The apathy of an Indian government employee

Sometimes you wonder what is the biggest malaise afflicting India. Answers would differ from Pakistan to corruption to Maoists to population, etc...My take is that it is the apathy of people who are on the rolls of the government. From IAS officers to police officials to public works people to doctors...if you would conduct a poll, almost everyone would agree that those holding government position are the most despised.

Take a look at some of the recent incidents:
a) A father goes to the police station in Badayun (U.P.) to lodge FIR for abduction of his two daughters. Police people know about it already and tell him that the abductors would release them in 2 hours!! Such is the state in which parts of India are today that father does not protest but agrees to come back after 2 hours. When he comes back, police people at the station tell him that they are hanging from the tree!! What do you say except hang your head in shame.

b) Latest one happened yesterday. Authorities at Larji Hydelpower project released water in Beas without any warning. 26 students from Andhra got washed away...what the FUCK. Will there be ever an end to this non stop bullshit. Can an Indian have a better value assigned to his life?

The list goes on and on. Some serious debate, some serious thinking is required. After all these people who hold important government posts also are human beings. There must be some way to fix this problem.

The New Dude In Town

While Dude is a term made famous by Jeff Bridges in Big Lebowski, it probably best describes a person who is supremely confident about himself, has an air of coolness about him and who goes about his daily chores with least regard for the hubris around him. By this definition, Narendra Modi probably qualifies to be the Dude of the country right now.

Think about what he has done till now...the Nawaz Sharif meeting that Manmohan Singh could not manage in 10 years, NaMo pulled it off on his first day. He scraps the stupid EGOMs and GOMs in his first 15 days....asks politicians to avoid using family members in their offices, tells bureaucrats to work on Saturdays..incentive scheme for central government employees...list goes on. Even if all of this would amount to nothing, NaMo has at least scored big on perception. The guy is truly in a Dude mood. And this Dudeness gets even more amplified by the sorry figure that Manmohan Singh cut in the last 4 years. The guy was a disaster, the worst wound inflicted on the country since independence (and I am not discounting Deve Gowdas and IK Gujrals of years gone by).

The question is where does the Dude go from here...after this cool start. Somehow the problem seems simple to resolve and NaMo seems to be know how to do it. My own experience of working with government was that the laid down law is not the problem. The problem is that very few who have to implement the law feel the pressure to do it. In fact, RTI and CAGs and CVCs have scared the babudom to completely avoid taking any decision. The Dude seems to be know this. Another Dude, Arun Showrie, articulated it beautifully when he said that the new government does not face a legislation challenge...all the right legislation exists. Only thing missing is the confidence in the bureaucracy that they can go ahead and do the right thing. Someone will take care of their back. Dude seems to have done this very successfully in Gujarat and now it is to be seen whether he can do it from Delhi as well. 

Lets see...America elected a Dude in 2008 and he turned out to be a big disaster. India's Dude seems to have a better chance since he has managed a state for last 14 years. And, as I said earlier, even if it ends up in nothing, at least for the time being, ministers are posting tweets post midnight with policy announcements!!

Kejriwal: what a fool...

Thankfully, not too many people read my blog otherwise many of the righteous would already be  planning a dharna outside my place in GK2. So let me enjoy this Internet oblivion and write my 2 cents on what I think is going on in AAP ki Delhi:

1) A lot of people voted for AAP because they started to think the true specialization of Congress and BJP was to show their middle fingers to the voters. Voters got an opportunity to return the favor and they did it with gusto. Bigger the name, bigger was the thumping. Sheila Dikshit, AK Walia, Rajkumar Chauhan.....people wanted revenge and they wanted these modern day Niros dragged in the street.(I know of one BJP candidate who will not go out to campaign in slums without a hand sanitizer!!)

2) So after the giant slaying act, Congress made it even more fun by deciding to support AAP with no conditions attached. I for one thought that this would be a great opportunity for AAP to really do big things. I was in for a big disappointment and the worse part of it all is not that the voter is Delhi got fooled into supporting AAP who have turned out to be corrupt. No, these people seem to be dead honest. The problem is that they are plain incompetent.

