Is it the System or is it us?

I do write write loads and loads of messages in a lot of discussion fora. There's an inherent, unifying theme in nearly all my writings, nevertheless. I never highlight a fault with the system when the individuals that should run the system are faulty themselves. Unless the operators know how to run a machine, one should not try to repair the machine - it's bound to break down again, even if one repairs it successfully! We, the people, are the operators in a democracy, of course!

We, as individuals:

lack a lot of knowledge, information, and attributes,

do a lot of mistakes, individually and as a part of various groups,

follow a lot of unethical practices,

find fault with everyone and everything except what we feel our own,

find a reason to blame or rant and move on with a pseudo-satisfaction of achievement,

are filled with skepticism and hatred towards the System that we don’t understand,

ignore that we need to understand the System before we can even deem it dysfunctional,

think we can troubleshoot the System we do not know,

extrapolate and blow up our limited understanding of a part of our surroundings – only that we want to see – and think the whole Society is the same,

do not realize that We, the people, are the only ones to be ever blamed in a democracy; after all, we are the rulers!

forget that other individuals in the System can be wrong and then blow up that “individuals” to a “group” and that group to “Society” and that “Society” to the “System”.

 

Thus said, I have a trouble convincing people that individual-level reforms should come first. I really wish people do find a sound argument to explain why the System should be reformed first. And/or I wish that they would agree that finding individual-level solutions is more important, necessary, and effective compared to system-level solutions that no one wants to design, test-drive, implement, manage, troubleshoot, or even believe in!

Traffic Management - Hyderabad Police seek Public Interaction

The Additional Commission of Police (Traffic), K. Kaumudi, announced that the Traffic Police Deparment intends to conduct open house discussions on Traffic Management in the city on June 22, Sunday. The following are the time and venue in various zones:

Traffic Division #1: Mahankali Market, Gopalapuram, Chilakalaguda, Lalaguda, Tukaram Gate, Marredpally, Karkhana, Bowenpally, Trimulgherry, Bollaram police station jurisdrictions
Time: 11:00 a.m.
Venue: St. Patrick's School, Secunderabad (Near Manohar Talkies)
Concerned ACP: Jaya Rao (94906-16007)

Traffic Division #2: Panjagutta, S.R. Nagar, Banjara Hills, Jubilee Hills, Begampet, Ramgopalpet police station jurisdrictions
Time: 9 a.m.
Venue: Jaya Garden Function Hall, Somajiguda
Concerned ACP: T. Ram Sudhakar (94906-16022)

Traffic Division #3: Abids, Saifabad, Chikkadpally, Narayanaguda, Musheerabad, Gandhi Nagar police station jurisdrictions
Time: 9 a.m.
Venue: Ruby Garden Function Hall, King Kothi
Concerned ACP: A.K. Dubey (94906-16041)

Traffic Division #4: Begum Bazar, Nampally, Habeeb Nagar, Mangalhat, Shah-inayat Gunj, Kulsumpura, Tappachabutra, Asif Nagar, Langar House, Golconda, Humayun Nagar police station jurisdrictions
Time: 10 a.m.
Venue: Sabha Function Hall, Nampally (Right beside Nampally Police Station)
Concerned ACP: B.R. Baig (94906-16056)

Traffic Division #5: Old City, Sultan Bazar, Afzal Gunj, Amberpet, Kacheguda, Osmania University, Nallakunta, Malakpet, Chaderghat, Saidabad police station jurisdrictions
Time: 10:30 a.m.
Venue: S.S. Gardens, Nalgonda X Roads
Concerned ACP: T. Ramesh (94906-16083)

Agenda: (Estimated time of discussions: ~2 hours)
* Traffic jams - frequently occuring areas and solutions
* Parking - issues and solutions
* Suggestions for new one way routes in residential colonies
* Invitations to Volunteers and Traffic Wardens from among citizens
* Any other issues pertaining to Traffic

Attendees:
Representatives from
* Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC)
* Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC) & SETWIN
* Cantonment Board Members (in Secunderabad Zone only)

Please circulate this information to all individuals and organizations you know.

(Courtesy: Eenadu, Hyderabad Edition, June 20, 2008)

11th Five-Year Plan (2007-2012) to focus on Education

It looks like the Prime Minister (who's also the Chairman of the Planning Commission, according to the Constitution of India) Manmohan Singh is planning a very ambitious Five-Year Plan! More details are awaited, of course, as to how much funds could be alloted, how the funding requirement is met, how this affects the pay scales and fees of educational institutions, what is being done towards non-technical/medical education, etc. are not yet known.

So, what will this focus on education bring to the country as a part of the 11th Five-Year Plan 2007-2012)?

