My thoughts on circus called Lokpal and Jal Lokpal

Will all the circus going over Lokpal and Jan Lokpal, here is my attempt to understand see what is really going on. For people who want to read the whole stuff, Lokpal Bill 2011, IAC Draft of Jan Lokpal and Collective and Concurrent Lokpal Anti Corruption and Grievance Redress Measures- by the NCPRI here. This is a very long post so read it with patience. My belief, at the end of all this stuff, is that the measures suggested by NCPRI as the most mature measures against corruption because they seem to have thought through the issues and it is not a cow boy style response to a complex problem.

Lokpal

Let's start with the Lok Bill 2011 as introduced by government. It is a pretty long bill, I have tried to summarize it below.

Establishment of Lokpal

Members : Lokpal will consist of a chairperson and eight members, chairperson has to necessarily be a chief justice of supreme court, retired judge of supreme court or a sitting judge of supreme court. Out of the eight members in the Lokpal, five will be judicial members (basically sitting or retired judges of supreme court or chief justice of high courts). Rest of the members could be non judicial members with atleast 25 years of experience in "anti-corruption policy, public administration, vigilance, finance including insurance and banking, law, and management". Chairpersons and members can't be involved with anything like business, any other office, profession.
Appointment Committee : The appointment committee will consist of Prime Minister, Speaker of House, Leader of opposition in Loksabha, Leader of opposition in Rajyasahba, A union cabinet minister, sitting judge of supreme court nominated by CJI, Sitting judge of high court nominated by CJI, eminent jurist nominated by central government, one person of eminence in public life.
Salary : Chairperson's salary would be equal to CJI, Members salary would be equal to other judges of supreme court.
Removal : Chairperson or members can be removed by president on grounds of misbehavior after supreme court holds an inquiry and reports that member may be removed on such ground. The reference can be made to supreme court by President, President on a petition signed by one hundred members of parliament, President on receipt of petition made by a citizen of India and president is satisfied that such petition needs to be referred to supreme court. While the supreme court is deciding on reference, president can suspend the chairperson or member. President can also remove Chairperson or member if they are insolvent, engage in any paid employment, unfit to continue in office by reason of infirmity of mind or body.
After Office : Any member or chairperson can not take up the position of member or chairperson of lokpal, any diplomatic assignment, administrator of union territory, any employment to office of profit under government of India or state, office of president, vice president, member of either house, state legislature, municipality, panchayat for a period of five years.
Investigation Wing
Lokpal will establish their own Investigation Wing. Till the time the Lokpal establishes its own investigation wing, central government shall make available investigation officers from its ministries and departments. Investigation will not be done by any officer below the rank of DSP.
Prosecution Wing
Lokpal will establish a prosecution wing and appoint director of prosecution and other officers. Director of prosecution, after being directed by Lokpal shall file a complaint before a special court and take all necessary steps in relation to prosecution.
Expenses
Expenses of Lokpal shall be charged to consolidated fund of india.
Jurisdiction
Jurisdiction of Lokpal would cover, PM after he demits the office, any person who is or has been a minister of union, any person who is or has been member of either houses of parliament. Group A officer or above, any person who is or has been a chairperson or member or officer equivalent to group A officer in any body, board, corporation, authority, company wholly or partly financed by central government or controlled by it.
Exemptions : PM while in office, members of parliaments' behavior in house, society or association of persons or trust constituted for religious purposes. If anybody is working with a state government then the permission of state government has to be obtained.
Procedure
Lokpal would receive complaint do preliminary inquiry or direct its investigation wing if a prima facie case exists for proceeding in this matter. Preliminary inquiry has to be completed within thirty days.  Lokpal shall afford the public servant an opportunity of being heard.  Lokpal can pass appropriate orders for safe custody of the documents relavent to the inquiry. Website of the lokpal shall publish numbers of complaints pending and disposed by it. No approval or sanction is required by Lokpal for starting investigation.
Competent authority shall initiate proceedings within thirty days of receipt of recommendation against delinquent public servant accused of committing offense under prevention of corruption act and forward its comments on the report including action taken, proposed to be taken within six months of initiation of such proceedings.
Prime Minister, in case of ministers, the speaker in case of a member of the house of people and the chairman of the council of states in case of the member of that council, shall table the report in the house within a week or a week of reassembly if the house is not in session.
Powers
The Lokpal shall have search and seize powers. The Lokpal shall have powers to summon and enforcing attendance of a person and examining him under oath, requiring discovery and production of document, receive evidence on affidavits, requisitioning any public record or copy of it from courts or office, issuing commissions for the examination of witnesses or documents. Lokpal may utilize the services of any officers or investigation agency of central government or any state government.
Lokpal can recommend the central government for transfer or suspension of such public servant from the post. Central government shall ordinarily accept the recommendation of the Lokpal except where it is not feasible for administrative reason with reasons recorded in writing.
Special Courts
Central Government shall constitute special courts as recommended by Lokpal to hear and decide cases arising out of Prevention of Corruption act. Investigating officer of the Lokpal can request any evidence to be collected or facts or circumstances of the case to be examined which is available in a place in a contracting state.
Complaints against chairpersons, members and officials
Any aggrieved party can send a complaint to the president against chairperson, members. President can issue a reference to supreme court if president feels that there is prima facie a case against them.
Complaints against officials of Lokpal have to be investigated by Lokpal itself within thirty days.
Assessment of Loss and Recovery
Any loss to the public exchequer can be recovered from public servant and any other beneficiaries.
Finance, Accounts and Audit
Lokpal shall maintain accounts and forward the same to Central Government for information. Accounts of Lokpal shall be audited by CAG of India.
Declaration of Assets
Every public servant shall make a declaration of his assets and liabilities within a period of thirty days. The assets/liabilities of spouse and dependent children are included in his assets/liabilities.
If a public servant fails to declare certain assets, these would be assumed to belong to him and acquired by illegal means.
Offenses and Penalties
Anybody making false complaint can be imprisoned for minimum 2 years and maximum 5 years. This can be only imposed on the complaint by the aggrieved party.
Miscellaneous
Anything done under good faith by public servant is not covered under this act.
IAC Jan Lokpal
Jan Lokpal is a draft bill prepared by India Against Corruption. The Lokpal established under this bill consists of a chairperson with 10 other members and various officers. The exclusion list of people who can't become member or chairperson of Lokpal are non citizens, anybody against whom charges were framed by a court of law, anybody who is less than 45 years of age, any government officer who has resigned or retired within last two years.
Four members need to be with legal background, which means should have held a judicial office in territory of India for ten years or been an advocate for fifteen years.
Selection Committee
Selection committee consists of Prime Minister of India, Leader of opposition in Lok Sabha, Two judges of supreme court of India and two permanent chief justices of high courts selected by collegium of all supreme court judges, CEC, CAF, all previous chair persons of Lokpal.
The selection committee selects the chairperson and other members from a list prepared by search committee. The search committee shall consist of 10 members, 5 members shall be selected by selection committee from amongst the retired chief justices of india, retired CECs and retired CAGs with impeccable reputation of integrity.  5 members shall be co-opted by search committee.
Search committee shall make a list and put it on a website to invite comments from people. After selecting people, the search committee shall ascertain their willingness.
Powers and functions
The Lokpal shall have superintendence over investigation of offenses involving any act of corruption. He will receive complaints from whistle blowers, receive complaints against any officers or staff of lokpal, recruit investigating officers and get then trained in modern method of scientific investigation, to appoint judicial officers, to acquire modern equipment, to attach property and assets acquired by corrupt means. to prepare award scheme to encourage complaints from within and outside the government to report acts and evidence of corruptions, such other functions as may be necessary for proper implementation of this act.
Powers of officers under Lokpal
The investigating officer shall have all the powers vested in a Police Officer as well as powers conferred on director of enforcement under FEMA and PMLA. The member of Lokpal shall have the power of a civil court.
Proceedings of Lokpal
The Lokpal may regulate the procedure for the transaction. No act or proceeding of Lokpal shall be invalid merely by reason of any defect in the appointment of a persona acting as a member of Lokpal.
Accountability
Lokpal can be removed by president on recommendation of supreme court on grounds of misbehavior, unfit to continue in office by reason of infirmity of mind of body, insolvency or engages in any paid employment outside the duties of his office.
If the complaint is frivolous, the court may impose a fine and one year imprisonment.
Appeals
Any order passed by Lokpal shall be to the writ jurisdiction of High Court under article 226 of constitution  Ordinarily high court shall not stay the order, if it does, it will have to decide the case within two months, else the stay would be deemed to have been vacated and no further stay could be granted.
Audit
The CAG shall conduct an annual financial and performance audit of Lokpal. A parliamentary committee shall do an annual appraisal of the functioning of Lokpal. The Lokpal shall submit a compliance report, mentioning detailed reasons where it does not accept the recommendations of this committee to the parliament.
Complaints Authority
Each state would establish a complaints authority of 5 members that would be selected and nominated by a committee of 3 persons consisting of the chief justice of high court of state, chairman of state lok ayukta, and the chairman of state human rights commission. The complaints received against any officer or staff of lokpal shall be inquired by complaints authority in a public hearing within 2 months of receipt of payment.
Investigation against high functionaries
For investigating, prime minister, members of council of ministers, judge of supreme court or high court, member of parliament, the 7 member bench of lokpal has to grant permission for investigation.
Removal of difficulties
If any difficulty arises in giving effect to provisions of this act, the central government may, on the recommendation of Lokpal, by order, non inconsistent with the provisions of this act, remove the difficulty provided that no such order shall be made after the expiry of a period of 2 years from teh date of commencement of this act.
Timely Completion
Each investigating officer shall endeavor to complete the investigation of an offense within a period of 6 months, in any case the period can not exceed 18 months. Special courts trying offense shall complete the trial within maximum period of 12 months.
Whistle Blowers
Whistle blowers and their identities shall be protected.
Penalties and Punishments against corrupt public servants
The punishment shall not be less than six months of rigorous imprisonment and may extend to imprisonment for life. If the beneficiary is a business entity, fine upto five times the loss caused to public shall be recovered from the accused and may be made from the assets of business entity and from the personal assets of its managing directors if the assets of the accused person are inadequate.
If any company or its directors are convicted for any offense under prevention of corruption act, the company and all the companies promoted by any of that company's promoters shall be blacklisted for any government contract in future.
Any public servant convicted under PCA shall stand removed from his office.
Grievance Redressal System
Each public authority shall prepare a specific charter within a reasonable time not exceeding one year from the coming into force of this act. Each public authority shall designate an official called Public Grievance Redressal officer. The senior most officer will be designated as public grievance redressal officer. It shall be the duty of the grievance redressal officer to get the grievance redressed within a period of 30 days from the receipt of the complaint. A complain to lokpal can be made if grievances are not redressed within 30 days, lokpal after hearing grievance redressal officer would impose suitable penalty not exceeding Rs. 500/- for each day's delay but not exceeding Rs. 50,000/- to be recovered from salaries of Grievance Redressal Officer. There shall be atleast one officer of the Lokpal in each district to receive grievances who shall be called an appellate grievance officer.
Budget
Budget of the Lokpal is les than 0.25% of the total revenue of the government of india.
Seizure and confiscation of property
The special court will pass an order for confiscation of all the assets and properties that have been acquired by the corrupt practices of the convicted public servants.
Public Servants Property Statement
Each public servant shall submit to the head that public authority a statement of his assets and liabilities and those of the members of his family which shall include their sources of income.
If it is found that public servant owns some property that was not disclosed in statement of his assets, the property would be liable to be confiscated by the Lokpal.
CBI
The anti corruption branch of CBI shall form part of investigative wing of the Lokpal.
Briber
If briber gives timely information to the Lokpal about giving of bribe by him with entire evidence for purpose of getting concerned bribe taker caught and convicted he shall be granted immunity from prosecution provided he also relinquishes all the illegitimate benefits which he had received by giving of that bribe.
Collective and Concurrent Lokpal Anti Corruption and Grievance Redress Measures- by the NCPRI
The NCPRI has taken a very different approach to eradication of corruption and suggest a basket of measures to tackle corruption.
It suggests following measures to be taken,