3) Here is the reality check: the problem is not Binny and whatever Kejriwal's secrets he knows, problem is also not the antics of Somnath Bharti or even continuous distractions from Prashant Bhushan. All of it is noise. Problem is Kejriwal's and gang really don't know how to maximize opportunity and returns for the maxim number in Delhi. No announcements on how they will get water and electricity connection to the last slum, minimize distribution losses, ensure comprehensive waste management (both solid and waste water & effluent flowing into Ganga) better security, affordable housing...nothing. There is just no vision or even if it exists in some manifesto, no articulation since these people came to power.

4) I would summarize with saying that I really don't believe anything will change with these folks around. These people are proving that when it comes to governance, honest incompetent people are much worse than wise corrupt people. And that is a very sad state of the matters. Like it or not, history is littered with such examples....Nixon is considered amongst the most effective American presidents since the 2nd world war and he also remains the only president to have resigned in the middle of his term for Watergate.

5) Finally, does this AAP fiasco again prove that majority of the great agitators end up as duds when it comes to governance. Kejriwal's being the latest example. And does this example also prove that what  Nehru did after independence showed the sheer talent of the person to have made an effortless transition from being a fighter on the street to the leader in the secretariat.

I am beginning to wonder if we have a modern day Jyoti Basu or a contemporary Manik Sarkar (called the cleanest and poorest chief minister of India)..people who agitate but really have no vision of how to get things done. Agitation is an end in itself for these Robinhoods.

For new booking, Press 1

And that's what I did hoping that there would be hungry Jet Airways call center reps. ready to lap up new business. No Sir. Doesn't work this way in the world of Naresh Agarwal's organization. I heard the automated voice tell me: Please wait, your hold time is approximately 10 minutes. Are you kidding me!!!

No wonder. This is what happens when competition either is minimal or is pretty meek. This being Bhopal-Delhi sector and only other flights being that of Air India, where would someone go...so I am here, using the wait time with my phone on speaker writing a blog and wondering when there would be real competition in India. At least such horrible service levels would go.

"Your call is important, please stay on the line and someone would attend to you shortly" Already heard it 5 times and wondering how many more would come before I surrender my money to Jet Airways and give my regards. Who knows, if I am not polite, whether they would even let me board.

Swing States, Tendulkar, Manicure, Pedicure, Facial & Aircraft MRO

Too many things happening in my head when I finally agree to visit the parlor which is a regular hangout for Saumya. I somehow have started believing that she would want at least some semblance of aesthetic symmetry from her partner in the event tonight( I am late posting this entry by 2 days!!) as well as on the wedding night on Sunday.

So I sit down and the guy convinces me to get bleaching done as well...I thought bleaching was a term used for clothes...anyways, I will let him do that to my face. He says that bleaching would take out the blackness from my face and facial would give it a glow....did he know that when he was using the word black in somewhat of a denigrating way, thousands of people some ten thousand miles away were beginning to line up to elect a black president for the most powerful nation of the world. So he is blurbing out things and I am resigning to yeses...because now Obama is in my head...what will happen in all these swing states...i think he will pull it off in Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Pennsylvania...what about the big two: Ohio and Florida...and what about Virginia...can he pick either Indiana or North Carolina...

So all these things are happening...and this guy starts applying a thick coat of some white cream on my face...I see that I can keep my eyes open so I decide to start reading the latest edition of the magazine Tehelka. Cover story is about Sachin Tendulkar and some chap called Suresh Menon has written it. I stumble upon a pic in which Sachin is throwing the ball and the caption says something like Sachin is one of the greatest fielder of all time...WHAT THE FU@#...but such is the nonsense that flies around when people really have to evaluate Sachin, that its better that you suck up your rage and move on..

