Auto quitting day

Heard people of Bangalore and Mumbai planning a day for quitting auto rickshaw in protest of the exorbitant rates they are charging. If this is true, it is high time that we need to do it and support it. Because

Autos won't come to the place where we want to go. Instead we should go where they want to go.
Traffic, rain, no return trip, evening, night, early morning, mid-noon are only some among the "extremely valid" reasons what auto drivers will tell us before they are asking for double fare.
Meters when they are working,(very rare, if you came across one you can safely pick up a lottery that day) they are faster than the speedo-meter of a Ferrari.

We cant avoid using autos completely. What we need from Government is scientifically planning the auto fares and enforcing them. We need auto drivers unions to take up these issues in their own self interest.

There can be peak hour charges for compensating the traffic jams in peak hours. Especially in mornings and evenings. This can in fact as a deterrent for people to plan their travel better. (Avoid peak hour if they are planning to use autos).

There has to be pre-paid auto counters in front of major auto pick up points. Having them only in commercial street and railway station wont do the trick. We need them in front of all tech parks like Bagmane, Embassy Golf Link, Electronic City, Manyata etc... The tech park managements has to co-operate with auto unions and traffic police for implementing this. If the merchants of Commercial street can do this, why not the promoters of tech parks. We as employees should talk to our respective HR departments for pressing the same.

To be fare to the auto drivers, I really appreciate the concern and care they show during accidents. When most of us while coming across an accident scene on our way wont even bother to down our tilted glasses and continue our comfortable AC journeys, auto drivers will be the first ones to pick up the people and take them to hospitals. The service what they are rendering during these critical situations is really priceless.

What we need mechanisms to avoid conflicts between commuters and auto drivers. Scientific fares, proper mechanisms to enforce the same can go a long way in avoiding these conflicts.

Mobile, Governance and Corruption

As per the Corruption Perception Index of the Transparency international India ranks 85Th below Swaziland and Serbia. The late Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi once famously said that out of every single rupee paid by the Indian Government for poverty eradication and rural development only ten paise reaches the actual beneficiary. Corruption as all of us know has been the biggest bain of otherwise tolerable Indian Democracy. Now with all these younger tech savvy politicians around and with a tremendous growth in mobile penetration which by latest accounts from TRAI crossing 300 million it is high time government needs to consider mobile as an effective medium for governance. For example once an application or petition has been submitted to the government government can inform the status of the same to the applicant via sms alerts. The various benefits which are provided by government such as subsidies, pensions etc.. can be notified to the beneficiaries via SMS from the point of release of funds. A local governing authority can publish the budget and other fund allocations for a particular area to the residents of that area as and when the budget is passed or funds are allocates. This constant tracking and information dissemination to the lowest level can go a long way in preventing corruption in Government.

Financial Inclusion, Universal Mobility and NREGS

Irrespective of all its short comings and corrupt practices, NREGS achieved reasonable amount of success in providing gainful employment to rural farm laborers. To make this program a real success, and to achieve its end objective, corruption has to be rooted out from this program. Corruption is mainly happening at distributing wages and deciding minimum wages. This can be completely avoided if the government opened bank accounts for all the beneficiaries and directly credit their wages to respective accounts. The main bottleneck is the poor penetration of banks in rural areas; which effectively prevents branch based banking for this purpose. The best solution for this problem is providing a mobile phone to all benificiaries and maintains their bank accounts via mobile banking. The balance amount, credit and debit information can be provided as alerts to the rural population. To overcome the problem of illiteracy the same alerts can be provided as audio visual instead of plain text. Through the same channel other financial products such as insurance and ULIPS also can be distributed. It is high time that NREGS implementation agencies has to re-look at the implementation strategies to eradicate corruption and take the program to next level by achieving bigger goals beyond day to day survival for the beneficiaries.

A call for innovation in Government Services

NREGS is making lots of noises in media as well as in the country side. If reports are to be believed NREGS is having some positive side effects such as an increase in the minimum wage level in many states. But large scale corruption and lack of any permanent asset creation is making several people question the wisdom and sustainability of the much touted program. One reason why the Babus and local netas are getting away with corruption is the ignorance of unskilled laborers. Being illiteracy is a major problem for our nation and a root cause for corruption, especially in the villages, why can't the Government use NREGS for a literacy mission; just pay the laborers for attending literacy classes. May be 30 day classes per year for three years will be sufficient for majority of the illiterate laborers to attain functional literacy. Responsibility for taking the classes can be given to NGOs whoa re already working with these populations. If the example from Kerala has to be believed such a large scale literacy mission will be a success if it has necessary funds, large scale participation of people and support from government. Any way NREGS is not about creating long term infrastructure for nation, since the restriction on material cost severely affect the capability of NREGS to create any kind of long lasting infrastructure, so why don’t we use it to create a real, long lasting, high impact asset for the nation like literacy for its teeming millions?

Some spine atlast

Looks like congress men are finally rediscovering one long forgotten organ of their body "The Spine". After performing mind-boggling aerobics according to the tunes of Chinese Party Of India for four long years, the grand old party is finally finding that the aerobics makes its stock nose diving faster than Sensex among the Indian populace who still have some self respect and want to see they are being ruled by a strong government. It will be a defining moment in India's history if the government is able to approach the IAEA for safe guard agreement on the nuclear deal. The left may continue to sulk, may withdraw their support also, but as everybody know, as an outfit which is highly depend on the ideological (and financial who knows?) help extended from across the border, left cannot support an agreement which is going to strengthen democratic India against Communist China. A whole new generation of Indians who are already thankful to Mr. Manmohan Singh for ushering a new era of prosperity by liberalization of economy during the 90s. Apart from minority of communist and communal fanatics, entire India will thank him once more for freeing Indian foreign policy from the cold war cobwebs and reclaiming the status of our great democratic, secular, liberal nation in the global power order. Not to forget the relief in traveling electric powered trains at cheaper fares and driving around the city on cars which run on cheap electricity.

What happened to the wall clock

During a routine conversation among my friends we suddenly thought about the wall clock. The proud wall clock which used to have a principal place in the older house holds is now nowhere near its prime time importance. During my school days clock used to be an integral part of our life. It was one of the first equipment my dad has baught for our household. Right from my dad's office timings to my sister's school timings; everything has been decided by his majestic bells.

May be this is one industry which was not able to keep pace with change in market place. A re-branding or changed product placing might have helped the wall clock industry. Same way some simple innovations like having some instant glue for keeping the clock on the wall instead of the old fashioned keyholes might have gone long way in addressing concern about ruining the wall in many modern houses and flats. Looking at the way how titan was successful in placing the watch as an aspiration and luxury item, it wouldn’t have been difficult to place the clock also along those lines.