• Strengthen current Lokpal bill draft by government
• Reform existing Central Vigilance Commission Act, 2003
• Strengthen existing Judicial Accountability and Standards Bill
• Creation of National Law for Public Grievances Redressal
• Strengthen existing Public Interest Disclosure and Protection of Persons making the Disclosure Bill 2010

Jurisdiction

• Prime Minister, Ministers and Members of Parliament, Government Servants (Class 1) -- Covered under National Anti corruption Lokpal
• Government Servants (Middle Level) -- Covered under Central Vigilance Commission
• Government Servants (Lower Level) -- Covered under PCA with appellate jurisdiction with CVC and SVC
• Corporates and NGOs -- Covered under National Anti-Corruption Lokpal as co-accused
• Judges of supreme court and high court -- Covered under National Judicial Accountability and Standards Bill

Selection Procedure

The selection committee shall meet periodically to select members of the various commissions constituting basket of collective and concurrent Lokpal Anti Corruption and Grievance Redress Measures. The search committee to provide common pool of applicants from which selection committee will allot members.

NCPRI position paper, PM under Lokpal

NCPRI position paper on Anti-Corruption Lokpal evaluates specific issues of Prime Minister under Lokpal. It identifies specific reasons why prime minister can't be treated as all other government servants and it also makes it clear why PM needs to be under Lokpal. It also articulates a formula that I think is reasonably sound to prevent misuse.