So this cream thing sits on my face for sometime and then the guy removes it...I guess that was the end of bleaching phase...in the meantime, one guy has started working on my feet...I guess the phrase that can be applied is I AM BEING MANNED!! For some random reason, I am beginning to think about the kind of manning that happens in commercial MROs...8000 man hours of work packed in a week in 3 shifts on one airplane...you can imagine the kind of buzz around that baby....too much work I guess that is making me think about these things...but really, it is becoming a situation where I cannot be manned anymore...three people are working on me and too much male breath is hanging in the air...this thing has to end soon...but it doesn't....the work is hardly worth 30 minutes but even in a fixed price thing when your solution really is not worth much, you work with a time material mindset...so anyways, I am done with this ordeal after some 60 minutes wondering how big a win Obama would rack up...

With Obama Elected, A New Phase In My Life Will Start on 5th November

The first polls on 4th November will close at 5:00 Pacific Time. That would be 5:30a.m. on 5th November here in India. In next 3 hours, America would have elected a president it so badly needs after 8 bull headed years of the incumbent. America would be sending a clear message to the world that it is ready to engage again. And hopefully, America would again be providing the leadership that is expected from the most powerful and the biggest economy in the world.

I will be using this auspicious occasion to start a life of my own. While America is electing Obama, I would be busy preparing for the first of several fucntions that will finally culminate into the wedding on 9th November. The function on 5th is called Sangeet and I will be on stage doing some moves myself along with Saumya. The practice has been tough and I even walked out once on the choreographer. But all that is past now. I practiced once, the video is in the camera and I am poised to practice some more. Hopefully, that should save better dancers of the night the embarrasement of being introduced by an awful awful dancer!! Needless to say, this night and other functions to follow would have one star and I would be a kind of side show...but I guess that is ok. I have seen the effort on the bride's side as well as the dresses and there is no way I can match that

Whose Side Are You Mother F***ers Anyway?

Communist Parties in India do it again. They have banned protests by Tibetans in West Bengal. Now that must have taken some convincing to one's own consience for protest happy communists of India. Just today, there were as many as 19 calls for bandhs( sort of a shut down of activities) which were supported by government affiliates in Bengal.The country has lost so much money since independence because of almost ritualistic calls of bandhs that really, these people have no moral ground to tell anyone to not protest.

I have seen with exasperation the continuation of the nonsense that communists have become in India. While the bankruptcy of the ideology was proved by the fall of the Soviets in 1991, these pests still fester in India. Even when you look at the communist system in China, it is hardly what the Bolsheviks envisioned. China has a very open economic system and for obvious reasons, a closed political system. That doesn't seem to worry the communists in India. On agenda for them is to make sure that Indians continue to remain poor people so that they find it hard to understand the crap these people dish out.

Besides the Tibet issue, think about the Indo US civilian nuclear deal which is dying because of, no wonder again, the communists. The reason? Ask Prakash Karats & Yechuris and they will throw such mind boggling logic at you that you would first look at them in wonderment and then feel like hitting them hard in their balls. Same with any other reform this current government has tried( labor being a shining example). It really doesn't matter if the factory is shut down and the capital is stuck there and all the workers remain unemployed. What matters is that the owner should not be able to restructure his workforce to at least provide employment for some!!!

My frank opinion, all the top brass of the communist party, alive and dead, should be treated for treason and then sent to countries they seem to get inspired from: China, Venezuela, Russia et al. These people would know how patient the Indians have been with them when the whips would come out of the closets of the Zintaos, Chavezs and Putins of the world.

"Development Is The Best Contraceptive"

...so said Dr. Karan Singh in the first ever World Population Conference in 1974. India today has a population of close to 1.1 billion and it is increasing everyday. Though the rate at which it is growing has slowed down,it still remains one of the fastest growing populations of the world. But these days, you don't see much talk of population control. I still remember public campaigns on Doordarshan that would urge people to use birth control pills( Mala D) and Copper T(which still remains the most popular medium of birth control amongst Chinese women).

Well, at least two things have happened that has changed the perspective about population control.First, after Karan Singh gave his speech at the conference in 1974, his prime minister decided to do the exact opposite. India's prime minister, Indira Gandhi unleashed her son to enforce the most draconian measures the world has ever seen to control population. Males of fertile age were forced to undergo vasectomy!!
Though these measures did slow down the population, what has truly brought change is the development which India has seen since early 90s. Both income and education levels have gone up and people understand the need to devote their resources on 2 kids rather than 5. Another subtle change that has happened is that the population has suddenly become more of a resource rather than the burden for modern Indian economy. Because of this vast pool of humanity, India, despite rising wages in a lot of sectors, can sustain its cost advantage for a lot of time.

