if planes empty human waste on air,
• traffic violations: Rs 50,000 fine for Holi drunken brawls,
• Rs 50,000 fine on disposing of construction material on streets

(To know more about any of these fines, just copy the item and paste it into the Google search bar.)

While I am not aware how will the act of an airline in disposing off human waste in the air be detected, I am not much worried about it for the airlines can easily afford to pay the fine.

Many of these fines are applicable to individuals too, and are to be paid on the spot. Most of the violators are not likely to have that much cash in their possession notwitstanding newly issued notes of ₹2K denomination.  Many wouldn't even have that much balance in their bank account or the credit card limit.

This opens up a new business opportunity for the banks.  They could enter into an arrangement with the government on these lines:

• The person fined 50K has to be Aadhaar verified on a terminal carried by the official imposing the fine.
• The fine is to be debited to his bank account linked to Aadhaar.  If the Aadhaar is not linked to an account, the fine is to be doubled and the culprit given a week to get the linking done and present himself before the fining authority.
• Any overdraft in the account or the credit card on account of payment of the fine is to be converted into a loan payable in 50 monthly instalments and to carry interest at a rate to be notified by the government from time to time.
• Any default in payable of an instalment to result in an automatic fine of ₹50K payable to the bank in the manner described above.
• If the total fine payable by a citizen leads to a situation of insolvency all his assets to stand automatically transferred to the bank.

Though this looks like an excellent scheme to me, some banker friends feel that it will not translate into business because of the LDKRD# factor.  In their opinion the LDKRD rate may stabilize somehwere between 10 and 20 percent. What is your opinion?

# Le De Kar Rafa Dafa

DIY - What A Relief!

When I bought my split AC, the salesman took pains to drive the point home that the installation and three services during the first year were free.  Two months later, I called the customer care and could manage to reach a human being after navigating the labyrinthine IVR menu.  He first confirmed all my contact details and then confirmed the model and month of purchase before registering my request for service.

It was only after the service technician arrived, almost at lunch time, that I could find a link between the prohibitive cost of the AC and prohibition!  The chap informed me that the three free services will consist of two 'dry' and one 'wet' service.  Being curious, I asked him, against his advice, to do the wet service first.

After the fellow had put his bag down and taken a good look at the AC, he asked me for the original invoice.  Having inspected it, he inquired if there was a stepladder in the house, which was duly brought.  He climbed up, took off the front cover of the indoor unit and handed it to me with a request to put it down carefully.  Next in the list of ever unfolding demands, he asked for a bowl of soap water, a toothbrush, two pieces of cleaning cloths.  By the time he finished, the white floor tiles directly below the unit had become quite a mess.

Once he was done with the room unit, he carried the stepladder to the outdoor unit and asked for a water hose and a piece of string to tie to the nearest tap.  Not finding the tap pressure good enough, he asked me if there was a pump and a direct tap.  He was shown the tap, and the motor was switched on.  After he finished, the wall on which the unit was mounted and the floor below it had become pretty dirty.  When pointed out, he did spray some water on the wall to wash it.

It must not be difficult to visualize that instead of watching and enjoying the free service, I was kept on my toes all along.  Finally the fellow got his service report signed and stepped out.  He had barely started his motorcycle when my household help came to me and conveyed her displeasure at having to clean the floor once again.  She also recommended that next time I should call the technician early in the morning before her arrival.  I was pretty exhausted.

It was pretty late by the time I recovered and sat down for my lunch.  The lunch did help to somewhat lift my sagging spirits.

And it was at this point that I resolved to service my AC myself (DIY - Do It Yourself,) free services notwithstanding.  I have been doing a pretty good job of it and I always do it early in the morning to avoid the wrath of my maid and delayed lunch.  It is such a huge relief.

The EVM Rigmarole

The current EVM challege makes a travesty of security testing.  It is surprising that nobody from the IT security arena is speaking up.  If the charges levelled by the opposition are true, one can be sure that a compromised machine will never be brought to the challenge.  If the EVMs were dumb terminals connected to a central server, then testing the server might suffice.  In the current distributed scenario each single machine needs to be tested for integrity.  How will the challenge ensure this?