• For launching investigation against PM, the complete bench of Lokpal shall, based on the evidence available, recommend an investigation and make a reference to supreme court which will examine available evidence. Once supreme court concurs with Lokpal, Lokpal after making sure that evidences and witnesses are safeguarded, serve a notice to ruling dispensation and give them 15 days to make alternative arrangement and then continue with investigation. Also Lokpal shall deal with complaints related to actions done by prime minister and not worry about situations where prime minister can be held responsible as head of the government and cabinet but is not directly involved. No Vicarious Liability.

NCPRI position paper, Exclusion of higher judiciary

Since supreme court has the authority to hear complaints against members of Anti Corruption Lokpal, it would be undesirable to have then hear complaints against Supreme Court Judges. An effective Judicial Accountability and Standards Bill should be taken up with National Anti-Corruption Lokpal bill to provide for anti-corruption measures against Higher Judiciary.

NCPRI position paper, Civil Servants

NCPRI suggests that while Anti-Corruption Lokpal shall take up complaints against group A and above officers of central government, rest of the officers should be investigated by CVC. CVC has not been performing very effectively, but the primary reasons of this are identified as limited, almost non-existent investigatory capacity and limitation placed by "single directive" that requires the permission of the central government to be taken before investigation can be undertaken. NCPRI suggests that investigatory capacity of CVC should be strengthened and power to grant permission should be moved to CVC itself.

Considering the PM, Ministers, and senior civil servants are individually supervisory authorities, and the MPs collectively so, as the corrupt are exposed and weeded out the overall tone of governance is bound to improve, making it more difficult and risky for the subordinate officers to continue to be corrupt. A positive message will also go out that even the most powerful are not beyond the reach of the law. It would also go a long way in removing the widespread cynicism that prevails today about how only the small fry get caught while the big fish always escape!

CVC would cover everybody except ministers, class A officers and class IV officers. First two are covered by Anti Corruption Lokpal and the last one is supposed to be covered by existing departmental methods.

Scope

NCPRI position paper, discusses the fact that Lokpal should only restrict itself to the issues related to the corruption. All other grievances needs to be addressed by Grievance redressal commission which will have decentralized offices all over the country.

Towards that end, citizen’s charters would be upgraded and integrated into a service delivery guarantee law, along the lines of the one recently enacted in Delhi and Madhya Pradesh, but with the necessary teeth and public accountability provisions. Apart from citizens charters, basic entitlements and rights would also be codified and their violation treated as a grievance. 

Why we need big retail chains

I an all for small entrepreneurs to do well but small general stores just seem to be taking their customers for a ride. They almost always sell their stuff at mrp or more. Well never have change. Don't care about bringing any efficiencies into their supply chain. When prices go up their prices are first to go up when these come down they still sell at inflated prices.

Why I think "Civil Society" drafting laws is elitist

My understanding of democracy is that it is off the people, for the people, by the people. In any decent sized country, people are too many so they chose their representatives which are legislatures and executive.
In India member of parliament (and assemblies) are law makers and ministers, prime ministers and chief ministers are executive.
Now if people of the country want something to be done, they will chose people who would get those things done and that's how democracy works.
We see ourselves in a situation where a section of society thinks that they are better than rest of the people, who are too naive to understand the stuff that is going on and they assign themselves to be protectors of rest of the people. They go ahead, blackmail the government and become pseudo-lawmakers without any responsibilities. This behavior is driven from the belief that rest of the voters who peacefully go and vote in every election are fools and idiots and do not comprehend bigger and better things.
Just think about it, if government drafts a bad law, after five years they are answerable to the people and can be voted out, but "civil society" is now answerable to anybody.
If the "Civil Society" was really representative of society and believed in democracy, they would just go ahead and fight the next election, get elected and then do the right thing.

Why mainstream media should not report on technology

Here is a new item that I saw in most of the newspapers in India. The headline says:-

Now, access Facebook without internet

If you read little deeper in the article, here it what it says :-

"We are using USSD technology, which will enable users to access Facebook without having a GPRS connection on their phones," said Sumesh Menon, the co-founder and CEO of U2Opia Mobile.

So, the newspaper conveniently has replaced term GPRS with internet. GPRS is not internet and if you are accessing something from facebook, there is very little chance that one can do without using internet in some form.

Why people running recording industry are nuts

When a judge asked representatives of recording industry, their estimates of losses because of a service provided by LimeWire, their answer was between 400 billion dollars and 75 trillion dollars.

The record companies suing Limewire were asked to estimate the damages that should be paid by the file-sharing service. Their estimate? $400 Billion on the low end, and at the high end — $75 trillion dollars. That’s more than the GDP of the entire world.

These guys must be out of their minds really.

Get an Idea Sirji

Indian mobile operator Idea advertises its service with the fact that they are the operator with the least call drops and best call quality.  In the light of that, it is interesting to find out that they actually have highest call drop rates. The minister of telecommunication informed Lok Sabha that among the worst of telecom operators.

As regards the parameter, BSNL, Etisalat and Idea are not meeting the prescribed benchmark," Minister of State for Communications and IT Sachin Pilot said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.

Finally some concrete action against pre natal tests

Even though pre-natal tests related to discovery of gender have been illegal for quite some time in India, I never came across that anybody was punished for violating the law. That changed today. A court in Gurgaon has sentenced five doctors for violating this law.

Five Gurgaon-based doctors have been convicted and sentenced to three-year rigorous imprisonment for conducting pre-natal diagnostic tests at unregistered genetic clinics.

More such action is needed to curb this menace.

Science Minister of Odisha

Here is something interesting, the Science Minister of Odisha state tried to clear 12^th standard examination and failed. That did not deter the chief minister in making him the minister of Science.

Taking no chances, the minister had duly reached the centre 20 minutes before the scheduled start of the paper at 10 am. He was, however, allotted a separate room for the exam. As many as 235 other Plus-II students are appearing for the exam from the same centre

So he was allotted a separate room for the exam. Why? I would say.

Interesting offer by Loop Telecom

With all the fiasco surrounding 2G license auctions, the latest offer by Loop Telecom sounds very interesting. What the company has said that the government can go ahead and auction its license and keep any additional money that it raises. The government should also give a right to match the auction price to the company if it wants to do so.

The proposal, presented to the Supreme Court by Loop's lawyer, Ariama Sundaram, is that the government should auction the airwaves received by Loop. If the auction fetched more than 1,454 crore - which is the amount it paid in 2008 - the government could retain the difference, it suggested. The affidavit goes on to say that the Loop should also have the option of matching the highest bid to preserve its investments.

I think this is a really good solution and would also bring out the fact of what is the real price of a 2G license. Let's hope that supreme court orders this to be done.

Law is an ass (continued)

Another interesting twist to my post yesterday. The guy was declared as alive yesterday by the courts, today the family has hit back saying that he is not the same guy but impostor.

But his family, including his wife and sons — Baljit, Prabhjot and Jagjit — and daughter Sarbjit Kaur, refuse to accept him so and have filed an appeal to challenge the decision. Nasib has alleged that the person, who won the case in Rajpura court, is not her husband, but "another man, who is impersonating as her husband``

Read more: Family challenges man`s claim of being 'alive', call him 'impersonator'

I only hope that they will not another 12 years to decide this. A simple DNA test should resolve this issue. If he has kids, the DNA test could prove if these were his kids. Also if he is an Air Force officer, they must be having some kind of record, atleast finger prints etc.

