Call to Register for Jan LokPal Bill: Hoax

Ever saw this text?

"The Government has put condition to get 25 crore people to support Jan LokPal. To give your support call 02261550789 (as given by Kiran Bedi) from your mobile no. Your call will disconnect after 1 ring and your no registered automatically. You will get an SMS confirming this. I did this. Do it and pass to all your friends to make India corruption free. It is now or never...!!!.. (IT WORKS).."

Sometimes the number of people to support is different, and sometimes Dr. Kiran Bedi's name is not mentioned, but that's the content.

The phone number belongs to IndianAgainstCorruption.Org, which is also behind the campaign. The mention of Dr. Kiran Bedi and "IT WORKS" is highly misleading, to say the least. While I appreciate IAC for doing what they are doing for the campaign, I really wonder if misleading is the only modus operandi that works for them! And, I am very disappointed to see so-called educated people to fall for it just like that.

25 crores is less than 20% of the country's population. It can NOT be a plebiscite even if 25 crores support a cause. And, IF the Government of India did really put forth any such condition (with whatever amount of people), as a RULE, the notice should be published more than once in all leading newspapers of the country.

...Today, IndiaAgainstCorruption (IAC) is doing it for a good cause, and people may ask me why I have a problem. What if it's a terrorist outfit tomorrow that wants to get hold of several valid mobile numbers for their activities? Should we give a missed call mindlessly, just like that? (N.B.: Let me clarify that I am a supporter of IndiaAgainstCorruption myself, and I believe they intend only good and nothing bad. I signed their online petition, filled the online referendum, and fasted with Anna Hazare much before the "missed call campaign" started.)

We are all frustrated about the corruption, yes, and let's all do something against it too! But, let's also use our brains - and even conscience - in the process. Let's stop piracy, jumping traffic lights, trying to sneak in extra dutiable goods in your bags when returning to India from a foreign country, and **let's stop being ignorant**!! Educated people in any country do NOT have a right to be ignorant, IMHO!

...Sorry to sound harsh, but India is corrupt ONLY because of fools like us who are literates but are not educated.

So, should you register or not? I'd suggest signing up in the online referendum posted at http://www.indiaagainstcorruption.org/ instead. The ultimate choice is yours, of course!

Addendum: http://www.deccanherald.com/content/169154/missed-call-campaign-lokpal-bill.html says that the IAC campaign ended on June 28. Thanks to a brother of mine for this link. (The link says that the campaign was initiated by a sympathizer of IAC, but then the (a?) leader of IAC speaks about it and thus IAC does know of the campaign though it may not have initiated the campaign. The phone number still, however, appears on the top of the IAC homepage and "About Us" page.)

A new social activity/service organization?

Having been in the USA for most part of the last 11 years or more, I have been a virtual member of several social activity/service groups/organizations. While I do subscribe to parts of all ideologies of all these groups, I do not intend to form my own organization possibly ever! Why? To put it short, decentralized efforts cannot achieve anything but temporary and short-lived satisfaction and scope.

 

Why do you want to "establish [your] NGO" rather than joining an existing organization? That’s the big question I always have in mind whenever an enthusiastic individual says that (s)he wants to start an organization. In my opinion, it's better to join an existing organization for various reasons:

An established organization has already established its reach in the domain it's interested in.

An established organization has a dedicated/devout volunteer base that has passed through the phases of taking pains and choosing priorities very well, probably the hard way. This means, the "aarambha-Sooratwam" (initial fervor) has already ended and they have already "worked through" the intricacies of the domain of interest.

An established organization would have already devised a channel for donations from people in various cities and even countries. The IT Department paperwork is not something one can simply do, and clearance for foreign exchange donations takes two (or three?) years after applying for it, and you cannot apply for it until you the IT clearance for domestic donations (which takes a year or more, if I remember correctly). In other words, an organization cannot solicit donations from people outside the members' personal reach for up to 3-5 years after registration. Money isn't everything but money does make many things, of course.

Decentralized efforts cannot bring very major change, like I wrote earlier. For example, Hyderabad alone had 58 organizations working in the "traffic improvement" domain as of 2003 (when I last enquired from a sub-registrar Office)! How much has the traffic improved really? Imagine if coordinated efforts are taken up by one organization that can amalgamate all these passionate volunteers working all over the place with whatever meager money they can amass together and working in conjunction with the traffic police department. Can you not imagine a better traffic situation then?

 

Thus said, I recommend that everyone that has a passion to work towards a better society should join at least one existing organization to see how things work and notice how one would "continue to feel" about the goals, and means, while working towards the same.

For example, I am personally more interested in the society at large, and my motto is "educate the literates" - that's what I am interested in personally. But, I involve myself in every organization that I can come across, so that I can understand my "target" – the Society - better. Some organizations may, on the surface, seem myopic in their goals and reach, but then they're probably doing so very much better in that niche domain; even bigger organizations may probably not be able to cater so much to such remote areas of work/need. Some may want to address individuals and only individuals' personal needs. That's not exactly my "target" audience but I still want to learn how things work at their level, so that I can understand and learn if those, or similar, solutions can be implemented to the society at large.