I do not know whether EVMs were custom made to EC's specifications or just generic machine purchased off the shelf?  In either case, did the EC get the source code and security features examined by any experts?  How would the EC know if the motherboard or the stored program was changed in a set of machines by unscrupulous maintenance people?

In my humble opinion the correct way of ensuring correct functioning of EVMs should be as follows:

1. There should be a single executable running on all EVMs and its source code should be with the EC and also in the public domain.
2. Each political party should be given a copy of the compiled executable code.
3. All EVMs should have an USB port and connecting a pen drive should trigger a program to prompt the user to enter filename for comparison with the stored executable.
4. Each party should give its booth workers an USB with the correct executable and a couple of random files.
5. A willing worker at any booth should get an opportunity to test the machine by inserting the USB and comparing a few random files and the correct file with the resident executable.

This, of course, is only indicative and not exhaustive.

Views of IT experts are invited in the matter.

To Treat Or Not To Treat

I wrote about the sad demise of my cousin in my last post. The trauma faced by his family during the brief period between diagnosis and his death was painful indeed.  The diagnosis was metastasized renal cell carcinoma.

He contracted cancer for the first time five years ago. It was a growth in one of his kidneys. The kidney was removed and all neighboring lymph nodes cleaned by the surgeon. He recovered and started leading a normal life. Periodical followups were satisfactory and went on for three years. He was declared cancer free. Normal life, with his normal ailments of diabetes, hypertension and enlarged prostate, continued for one more year. In the fifth year he developed another problem. He started having bouts of dizziness and losing balance while walking. This was initially thought to be vertigo. He was also diagnosed with CLL (Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia.)  However the haemo-oncologist reassured us that it had nothing to do with his renal cancer.

Unfortunately, what was thought to be vertigo was later found to be a cancerous growth in the brain. Further investigations showed a growth in one of the lungs too.  Biopsy results showed that it was renal cell carcinoma that had metastasized to other organs.

My niece is a doctor and member of a WhatsApp group of doctors with varying specializations.  She consulted the oncologists in the group and they were almost unanimous that it will be best to stop looking for a cure and go for palliative care instead.  They estimated the remaining life span at 3 to 6 months. They also described the likely and frightening after effects of radiation and cancer medication. In their opinion the treatment, even if it succeeded in prolonging life, will also aggravate the misery. The alternative of palliative care was likely to ensure a relatively better quality of life for the patient for whatever span was left to him.  Needless to say that this group had no commercial interest in the matter.

My niece also spoke with some of the families that had lost an aged member to cancer.  All of them regretted having gone for the treatment and were of the opinion that the patient would have been better off without it even if it had meant a shorter residual life.  Much later, after we were in the middle of treatment, I learnt of the sad death of a friend; again due to cancer.  His wife sorely regretted having gone for aggressive treatment thereby prolonging and intensifying his misery.  She strongly advised us to ignore oncologists and go for palliative care only.

It was too stark an advice to be fully shared with the patient and those closest to him.  Carefully worded soft disclosures and hints at the alternative course led to a state of indecision.   The local medical oncologist insisted that the patient be put through entire regimen of treatment which could extend his life by an year or more. He ordered umpteen tests too.  Finally he prescribed radiation therapy for the brain.  The radiologist decided in favor of whole brain radiation instead of one focused on the tumor only.  As the family could not decide on the option of palliative care, my cousin, the patient, underwent 10 radiation sessions. He was also put on a heavy dose of steroids for the duration of radiotherapy.

The steroids did wonders to improve the patient's sense of wellbeing and he sailed through radiotherapy without much visible adverse effects.  Though, hair loss did start by the end of the therapy.  We thought that those advising against radiation were a bit of alarmists.  Thereafter steroid was gradually withdrawn leading to progressive worsening of condition.  Next the cancer drug Votrient was started.  Oncologists in my niece's group again advised against it.

The attending oncologist had prescribed the maximum dose of 800 mg.  However in view of the concerns expressed in online consultations, it was decided to reduce the dose to 400 mg.