Why law is an ass

Here is an interesting story. A 70 years old gentleman, retired from Indian Air Force has to fight the courts for 12 years to prove that he is not dead. I mean this sounds like a joke. His family refused to recognize him since they had already moved authorities claiming that he was dead and claiming his pension.

Between 1987 and 1998, he kept moving from one place to another and did not contact his family members, who were residing at their ancestral house in Patiala town.
Bagi stayed at various places in Orissa, Kolkata and also in Dhaka.
When he returned home in 1998, his wife and children refused to recognise him, the ex-air force officer claimed. It was when he approached the IAF authorities that Bagi found his wife had submitted his death certificate there.

Indian Banks on Android Bandwagon

Two of the Indian banks have finally released their Android applications for core banking. Citibank and ICICI Bank have pretty much fully functional apps that would allow you to do everything that you can do using netbanking service.

• ICICI Bank application can be downloaded from Android Market. It is listed as iMobile.
• Citibank application can be downloaded from citibank website. To get the actual URL of the application, please send sms MBANK to 52484

I just hope that SBI and other large bank also join these banks in releasing their banking applications.

How stupid can people get

This is a really interesting new item. Just goes on to show that even people in position of power can be totally stupid.

A computer expert was paid more than 13 million pounds (about $21 million) after he fooled the CIA that he developed software to stop Al Qaeda attacks, a media report said

Looks like that CIA did not ask any questions to this so called expert. How the software will stop terrorist attacks etc. They just blindly believed him.

Officials were so convinced by Dennis Montgomery that, acting on a tip-off from him, former president George Bush ordered passenger jets flying from London to be turned back over the Atlantic amid fears they were being hijacked, Daily Mail reported Sunday.

There was even talk of shooting down the jets because it was feared the 'hijackers' would crash them into US targets in 2003.

And as usual when they were proved to be stupid, they hid under the excuse of confidentiality.

But an inquiry by The New York Times has revealed him as a fraud and, it is claimed, court documents that would prove the software failed are being kept secret by the US Justice Department to prevent embarrassment to spy chiefs.

Sleepy Raina

It seems Suresh Raina missed the team bus ride because he overslept. I don't seem to understand how can something like this happen. I am not in cricket team and I don't travel too many times, but whenever I have to catch a flight, I have never overslept. I have alarm clocks, mobile phone where I put an alarm and get up on time.
Is it just a case of taking things too casually?

What the hell is going on

Here is an interesting new item that I saw today on CNN IBN. The news item is actually a positive. Basically a mall guard saw another person dropping some money and returned it to him.

The incident occurred last Friday when designer Saurabh Sharma, after coming out of DT Mall, sat in his Gypsy right outside the complex.
"While sitting in my vehicle, I somehow dropped Rs 60,000 that I was carrying in the denomination of Rs 1,000. As I moved away from the complex, the security guard Ram Ashish appeared to have noticed that I had dropped something. Later, I saw him following my vehicle. I stopped and found that he wanted to return the cash which I had dropped there," said Sharma.

My problem with this story is little different. Who really carries Rs. 60,000/- in his pocket, drops it and does not even notice it. Even in Rs. 1000/- notes, 60K is lot of notes that can not just slip out. It seems to be that some people just have too much money and really don't miss it at all.

Anyway, who am I to talk about it.

Curious case of Dr. Binayak Sen

I don't know whether the judgement in Dr. Binayak Sen case is fair or not. I don't know all good or bad that he did. But current competition in intellectuals to support him seems very unfair and in my view doing more harm to his cause then good.

A day after 40 Nobel laureates from 12 countries called for Dr Binayak Sen’s immediate release, the Chhattisgarh High Court on Thursday denied bail to the civil rights activist. Sen, charged by the state government with sedition, will now appeal against the high court order in the SC.

Do these intellectuals expect courts to agree to their demand and be seen to be giving out an judgement based on pressure put on them. I don't think that is going to happen. The best these people could do is to leave him along and if the judgement was really unfair, based on the merit of evidence, it will be quashed by the higher courts.

Is DVD rental business dead in India

With more and more DTH operators providing pay per view (or pay and view for a day) type of service (like Showcase for Tata Sky), I find movie rental businesses like Seventymm.com completely useless.

For last few times, whenever I tried to get a DVD delivered to my home, the movie was available the very next day (or the same day) on Showcase. Recently the same thing happened in the case of movie "The Social Network".

Movie rental guys, get limited number of DVDs and even if you try to get it on the day of the launch, it is very hard that you will get it, while services provided by DTH providers are available for everybody.

So I am letting my seventymm account expire.

Too much of a good thing

I have heard a lot about Kota IIT coaching institutes, finally it looks like happy story is going to end.

Virtually all coaching classes in Kota, including the popular Resonance, were started by former faculty at Bansal Classes. And now, seven teachers from Resonance, including three heads of department (HoDs), have formed a brand new coaching class called Rise.

It is also very interesting to see the reaction of the students to the whole story.

Arpit and Rishabh said they were willing to forgo the Rs 76,000 they had paid to Resonance as "money wasn't the main concern while preparing for IIT-JEE".

I have always believed that education is the mother of all business opportunities in India, but this just proves it further, students are willing to forgo Rs. 76,000/-, it may not be a fortune but still a lot of money.

Now, China to read, censor SMSes

Here is an interesting new article. What I found interesting is the typical government wording of the article.

Nine government departments have listed 13 undisclosed criteria to judge text messages. An automatic filtering system will pounce on improper messages by honing in on key words.

Common sense is so uncommon

Here is an article about an academician who has been offered a post in Obama administration's India department. She has been know to be anti-India in previous instances. What is interesting is her cribs with what India is doing.

I think it is unfair to dismiss the notion that Pakistan's apprehensions about Afghanistan stem in part from its security competition with India,' she had then said, and noted, "Having visited the Indian mission in Zahedan, Iran, I can assure you they are not issuing visas as the main activity. Moreover, India has run operations from its mission in Mazar and is likely doing so from the other consulates it has reopened in Jalalabad and Kandahar along the (Pak-Afghan) border.'

"Is likely doing so from the other consulates", if that is the quality of academic research then Elmer Fudd is a top class researcher.

'India is also building schools on a sensitive part of the border in Kunar, across from Bajaur,' she said, alleging, 'Kabul's motivations for encouraging these activities are as obvious as India's interest in engaging in them

So now building schools is a bad activity. I am really amazed how out of touch with reality people can be and argue to further their own agendas.

  

A lesson for everybody

Here is a really sad news. Just goes to prove that one can not be too careful in this materialistic world anymore.

The worst nightmare of working parents entrusting the care of their children to nannies became a reality for a city couple recently.
As soon as they would kiss their little one goodbye, the nanny would feed him and get him ready - for a day of begging on the streets of Bangalore. Instead of milk, the baby was fed sedatives; instead of the clothes carefully put out by his parents, she would dress him up in rags.