 

…So, do I have any recommendations? Well, yes, if you really want some point of start. You are free to choose any of those below or many more out there:

 

To Make A Difference (TMAD) <http://www.tmad.org/> works towards needs in the domains of education, health, support to individuals and communities, Right To Information (RTI), and so on. You may want to join the Yahoo! Group if you are interested: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tomakeadifference/>. TMAD (I call it “Team-Add” instead of “T-MAD”) started as a group of individuals and runs on regular membership contributions and need-specific donations from donors, members and non-members. TMAD was also instrumental in forming a "syndicate" of likeminded groups titled "Birds of Same Feathers (BOSF)" and is working at larger objectives through this initiative. The best thing about this group is that most people are just individuals that take time and money out for this organization, and the group works on 0% organizational costs, i.e. the donations are used 100% to address the needs; all costs borne by members comes from their own individual pockets.

BhUMi <http://www.bhumi.in/> reaches the lower strata and society at large. Branch-off of Bharat Uday Mission (BM) in Hyderabad, as basic aim shifted from politics to social service.

Karmayog <http://www.karmayog.org/> is headquartered in Mumbai and is essentially aimed towards society at large, enlisting local efforts in various cities, and throwing light on various societal issues.
Youth for Social Change (YSC) is based in Chennai, and is working towards a better society in general through various awareness initiatives; most of the members are part of various other likeminded groups and share responsibilities and information. You may want to join the Google Group if you are interested: <http://groups.google.com/group/youthforsocialchange>

 

More, bigger (national-level) organizations:

India Literacy Project (ILP): <http://www.ILPnet.org/>
Association for India's Development (AID): <http://www.AidIndia.org/>
ASHA for Education: <http://www.ASHAnet.org/>
Foundation for Democratic Reforms of India (FDRI): <http://www.FDRI.org/>
Lok Satta Organization: <http://www.LokSatta.org/>
Mission Safer India (founded by Kiran Bedi): <http://www.SaferIndia.com/>
No Ragging Foundation: <http://NoRaggingFoundation.blogspot.com/>

5th Pillar: <http://www.5thPillar.org/>

Vote India: <http://www.VoteIndia.in/>

 

There are much bigger (international) organizations such as Red Cross, GreenPeace, Amnesty International, Child Relief and You (CRY), Children International, UNICEF, and so on that you can be a part of.

 

N.B.: In no way do I claim that the above list is exhaustive. There are hundreds and thousands of such organizations in India and abroad, thanks to which we are what we are today. Kudos to all the volunteers in all such organizations!

 

Lastly, I say this: I am an engineer, and therefore, if I don't know how to approach a scientific problem, what I'd rather do is see how others do it, and then if I can't still devise my own way of working out a solution, my best approach would be use a statistical approximation - perform an integral/summation over all possible solutions and therein is a plausible solution! That's what I do for real world problems too.

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!

Wikileaks: The other side of the story

No, this is not Wikileaks about Wikileaks. I don’t know anything about Julian Assange or Wikileaks, not even a fraction of what has been written in news all over the world.

First things first, I am not greatly awed by Wikileaks! There, I said it!! Why? The faith on the factuality of the content of the Leaks originates from the fact that we all hate our governments, we hate all achievers, we wait for someone to find faults with anything that seems perfect.

(Disclaimer: “We” is probably a majority of us and is still a gross generalization, I admit. This generalization continues through the rest of the article.)

Consider this: Wikileaks has released 50,000 documents against a country X. If anyone from the government in X notices that 49,000 of them are wrong, can they go public and say that out? The immediate question then is not “Why did Wikileaks cheat us with 49,000 fake documents?” The question from the citizens of X is still is “What about the other 1,000? So, you are agreeing that they are true, aren’t you?” Naturally, that’s what the question is when we are all like the citizens of X – we just hate our government so much! No one then cares about the 49,000 fake documents and the opposition parties too grill the government about the remaining 1,000!

Consider this now: A few documents reveal some shady situations with the UPA government in the Republic of India. The major opposition party, BJP, makes a hue and cry about it. The next day, a document against BJP is revealed. Why was it not revealed along with the other documents?! Is it not possible that Wikileaks is playing a political game? Worse, the game is probably being played by them not just in one country (like politicians) but in all major countries! And, while not realizing that we are dancing to their tunes, we want them to play more music!! Wikileaks is not just playing the music but is even choreographing the dance, in all the world!

Do I hate Wikileaks so much? Actually, no!! I liked it as a concept, that information pertaining to public should be revealed to public. In spirit, it’s very much like the “Right To Information” (RTI) that’s prevalent in India, for instance. While I do revere RTI as an important tool for democracy, I cannot say the same about Wikileaks. Reason? It’s, after all, a leak.