So as such, I believe that as income levels increase, we need not implement any extra measures of population control. What is needed is better approach towards enabling this population so that it can participate in the market economy. More than anything else, India requires massive and efficient investment into primary education and basic health care. The opportunity is big. This young population can become the biggest resource. It can also become the biggest deterrent if does not find the opportunity to participate in the wealth that is being generated.Already there are regions in India where this young population is creating havoc because they are not skilled enough to participate in the new economy.

A Dip In Ganges, A Breakfast of Mangoes and I Am still On My Way Back..

Yesterday was a good end to a wonderful trip. I finally managed to bathe in the cold water of Ganges in Haridwar. People would claim that the water is not clean but I guess that is fine with me. I don't think there is any better experience in India than taking a bath in the cold water from the Himalayan snow....and ambiance is fantastic. So I take my dips along with a lot of other people, say whatever prayers I still remember and enjoy the wonderful chill in an otherwise simmering heat outside the river. I come back after 30 minutes in the river and then have a breakfast of mangoes. The variety is Dashari, predominant variety found in Uttar Pradesh. These taste specially good because I know that soon I will be relegated to tasteless, odourless Mexican mangoes in Ralps/Vons...

On the drive from Delhi to Haridwar, I also got to see the action which Tier 2 cities in India are experiencing. Lots of malls coming up, people thronging to wherever they can spend money and still it seems, they are not getting enough. I thought it was true about my hometown Jaipur as well. People in these cities get exposed to marketing campaigns which people in Bangalore, Delhi also see but when they want to spend the money, only a fraction is possible.If you want to find a 200 rupees/plate Dal Fry in Jaipur, you would either need to go to 5 star hotels or you can count the same 4-5 restaurants on your finger tips.I am convinced that the real action moving forward would be in these cities( at least in terms of return on investment though big cities continue to offer as well)

So at the end of it, I am wondering if I'm ready to sing a prayer from my catholic school which went something like...
"Coming home, coming home,
Nevermore to roam,
Open wide Thine arms of love,
Lord, I’m coming home"

Why Amitabh should be jailed...

I have been a huge fan of Amitabh Bachhan like a lot of you. What has started getting on my nerve is the nonsense he represents these days. His movies are trash and if that was not enough, he had to grab land from poor farmers to prove himself a farmer of yesteryear.

First, lets talk about his screen presence. I haven't seen an actor so completely out of touch with aspects of image management. In fact, I was watching one actor on Larry King recently who has done wonderfully well in managing his persona. Al Pacino said that by being a recluse, he is able to deliver performances without being stereotyped in any particular image. Now think about Amitabh...he endorses cars, cola,hair oil, chocolates, banks and tons of other things. If you try to look up the Indian sky, what might be blocking your view is an Amitabh billboard. And if you are lucky enough to not see Amitabh or hear his voice in narration, someone else from the Bachhan family would be there to screw you over. And really, how many good Amitabh movies have we seen since he started freaking us out with his 30 movies a year schedules?
Just think what would happen when Abhishek and Aishwarya decide to produce a kid( heaven forbids if there are multiple products ) because then whatever roles remain for children will also go. Are we allowed to quarantine recently wed legally? Or can we set Sanjay Gandhi of the gone era loose on Abhishek?

In real life, Amitabh has done even more wonders. Till recent times, he had created an image of a come back man who wouldn't default on his obligations of Amitabh Bacchan Corporation Limited(ABCL). I am sure he was a role model for a lot of people in the way he worked at his age and repaid all the money due. A little initial help from crooks from a particular party helped. But now comes the story about how he tried to prove himself to a farmer to get land in Mumbai for bargain prices.

Mr. Bachhan, why don't you just stop what you are doing and live your remaining days in the glory you have accumulated? I promise no one will miss you!! And like Dolphin Free Tuna or "Manufactured in a Peanut free facility" , would someone come up with a certification called "Amitabh Free Movie"?