Looks like it is really a kaliyuga.

A school, buses and traffic police

As I went to the school today, I found that there were no buses that are generally parked on the street. On enquiring, I found that traffic police has told that no bus can stop on that road before 3 PM. The school closes at 2:50 PM.
So now here is a situation where all the buses don't have a place to stop and are going in circles on that road. Then the school bell rang and all the kids came running out and all of a sudden there is complete mess since the busses are still not there and kids have no clue where to go.
So here is a traffic jammed road with hundreds of kids on road and tens of vehicles honking behind buses that are trying to park themselves next to the road. All this because traffic police decide that buses can only park from 3 PM in place of earlier time of around 2:40 PM.

Elevator pitch

I enter the apartment elevator to go to the top floor from basement and elevator started, but it promptly stopped at floor 0, i.e. the ground floor. One of the maids was standing there and tersely asked me you want to go up or down, I replied "Up".

She got into the elevator and again tersely asked "Which floor" and I am wondering shouldn't she just press the button for her floor and leave it at that.

I saw an ass today

I have always maintained that there should be a professional certification for parenting and only after that people should be allowed to procreate. Every now and then I see examples that makes view stronger on this. Something similar happened today.
I went to the gym for my usual exercise routine and a father and a son (a kid of approximately 8-9 years walked in). The kid was playing tennis and father called him to join him in gym. The gym instructor also advised him that too much of formal exercise is not good for small children.
Then the drama started, Father pushed the kid on to the treadmill and started it at a speed, the kid started running. After around a minute, the kid is begging and pleading the dad that he wants to get off the machine but the father is not listening. It went on for around 5 minutes and then finally the kid jumped off the machine.
Then the father asked the kid to do push ups. The kid is not able to do push ups and father is reprimanding him and forcing him to push ups.
It went on for quite some time before both of them pushed off. I am sure this is not really the way to inculcate physical fitness in kids.Anyway, just my rant, who am I to say anything about peoples' parenting skills.

Havelock Islands in Andamans

Finally I made the trip to Andaman islands, two days in Port Blair and three days in Havelock islands. It is really a paradise. The beaches are way better than anything that I have seen. Here my trip report.
23-September-2009 06:36 pm
Ready to leave for airport. Walking down to the neighborhood store for last minute purchases related to anti-mosquito cream and some other stuff which was missed over the weekend. All packed up and ready to go.
23-September-2009 07:28 pm
Left residence for the airport. Very anxious to see what is in store in next one week. Got to say that this is the trip that I am most excited about in a long time.
23-September-2009 08:08 pm
Peak hour office returning traffic, taking more time them usual. Makes me more in the mood to get away from all the mess for at least a week.
23-September-2009 09:58 pm
Finally at the airport. Took two hours to reach. Airline counters have a queue, although not a very large one. Check in takes around 20 minutes. I am not sure if it is the vacation of the air travel has picked up in last few months. May be we are seeing the early signs of end of recession.

23-September-2009 10:58 pm

Flight departure time is 11:20 pm. They are still no mood to announce boarding. They are just thinking that if they don't tell, nobody will know. I will give them some more time and see what they have to say. There are many flights delayed, there is a huge slanging match going on at GoAir counter. Apparently customers are very upset at continuing delays in the flight. They never announce the whole delay in one go. They just keep on increasing it 20 minutes at a time.

23-September-2009 11:19 pm

Finally the time has come and they have not announced the boarding, so I decide to go and ask them. They politely tell me that the incoming plane from Chennai is grounded because of technical problem. I am getting worried. If they cancel this flight, my whole schedule is going to get messed.

I go and ask them, if there is any other option that I can take because I have a connecting flight 4:55 AM out of Chennai. They tell me not to worry since they are carrying many onwards international passengers, they will definitely depart no later then 12 AM.

24-September-2009 11:52 pm

I again go and ask them, they tell me that the incoming flight has finally arrived. Things have started looking up. Finally my friend who had left by train earlier in the day from Bangalore also called up and told me that they have reached airport in Chennai.

24-September-2009 12:04 am

Finally we take off from Bangalore to Chennai. Feeling really sleepy.

24-September-2009 01:13 am

Reached Chennai. Very sleepy terminal. People have made makeshift beds out of chairs and are sleeping. I have to kill another 3 hours before next flight. Looking for some Tea Coffee, nothing is there. No food to eat.

24-September-2009 03:46 am

Security check in done for the Port Blair flight. Finally get a coffee, waiting for boarding and departure.

24-September-2009 04:36 am

Flight takes off. It is kind of a longish flight. Takes two hours to reach Port Blair. They serve some snacks. Eat and sleep for a while. The bizarre thing was that they don't carry blankets and pillows. I was surprised at that. Even Jet Airways has then and KF calls itself "The King of Good Times". Anyway, you make do with what you have.

24-September-2009 07:19 am

The approach to the Port Blair airport is truly amazing. You clearly see the natural setup in which the airport is located. It is raining and I am worried that it should not spoil the party for us. We land, the airport is barely functional. You collect the baggage and get out. Barefoot at Havelock people are here to receive us. It is comforting to know that they knew that we were coming and they know what needs to be done. They take us into two SUVs to the TSG Emerald View hotel in Port Blair. We reach the hotel, check-in.

TSG Emerald View hotel is not a great hotel. It is cheap and functional but currently lot's of construction activity is going and it is not really pleasant experience. We chose this hotel because it is part of Barefoot at Havelock's package during return journey.

We decide to do some local sight seeing. Get a cab from hotel and head out in the town. The first stop is the aquarium. It is really good aquarium with lot's of stuff but they don't allow still camera photography. You can take videos.

We go to a beach in Port Blair, just walk around and head to Cellular Jail.

24-September-2009 04:04 pm

Cellular jail is an experience in itself. One can read many stories about it, but to visit it and see the actual stuff is really chilling. Well maintained monument. Visited the Gallows, looked at the Veer Savarkar's cell.
Some interesting stuff from Cellular Jail. From the pre-independence India, most of the people who were sent to this jail were from undivided Bengal. Here are some of the top numbers.

• Bengal -- 338
• Punjab -- 73
• UP -- 10
• Bombay -- 3, two of these were Savarkar brothers.

Waiting for light and sound show but apparently because of the bad weather the show has been called off.
No choice but to head back to hotel.

 Finally we hit the bed, tomorrow early morning we have to leave for Havelock. The ferry leaves at 06:00 AM.

25-September-2009 04:55 am

We are all ready to leave for the port. The Barefoot pick up is still not here and it is raining heavily. Finally our pickup arrives just in time, we put the luggage and leave for the port. Barefoot people have arranged for tickets and making sure that we board the ferry. The car has to drop us a the gate of port and it is almost half a km. walk in to the port. It is raining heavily. We have two umbrellas and each of us are carrying two pieces of luggage along with making sure that kids follow us. Finally we find the ferry and board it. Most of us are drenched. Kids are not happy at being completely drenched at such early hour in morning.