From here it was downhill all the way.  Many of the after-effects of radiation started showing.  Votrient seemed to do little to slow down the growth of the cancer while it aggravated the downfall.  The patient suffered from hypersomnia (sleeping most of the time,) severe weakness in limbs and loss of control over bladder and bowel movements.  Other complications like urinary tract infection (UTI) and thrombosis developed and required hospitalization for treatment.

No improvement was noticed even after a month of taking Votrient and other treatments for infection and thrombosis.  The doctor finally decided to stop Votrient for a few days and we prevailed upon him for discharging the patient.  We made arrangements at home for administering intravenous drugs, started using adult diapers and finally arranged an oxygen kit too.  In the last two-three days the patient stopped interacting with people altogether, ate very little, was extremely restless and his limbs were trembling all the time.  He died in the wee hours on 18th April, nearly three months after the metastasized cancer was detected for the first time.

All of us are convinced that it would have been far better to go for palliative care.  We were told that such care could be given by a normal MD to relieve symptoms and pain and steriods could be given to impart a sense of wellbeing.  In this scenario there was little sense in considering the long term adverse effects of steroids.

My niece's husband, a doctor himself, summarized the whole thing quite succinctly.  He said that the family could not bring itself to accepting the sane advice of putting the patient on palliative care; and that any other family that was unfortunate enough to consult us in this matter, would surely ignore our own advice based on our harsh experience.  In the choice between quality of life and painful longevity, howsoever little, the latter, unfortunately, always seems to prevail.  And thus the practice of oncology goes on.

I have a feeling that all practicing oncologists treating a patient advanced in age and suffering from metastasis, should be mandated to compulsorily offer the second option of palliative care only.  Few do so currently.

My cousin Late Sri CB Upadhyaya (1947 - 2017)

Since Chandra Bhal bhaiya was the eldest amongst all the brothers / cousins, we used to call him Badke Bhaiya.  I will use the abbreviation BB to refer to him.

BB did his Masters in Maths from Allahabad University and was married off at a rather early age.  He served as a teacher for a short while before joining the Central Bank of India as a clerk.  He rose to the rank of a DGM by the dint of hard work and he richly deserved the position.  Though he worked in operations most of the time, he did two stints in the training division.  In the second of these, he headed the Sir Sorabji Pochkhanawala Bankers Training College at Mumbai.  I think that given the opportunity, we Upadhyayas are hardly able to resist the urge to take up our hereditary profession of teaching!  Now that BB is no more, many of his colleagues from the Bank recall how knowledgeable, reliable, upright and incorruptible an officer he had been all along.

BB played the role of an elder to all of us with great love and affection.  Whenever the family had to congregate, be it a joyous occasion or otherwise, BB would invariably show up with his family in tow, and take charge as an elder.  Often he had to travel long distances to do so.  And he did that despite his younger daughter being a spastic child.  His presence was always so reassuring! He never demanded any special arrangements for himself and was ever so composed, calm and serene.  None of us have ever heard him raise his voice and his office colleagues too agree on this.  He was the binding force that kept the extended family together.  The mantle has now fallen on the next sibling whom we affectionately call Majhle Bhaiya.

He was an ardent devotee of Hanumanji, our family deity.  With advancing age some of us started going easy on traditions and religious matters.  But BB stuck to the faith and traditions and kept the family from drifting too far away from these anchors.

BB was fond of reading fiction and a great connoisseur of music and had a huge collection of albums.  He especially loved ghazals and bhajans and enjoyed listening to radio broadcasts too.  His elder daughter works with Aakaashvaani and often brought him rare gems from their archives, much to his delight.

He was very attached to his younger daughter and because of her disability he himself had developed a sedentary lifestyle.  He had had Diabetes and high BP for a long time. Despite these he lead a healthy life till and a few years past his retirement.  He was 65 when he was diagnosed with renal cancer.  The tumor was removed and subsequent periodical checks showed him to be free from cancer.  It was five years later that the dreaded disease made a reappearance.

It all started with a problem that was first diagnosed as vertigo but later discovered to be a tumor in the brain.  Investigations showed that the renal cancer had metastasized to brain and lung.  Radiations and medicines didn't help and he lasted less than 3 months after the diagnosis.

The whole family sorely misses and fondly remembers him.  May his soul find salvation that he richly deserves.