If Indian cinema has to start producing quality stuff, then the biggest expenditure for the worst content, Amitabh and his family have to be stopped.

Return of the Indian Brahmin

Elections in the state of Uttar Pradesh have thrown up an interesting equation.Mayawati who is the president of the biggest Dalit party in India became the chief minister with the support of both Dalits and Brahmins( Dalits are people from the backward caste and Brahmins from the upper priest class)

There are two aspects to this alliance that can sustain it:
1) The major contention between a Dalit and Brahmin alliance is the divide created by reservation for government jobs. Since the opening up of private sector, public sector jobs are anyways not that lucrative and Brahmins would not mind leaving them. What they do get, and really want, is political voice. 51 of them got elected on the tickets of BSP, and they can use this new found political strength to stop the slide towards complete marginalization.
2) As Brahmins get political voice, they can start pushing for economic status based reservation. According to the recent census, only around 20% of Brahmins can be classified as rich and in terms of economic status, they are not doing well. Like any other caste, they clean toilets, pull rickshaws and do other menial jobs. Gone are the days when they could get on with their lives by just interpreting the scriptures. Now they would rather become a Narayan Murty then some priest in the village temple.

On a macro level, reservations have had some desired results. Certain opportunities did become available to some of the most backward castes and there are numerous examples of true beneficiaries. India's last president was a Dalit and that probably is a statement in itself. Overall, the level of discrimination has come down though one can still hear incidents that happen in some of the northern states. Accompanying reservations was also the general apathy that Brahmins suffered at the hand of the political parties. It made numerical sense as well. Brahmins constitute less than 5% of Indian population as against Dalits who constitute more than 15% of the population. While southern India already had very strong anti-Brahmin movements, last 20 years have seen the rise of strong anti-Brahminism in North India as well. Uttar Pradesh, which has the largest population of Brahmins, has not seen a Brahmin chief minister for the last 20 years and will definitely not see another one for some time to come.

Apathy of political parties meant that Brahmins lost faith in the political system and stopped going to the voting booths. The number of Brahmins elected in the Hindi belt came down from 20% to 10%. While the idea of wooing backward castes obviously made sense, time has probably come to see if Brahmins also constitute a vote bank. Both political parties as well as Brahmins themselves have realized this fact. While some, like Amarmani Tripathi and before him Sriprakash Shuka, decided to express themselves in militant ways, Brahmins in general have been forced to think tactically and find new partners to gain political voice. If they thought that the political system was corrupt and too lowly for them to consider it, they are now ready to jump into the mud for the political fruits that have been denied to them. Does this augur well for the state of Uttar Pradesh or other states where similar alliance can happen? Definitely not but this was probably their only chance to gain power and change the status-quo.

Its Time For Onion Crisis Again

Prices of onions have started to go up again in India. In some places, they went up from Rs.5/kg to Rs.25/kg and it would be interesting to see what effect it would have this time around. The last time there was such a big spike, it took away the last BJP government which Delhi had. Lets see what it does to the current Congress government of Sheila Dikshit.Elections for state assembly are not that far and considering how important onion is to any Indian preparation, people tend not to forget soon about them.

Oh for an Indian Jon Stewart!!

The more I watch the Daily Show, the more I am convinced that people like Jon Stewart are essential for any democratic system. I am not sure if any past comedian has either had such intellectual capacity or such influence on public discourse. In 2004 presidential elections, he was thought to have an influence on a certain segment of the American population!! He brings such refreshing insights and his own form of accountability through the news media( albeit, through fake news) that you are left wondering what would happen without him.

I also envy that India doesn't have a Jon Stewart or even a Stephen Colbert. The closest people who come to mind from the Indian context would probably be Tarun Tejpal and Aniruddha Bahal. Though they were not the classical comics in the Jon Stewart mould, they had their own moments of glory. Their last big adventure, involving Indian politicians caught on camera asking for money in return for asking questions in the parliament was, actually, quite funny. I have mentioned some of the questions and Aniruddha's explanation in an earlier post called "Hail Cobrapost and Shame to Indian Politicians" under Winds of Change label on this blog. The questions are definitely worth visiting again for their ingenuity and purpose. I have been waiting for the next big scoop from Cobrapost but it hasn't happened till now. They did some stuff on getting Maulavis to issue Fatwas for money but nothing much beyond that. None the less, I have huge faith in the team at Cobrapost and I hope its just a matter of time before something big comes up.