Barefoot people make sure that luggage is in the boat, put it in luggage shelf and tell us where it is. The boat is ready to leave.

25-September-2009 06:12 am

Ferry leaves Port Blair. It is called Barantang बाराटांग.

25-September-2009 06:58 am

There is no cellular coverage inside the boat but as I reach the upper deck of the boat, there is some spotty coverage. I even tried to do a ustream live broadcast. Some of it did reach the cloud. Here it is. I took lots of pictures en route to Havelock.

25-September-2009 08:48 am

We reach Havelock Jetty. Again the trusty Barefoot people are there to pick up the stuff and guide us to where ever we need to go.

As we are driving from jetty to the resort, the Airtel coverage just vanishes as we reach the resort. We will find out in next few days that the coverage is really not there in the resort but in the Havelock town one can get some decent coverage. Atleast one can send a tweet and check facebook once in a while.

25-September-2009 09:15 am

We reach the resort and check in process is really easy. As soon as we reach, they pick up our luggage and take it to cottages and give us a information form that we need to fill and return back to them. We are advised to have breakfast right away since it is about closing time. We go to the cottages, change and head back for breakfast.

The breakfast is decent, there is choice of veg/non-veg stuff. We eat an assortment of aloo paratha, corn flakes, toast.

The manage of the resort, Julio, meets us at this time and welcomes us and promises us to tell us some dos and don'ts related to the resort in the night.

25-September-2009 11:30 am

We head to the beach right away after the breakfast and spend next 2 hours on the beach. Kids love the beach. This is the best beach that I have been to in my life. The beaches in Goa almost seem over rated compared to this one. The water the clean, not much crowd and no vendors trying to sell stuff to you.

Finally the rain strikes and we head back to the cottage,

25-September-2009 09:00 pm

Walk to the resort restaurant. We order some food. Resort manager Julio joins us and lets us know that resort is full of ants, snakes (even the poisonous ones) and other wild life. Let's us know what we need to do if we find any of these and the need to be careful.

While we are sitting in the restaurant, Diya from the Barefoot Eco Tours drops in. We make a plan to organize the Snorkeling or Kayaking depending on how the weather is.

We finally go to sleep at around 10:30 pm.

26-September-2009 06:21 am

We get up early in the morning all ready to go to Snorkeling but it has been raining really heavily. We are informed by the Eco Tours people that they  are cancelling Snorkeling trip because the rain is really heavy and it is not possible to do that. So we do the breakfast and just roam around the beach and resort pretty much whole day.  Towards the night we spot a snake near the reception stairs and that becomes the spectacle. There are pictures in the slideshow below.

Meanwhile we call up the Scuba people at Barefoot Scuba  and arrange for Scuba Dive to be scheduled for next day. They inform us that even though it is good that people know swimming, for people who have no knowledge of swimming, they have a course called Discover Scuba, at the price of Rs. 4000/- per person where they will teach and do a Scuba Dive. For children between 8 to 13 years, they have a program called Bubble Maker at the price of  Rs. 2000/-.

27-September-2009 06:15 am

We have to reach the Scuba Diving Center before 09:00 am, so we get up early, get ready, do breakfast and take the transport to the diving center. Since Barefoot Scuba and Barefoot resort, both are owned by same entity, they can facilitate the arrangements and even billing. For example the bills for Scuba can be sent and added to your resort bill. Since paying by credit card is a pain in Havelock, it is better that you do it only once.

27-September-2009 09:00 am

We reach the dive center and meet our instructors, Anne and Romila. We need to first fill up the forms and complete other formalities like medical declaration. Once this is done, the presentation start. We are explained the concepts of water pressure, equalization, sign language to be used while underwater and other stuff.

Then we go and have a look a the equipment. How it is to be used. Once the theory part of the training is done, we depart in a boat to Elephant Beach where actual exercises and dive would occur.

Fortunately the weather is good so the boat ride is not very rocky and we take around 40 mins to reach the elephant beach. The boat is anchored and the first two individuals get ready for dive. I decide to go in the first round.

We get into the Scuba gear, the life jacket, cylinder and other stuff. The slowly we practice things like how to breathe through the oxygen mask, how to take out water if it fills the mask, equalization, how to find the mask if it falls off within the water.

All of these take approximately 30 minutes and we two groups, me and my instructor (Anne) and my friend and his instructor  (Romila) take off. The Scuba itself is awesome. You  get insight into the ocean life that you never could fathom existed. I was carrying a water proof camera (Olympus Tough 8000) and I take some pictures from my dive.

We were total 9 people, six adults and three children, of which six adults and one child was going to do Scuba. So while others were doing scuba, I could roam around the beach and take photos. There is pretty amazing place. One of the beaches that was impacted heavily by the Tsunami and one can see uprooted trees all over the place.

Finally around 4PM we start back to Cafe Del Mar where the Barefoot Scuba offices are situated. The Barefoot Scuba team brought the lunch for us but all of it had eggs so we decide to go back and have our lunch. We order some Aloo Parathas and Noodles when we reach back there and then head back to our resort.

28-September-2009 09:00 am

Today is the time for us to head back. We are informed by the reception that we have get out of our cottages by 9 AM. We request them to atleast leave one cottage for us till 1 PM which they promise but finally all their guests arrive on time and we have to leave the cottages for us. This was the only down side in otherwise spectacular service of Barefoot Resort. By design they force people out of their rooms by 9 AM and there is no way to get out of Havelock before 2 PM. So you have to just kill time by just roaming around. We went to the beach but when we came back, they did not have any common shower facilities except an open air shower.

Anyway, we had our lunch and left the resort. We are booked into the 4 PM ferry and we decided to pick up some T-shirts from the dive center so we left at 2:45PM from resort.

28-September-2009 09:00 am

The Barefoot staff puts us into the ferry with our luggage. The ferry that we are taking for the return journey is "North Passage" and is much better ship. It is air conditioned, unlike the other ship and it takes us back to Port Blair in around 2 Hrs.

Barefoot Team was present at the port and they pick us up and drop us to the Hotel TSG Emerald. We check into the hotel.

Since it is Dussera, we decide to take a walk around the hotel but Dussera festivities are very low key around the hotel so we just go to sleep.

29-September-2009 06:00 am

Barefoot people show up at the hotel at 05:45 am to drops us back to the airport. We leave for the airport. Air India pilots have been on strike for last three days. Even though we are booked in Kingfisher Airlines, we still decide to reach there early fearing rush.

The airport has a half a kilometer queue but they are letting King Fisher passenger go out of turn since most of the passengers in the queue are Air India passengers and they are not sure if Air India will come to the Port Blair today or not.

29-September-2009 07:15 am

We take off in Kingfisher flight to Chennai and land in Chennai at around 09:30AM. Finally our great vacation to Andamans ends. It was really a fantastic place to visit.