• 19 % allocation to education (as opposed to 7.7 % in the 10th Five-Year Plan).
• 30 Central Universities
• 7 IIMs (Indian Institues of Management)
• 8 IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology)
• 20 IIITs (Indian Institutes of Information Technology)
• 5 IISERs (Indian Institutes of Science, Education, and Research)
• 1600 ITIs (Industrial Technical Institutes)
• 10,000 Vocational schools
• 50,000 ICT-based Skill Development Centers

The 10th Five-Year Plan ended in March 2007, and the Prime Minister has apparently revealed all this information in his message for India's 60th Independence Day in the year 2007 (http://pmindia.nic.in/speech/content.asp?id=570) but this time, he spoke on the eve of 95th National Science Congress.

Source: A news story in Telugu daily newspaper Eenadu, dated January 04, 2008:

http://www.eenadu.net/archives/archive-4-1-2008/panelhtml.asp?qrystr=htm/panel3.htm

India had been independent for 60 years, but the country never had an opportunity to focus any of its Five-Year Plans on Education, since there were other issues that were more important at every juncture. Thus, we should welcome this emphasis on education warmly. However, it's disappointing that all these numbers only talk about engineering, science, and technology but nothing is spoken about education in the field of medicine or in other fields such as law or liberal arts or other fields of the academia. Let's hope the final plans have something towards this end too.

Policing gets better... or so I think

Check out http://www.saferindia.com/

Kiran Bedi, the famous woman police officer of India that now resigned due to apparently distasteful decisions (?) by the government, has now started this Mission "to strengthen Police services to provide Safer India and NOT an alternative to Police responsibilities" by acting as "a bridge between the Police and the complainant". (There are other ex-IPS officers and other bigwigs with her in this Mission.)

The ex-police officer gives the due regard to the Police system in India, by emphasizing that one should contact Safer India only after lodging a complaint with the local police and visiting them a few times and if inaction still persists. It's interesting to see that the Mission operates electronically in all its correspondence between the complainant and the police. Given the reasons for Ms. Bedi's resignation, and her track record, I see this attempted mission as a good start towards better policing in India. Now, it's up to the citizens to approach the police without giving the common yet lame excuse that the police wouldn't care.

Source: A news item in the Telugu daily newspaper Eenadu:

http://www.eenadu.net/archives/archive-4-1-2008/story.asp?qry1=5&reccount=27

How to cleanse or better a system? (Part #0)

(Originally posted on another blog on May 13, 2006. The series shall continue here instead.)

This is going to be the start of a series of blogs. I shall try to be as concise and as detailed as I should be. And, of course, comments are welcome, please! I am not a society-specialist of any kind, by the way, and so what I write here is all what I believe and what I think I learnt by observation and practice; there’s probably not a single written treatise about any of the content in this series! Oh, well, the ‘system’ here, by large, refers to the Indian Society, but the content can possibly be extended to any other system in the universe – experiment at your own risk, but do experiment and experience, and I repeat, at your own risk!

If you have suggestions on what needs to go into this series, let me know, please. Write a comment, or send an e-mail, reply in your blog and let me know... do whatever, but please communicate! Oh, by the way, let us not stop at discussing problems – we shall seriously and sincerely look for real implementable solutions, yes, we will!

Rule of Thumb: The foremost rule in dealing with a system, I believe, is that you do exactly that: deal with it! In other words, one needs to interact with the system. In further refined terms, one needs to be a part of the system that you want to change! There is definitely no other way of doing it, at least if success is what one wants to achieve!

When I write “be a part”, I mean that one should be a part of the system so much that one actually runs a part of the system oneself – be an active participant and not a silent spectator! Observe how the system works: (i) notice what is considered normal, and make an unbiased judgement of what is supposed to be normal, (ii) see what could go wrong, and what actually did go wrong in the past, (iii) make a note of what logic, rationale, and justification run the system, and identify any ‘defaulters’ or detrimental factors among these factors or anything related to the system as such.

Rule of Thumb: (Now, really, how many ‘rules of thumb’ can be there? As many as necessary! ...Oh, yeah, this seems like another ‘rule of thumb’ already!) When one is a part of the system, one can change the whole system, yes! There is only one catch here – one ought to believe that one can indeed change the system – that’s the only way one can perform this feat! Also believe, equally importantly, that no one else might change the system, not even any body like the government! You are the only one that could bring about a change, you should believe!

That’s for now, folks!

“JAI – Just An Indian”
P.S: I shall not be as organized as you may expect, but we’ll discuss everything that needs to be discussed. Thus, I don’t know what might come next...