Keep checking http://www.cobrapost.com/. Its an awesome site with some great contributors.

Hail CobraPost and Shame to Indian Politicians

For all of us who forgot the Tarun Tejpals and Aniruddha Bahals of the world, here comes another sting operation. 12 members of parliament are caught taking bribe on camera for asking questions represeting some Cobra Business from Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh.
Besides the obvious implications involved about corruption and morality in public life, Aniruddha Bahal has also used tonnes of humour in this operation. I am using a particular newsitem available on Outlook India so that all the readers of this blog can enjoy it. You can also visit the website of Aniruddha Bahal at www.cobrapost.com

Excerpts from the Outlook Article:
Writing way back in The Hindustan Times on March 20, 2005, Bahal, while arguing that using intrusive gadgetry like hidden cameras for stories could only be justified if the contours of the story were such that tremendous public interest would be served if the story got some technicolour buoyancy. He had then gone on to suggest how

"an undercover investigation into how questions really get asked in Parliament would yield rich dividends. It would be reminiscent of the mid-’90s The Sunday Times "Commons-cash-for-questions" sting in the UK. If it were upto me I would float a dummy company and approach MPs across party lines requesting them to ask questions regarding purported and maybe non-existent business rivals and get it all on tape. Apart from the seriousness of the matter it would generate a lot of humour.

Imagine the comic spectacle of an MP asking something like: "Why was the Gorilla International Pvt Ltd blacklisted by the Railway Ministry in spite of having bid the lowest for Tsu-tsu diesel engines?"

If you thought that was outlandish, consider some of the questions that the hon'ble MPs took money to ask in Parliament from Bahal and company:

Whether the Railway Ministry has placed any order for purchase of the Yossarian Electro Diesel engine from Germany? Is the ministry aware that the Tom Wolfe committee report in Germany has halted its induction into the Euro Rail system?

Whether the Government has given sanction for the seed trial of Salinger Cotton of Monsanto? If so, has a report been prepared on Catch 22 cotton so far?

Has the ministry lifted the 1962 ban it imposed on the book "For whom the Bell Tolls" by Ernest Hemingway and the 1975 ban on Ken Kesey’s book "One Flew Over a Cuckoo’s Nest" and Hunter Thomson’s book "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"? If so, when were the bans removed?

Whether the government is aware that a domestic flying license has been denied to Cobra Cargo for starting operations in India? Since when has Semper Sursum Private Limited, the holding company of Cobra Cargo, applied for the domestic cargo license?

As Aniruddha Bahal himself explains:

And now, that I have paid homage to Yossarian, I am a little upset that Major Major and Milo Mindbinder got left out. But I am happy that the Yossarian brand name has infiltrated the German market in spite of strong opposition from Tom Wolfe thanks to the foresightedness of the Indian parliamentarians. As for the Catch 22 and Salinger cotton strains I hope they are tremendously profitable for farmers and that the lifting of the bans on Hemingway, Thomson and Kesey, long due and deserved, will lead to a tremendous fillip to the publishing industry in general.
And as for Semper Sursum Private Limited I feel that the Union of India should promptly issue them a domestic cargo license, if that facility exists, so that Cobra Cargo can fly the books of Kesey, Thomson, Hemingway, Salinger, Wolfe and Joseph Heller all over India free of charge. Which undertaking Cobra Cargo has given to me personally.

As for the British authors, the motley bunch of Shakespeare, Kinglsey Amis, P.G. Wodehouse, Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, Jane Austen, and many others, who might be fuming at not having made it into the record books of the Indian Parliament, more specially because these American upstarts seem to have made it, I furnish my unqualified apologies and say that there are many mad Allahabadis around and it’s only a matter of time before this lopsidedness is rectified.