In the end, we felt that the Port Blair program should be planned to be around 10 days, since we missed many things in Port Blair and we completely missed Nicobar islands. Anybody planning vacation to Andaman & Nicobar Islands so keep that in mind. Nicobar Islands are around 8-10 hours away from Port Blair and one has to stay somewhere there to really go around these islands.

Next time when we visit, we will probably plan it that way.

Another moron in this world

The world is full of morons and idiots and some of these characters sometime prove, why there needs to be capital punishment in this world.

A 27-year-old man has been arrested for throwing his newborn baby girl into a river in Durg district of Chhattisgarh, police said on Friday.

"Premjeet Deshmukh confessed that he tossed his week-old girl into Shivnath river as he was expecting a baby boy. He was arrested late on Thursday," superintendent of police (Durg) Dipanshu Kabra said.

What is wrong with BSNL

I have always wondered that with the largest network reach, probably cheapest tariffs and probably one of the most happening brand ambassador, why is BSNL not prospering like other cellular providers. I finally found my answer.
I recently felt the need for an additional mobile connection with a GPRS plan attached and because of some recommendations, I decided to take a BSNL plan. So as usual, I went to their website which mentioned that I need to go to a CSC (customer service center). I found which one was nearest to my address and went there. As usual I carried sufficient cash, cheque book, credit card, address proof, identity proof.
I reached the office and looked for the person "responsible for mobile". BSNL Madam showed up after half and hour after a pan and chai. Here is how my conversation with him went.

• Me: I need a new mobile connection.
• BM: Do you have a BSNL land line connection?
• Me: No, I don't have but my wife has
• BM: The lady will have to come
• Me: But I have address proof.
• BM: No.

So I decided that I will come back with my wife and take the connection. I went home started looking for BSNL bill, found that the landline bill has not come for last two months, I never noticed it because I pay it online so except for address proof I don't need the phone. So I went to BSNL office once again and same BSNL Madam was there.

• Me: I need a new mobile connection
• BM: Do you have BSNL landline
• Me: I have but the bill has not come for last two months, I can tell you the phone number
• No: Come with the bill

I went back again, and one of those days, I found a two months old BSNL bill. I thought now I can go and get the connection.

• Me: I need BSNL connection, I have filled the form, my wife has  signed
• BM: The lady will have to come here

I thought she seems in good mood, so I asked my wife to come immediately. She took 45 minutes to arrive while I whiled away my time chatting to the BSNL security guard.

• BM: Show me the original identity proof, she never asked this before but fortunately it was there so we showed.
• BM: Do you have BSNL land line.
• Me: Yes, I have already told you 4 times
• BM: Where is it, I need a copy
• Me: It is attached to the form

BM looks at it and then declares, I don't where it this address you will have to go to this address's CSC. I said why did not you tell me this 45 mins back when I came and you told me that my wife has to be here for the connection.

• BM: We don't work like that
• Me: What do you mean
• BM: We go one by one
• Me: Atleast, can you tell me where is the CSC I need to go to
• BM: I don't know
• Me: How can I find out
• BM: I don't know

At this time, I realized that I was being too optimistic. This was not going to happen anyway. I tore off the form and dropped in in a dustbin.

Whenever I have asked my friends who work for BSNL the reasons of poor performance of BSNL, they have always blamed the government regulations related to tender etc and because of that they can't order equipment on time. I think they are wrong. The reason BSNL is not performing well is because of its employees who still live in the times when you had to beg to a SDO(T) or AE for a telephone connection and if is satisfied with your growling, he may give you one.
India might have been liberalized but the citizens of India have still not been liberalized from BSNL. I don't think the mindset can be changed.

End game for Renault F1 circus

So finally Renault has decided to not contest race fixing charges related to last year's Singapore GP.  Piquet had alleged that he was asked to crash his car so that Alonso can win the race.

Both Managing Director, Flavio Briatore and its Executive Director of Engineering, Pat Symonds, have left the team.

Sad to see it end this way.

Google logos or an impending announcement

Google has been showing flying saucers and extra terrestrial logos whole of September. On September 5, Google changed the logo to a flying saucer dragging away the O in google followed by a tweet ".12.12 25.15.21.18 15 1.18.5 2.5.12.15.14.7 20.15 21.19" which means "All your O are belong to us".

Now google has changed the logo to a logo of crop circles being drawn by a flying saucer.  This was followed by a tweet "51.327629, -0.5616088" which seems to be a set of coordinates pointing to Horsell in Surrey, England which was the town that was the center of initial invasion in H.G. Wells’ War Of The Worlds.

What makes it really interesting is the fact that Well's birthday is September 21 and because of that there is a buzz that Google is going to make some announcement on that day. Is it going to Chrome OS or availability of Wave, Something to do with Android or something different. Let's wait and see.

F1, Renault and cheating

Renault always seem to have a knack of getting into shady situations as far as their F1 team is concerned. Last year they were in the thick of Mclaren, Ferrari issue this year the Piquet has caused the stir by claiming that he was asked to crash so that team mate alonso can win the race.

After the meeting with Mr Symonds and Mr Briatore, Mr Symonds took me aside to a quiet corner and, using a map, pointed me to the exact corner of the track where I should crash. This corner was selected because the specific location of the track did not have any cranes that would allow a damaged car to be swiftly lifted off the track, nor did it have any side entrances to the track, which would allow a Safety Marshall to quickly move the damaged car away from the track. Therefore, it was felt that a crash in this specific position would be nearly certain to cause an obstruction on the track which would thus necessitate the deployment of a safety car in order for the track to be cleared and ensure the safe continuation of the race.

It does seem like the word of one person against another but the statement is too graphic to be just discarded. Also the other rumours that the engineering chief of Renault gave evasive replies further points to the fact that something is wrong.

56-year-old Symonds, whose team tenure dates back to its Toleman days in the early 80s, admitted that in a pre-race meeting with Piquet in Singapore, the Brazilian driver made the suggestion of a deliberate crash.

But when asked if he knew Piquet was still planning to crash on lap 14 when the race began, Symonds declined to answer.

When probed about Piquet's claim that, no longer in boss Flavio Briatore's presence, he showed the driver on a layout map on which corner he should crash, Symonds again said he did not want to answer.

He also gave a similar answer when the FIA interviewer asked about Piquet's claim that the crash site was selected due to the lack of recovery cranes.

The additional leaked information on Thursday also showed that Fernando Alonso was brought in for his pitstop before the Piquet crash two laps early, with more than 8kg of fuel left in his tank.

The Spanish driver's race engineer was at the time concerned about the change of strategy, to which radio evidence shows Symonds replied: "No, no, it's going to be alright."

That's what is interesting about F1, even when they don't race, it is better than a hollywood thriller.

Rich people, poor people

So H1N1 has gripped the country.  It is sad that this happened. Following points that I believe are important in this regard.

• I think NRIs are responsible for bringing this epidemic to the country. People don't follow quarantine rules. There have been cases of people running away from quarantines.