Picture this: You go to a movie theater. The ticket price is Rs. 50. There are no tickets left at the counter. You do find a black ticketeer selling you the ticket at Rs. 60 and you wouldn’t buy it for ethical reasons. The next week, there’s some government order that raises the ticket prices to Rs. 60. You still go buy it in the ticket counter and watch a film. The price is the same, monetarily speaking, but the ethical prices were different. Likewise, when you file an application under RTI, the information comes right from the government and it’s official. (For people who think the government need not reveal any shady deals under RTI, all I can say is to look up the success of RTI in various states. I’d write more on RTI later.)

Now, picture this: You go to a movie theater. The ticket price is Rs. 50. There are no tickets left at the counter. You do find a black ticketeer selling you the ticket at Rs. 60. So far, it’s all the same as earlier. Say, you do buy a black ticket at Rs. 60 (assuming you are not as ethical really, of course!) What if the ticket was fake? If the theater management doesn’t allow you to go in with a fake ticket, who do you point your finger at? Anyone? Even if you spot the black ticketeer, all (s)he’d say is that many others bought tickets from him/her and watched the movie. Do you have an argument against it? You just curse that fellow, curse the management and leave… and you do not curse yourself for getting the ticket illegally and unethically and even believing that you can sneak in that way.

So, I do think Wikileaks is a good idea but the implementation is what I am skeptical about. Let’s see how things turn.

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

Danger or not?

Karimnagar: One of the twenty-plus districts of one of the twenty-plus states of India, one of the ninety-and-five-hundred-plus constituencies of one of the two Houses of Indian Parliament.
Beedi: One of the several tobacco products consumed by people of India.
Issue: Imprinting skull-and-bones danger symbol, and a corpse, on the paper-wrap around the pack of beedi-s (and other tobacco products), to discourage smoking. (The relevant G.O. 297/2003 is the result of Supreme Court's directive in 2001.)
Importance: By-election for the Member of Parliament in Karimnagar Lok Sabha constituency.
What's happening? A blame-game of four major political parties contesting in the elections, everyone resorting to mudslinging on the opponent than talking sensibly!

Player 1: The Congress (I) says that it was the NDA government (involving BJP and TDP) that made the G.O. and the Union Government (with their party in the lead) is merely implementing it. It also says that the G.O. was signed by the TRS leader and election candidate. (Now, don't ask me how he signed it if the G.O. was made in 2003, before he was a Union Minister in the current government.)
Player 2: The TDP obviously points that the Congress (I) party implemented the G.O. without caring for millions of people whose lives depend on beedi-s. It, of course, uses the same objection as Congress (I) against TRS. (Now, don't ask me why TDP doesn't say anything about BJP which led the NDA government.)
Player 3: The BJP borrows one point from TDP, against Congress (I), and one point from Congress (I), against TRS. (And, you guessed it: They don't say anything about TDP that extended support to the NDA government of the past.)
Player 4: The ex-Union Minister for Labour and Employment and the current by-election candidate says that it was the Congress (I) Minister that implemented the G.O. and that he didn't play a part in the "evil game". And, they use Congress (I)'s point against BJP and TDP. (Now, don't ask me if the G.O. should have come to his perusal, he being the Labour Minister, before it is approved.)
Player 5: The several beedi company owners who threaten their workers that they'd close the companies and oust all their labourers if the G.O. is implemented! (And, do what then? ...And, by the way, they don't seem to approach the government directly for a plea or appeal! Why is that now?)
Player 6: Lok Satta convener blames all parties, and points to obvious selfish motives of each political party. (And, no solution is proposed right away.)
Player 7: Union Minister for Health says that no change shall be made to the G.O. since it's about people's health. (And, everyone blames him for "inhuman" statement that doesn't care about the workers whose lives depend on beedi-s!)
Player 8: The Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare wonders how they can go back on the imprint now, after having received WHO's prestigious award for the idea *and* the size of the images. (And, she doesn't talk after her party leaders say that the logo would be removed or resized!)
Player 9: Those illiterate labourers, to who no one imparts the intelligence that one should take steps to reduce smoking sooner than later and thus they should start looking for alternate means of earning. (And, of course, no guidance is given towards training them for another, "unobjectionable" occupation.)
Player 10: All those NGOs and social welfare groups, which sincerely do a lot of campaign and slogan-shouting, stay mum at this point of time, only to react when things go incorrigibly wrong! (And, where are they all when their voice is much awaited so that someone can hear some sense?)
Player 11: The ignorant, immature, innocent, irrational, inconsistent, unpredictable, unstable, responsible citizen/voter, smoker or not, that chooses the winner by sheer personal choice on that particular instant of standing at the ballot paper/electronic voting machine. (And, oh yeah, he's the Captain of the team, one who doesn't get any respect from most other players despite his essentially key role in the gameplay! And, anyway, he's only the Captain and not one of the Selectors!)

Who does this team pitch against? The all-powerful panel of judges and lawyers at the Supreme Court who know the theory of the game perfectly well! And, of course, this team of law-men does know the theory but all the net practice was always done by the team of law-makers; the lawmen don't get any net practice! ...All I wish is that they do not need net practice! They're expected to play well still, when it's their time to bat! Oh, please win, Lawmen of the Nation, please!

And, oh yeah, the Communist parties resort to silence. Some umpiring!

“JAI – Just An Indian”

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...