• On TV one sees journalists creating panic, running like headless chickens.

What worries me most is everybody is just panicked by H1N1. As of today there are 8 unfortunate people who have died. But there is absolutely no or very little mention of Munger. Munger has 30 people dead with cerebral malaria. Why there is no media scrutiny? I believe it is just a case of rich people and poor people. Just because people that are dying in munger are poor and H1N1 people are comparatively rich with access to media, their voice is being ignored.

Infosys issues travel advisory to pune

Infosys has issued a travel advisory to its employees to restrict travel to pune in the light of swine flu. Great step, but I don't remember them issuing a travel advisory to US or Mexico where all this started.

EVM/EC and attention whores

The circus with electronic voting machine has come full circle. I know little bit of technology and I always believed that the fact that the voting machines are made by only two public sector manufacturers and has a set of handling procedures that are physically verifiable makes it pretty much tamper proof.

• The voting machine has a physical lock that makes sure that it has not been physically opened.


• The voting machine has the software code in a non-writable ROM makes sure that once the software has been validated, it is tamper proof


• The voting machine is a unconnected device i.e. there is no chance of somebody hacking into it remotely.


• The voting machine has no knowledge of the order of candidates on the machine. This is just a manual mapping that is made outside of technology. The machine in the end just tells the number of votes for candidate at each position and the candidate to position mapping is an offline mapping and is maintained using a ballot paper look alike.

The only way the voting machine can be hacked with is somebody opens it, replaces the software code running. Even that is harder it do with well defined results because the the order of candidates on the machine is assigned much closer to the polls.

When somebody as responsible as Saigal who has been a senior bureaucrat in government makes an alligation, people will have to take him seriously and political parties will take him seriously because it is a question of bread and butter for them. But when election commission of India gave them an opportunity to demonstrate the tamper-ability of the machines he did not do much.

Saigal refused to demonstrate the points raised by him, using any of the 100 actual ECI-EVMs he was offered to choose from. He wanted certain arrangements for him and his team of hardware and software professionals from a private company before coming to demonstrate about the tamperability of the EVM. He also offered to show what he claimed as possibility of tampering using his personal computer and a look alike of the ECI-EVM, that was privately manufactured, and is also seen on several TV channels.

It was pointed out to Saigal that the ECI-EVM was not at all comparable with what he had brought. EC officials declined to deal with, what appeared to be an imitation machine, so as to avoid creating any confusion in public mind.

So in nut shell, he never claimed that voting machines can be tampered with, what he claimed that one can make a machine that looks like EVM and that machine can be tampered with. Nobody will argue with that. Actually I will even make another allegation that somebody can make a machine that looks like a EVM and it can be used to fly rockets.

Anyway, the net result of election commission hackathon was as follows.

On Saturday, the Election Commission asserted the infallibility of EVMs citing the failure of persons who had claimed the machines could be tampered with. This has come after a demonstration of 100 EVMs in the EC office that lasted for six days from August 3. These EVMs were randomly obtained from 10 states and kept for scrutiny to establish fallibility. The outcome of this exercise was that none of the persons, who were given the opportunity, could actually demonstrate any tamperability of the ECI-EVM, in any of the 100 machines put on display. They either failed or chose not to demonstrate, said an EC statement.

I hope this matter can be put to rest now. But one never knows.

Stupid main stream media again

The main stream media in India never ceases to amaze me. Here is a news item which has been reported in most of the news papers of the country. The headline reported by the media is as follows.

Kicking daughter-in-law or divorce threat not cruelty: SC

Now, what the supreme court seems to have really said was

Allegations that appellant No 2 (mother-in-law) kicked the respondent (daughter-in-law) with her leg and told her that her mother is a liar may make out some other offences but not the one punishable under Section 498A

and further said

Similarly her allegations that the appellant No 2 poisoned the ears of her son against the respondent; she gave two used lady suits of her daughter to the complainant (daughter-in-law) and has been giving perpetual sermons to the complainant could not be said to be offences punishable under Section 498 A

Now with very little knowledge of english that I have, I can only figure out that supreme court said that these acts are not punishable under section 498A, but the great media makes it out as if supreme court is saying that "it is not cruelty".

What is surprising that not only one news paper but the other one also reports almost an identical headline for the story.

D. E. Knuth and his phd

I am always amazed by the story of how D. E. Knuth got his phd. Knowing many friends who have done or are trying to do a doctoral degree completed, it is just amazing how he did it. Here is the ACM interview where he talks about it.

• The "Art" of being Donald Knuth


• Donald Knuth: A life's work interrupted

I got a listing from a guy at Princeton who had just computed 32 solutions to a problem that I had been looking at for a homework problem in my combinatorics class. I was riding up on the elevator with Olga Todd, one of our professors, and I said, "Mrs. Todd, I think I'm going to have a theorem in an hour. I am going to psyche out the rule that explains why there happen to be 32 of each kind." Sure enough, an hour later I had seen how to get from each solution on the first page to the solution on the second page. I showed this to Marshall Hall. He said, "Don, that's your thesis. Don't worry about this block design with =2 business. Write this up instead and get out of here." So that became my thesis. And it is a good thing, because since then only one more design with =2 has been discovered in the history of the world. I might still be working on my thesis if I had stuck to that problem. But I felt a little guilty that I had solved my Ph.D. problem in one hour, so I dressed it up with a few other chapters of stuff.

Atleast UP police redeems itself

Few minutes after I wrote this post about the UP police, they have managed to eliminate the dacoit.  Now only if WB police also can do something, I would be happy.

IPL, Fatigue and Mccullum

Indian cricket team's coach mentioned that IP fatigue could be one of the reasons of the team's pathetic show in WT20. Everybody seems to have pounced upon him. I believe what he says does have sense. There never seemed to be any sense of coordination in the team, most of the people were not 100% fit and both of these were major reasons of our defeat and could be caused by IPL's excessing cricket too close to the world cup.

Anyway, people may agree or disagree with the coach but the interesting comment came back from Mccullum. He said that the fatigue theory is rubbish. I can understand that. Only those people would be fatigued who were doing hardword. Mccullum, who lead KKR actually were passengers so for them it was really a jolly ride and that is probably one of the reasons he believes that fatigue can't be the reason of team's bad performance.

India's tryst with deflation

So the inflation numbers reported for this week stand at -1.61%. Technically that is deflation. I hope now my home loan rate would come down.

Pathetic police work -- Two examples

So today I saw two examples of pathetic police work in two different states of the country. The first one being the UP police which engaged in an encounter a single dacoit Ghanshyam Kewat alias Nanhu with 400 police personnel for overl 47 hours and finally he managed to escape.

"Company commander PAC Beni Madhav Singh and constables Shamim and Iqbal were killed in the encounter while IG, PAC VK Gupta, DIG Chitrakoot SK Singh and four others -- Navendra Singh and Akram of STF, Dileep Kumar Tiwari and Rajendra Singh -- were injured," the officer said on Wednesday.

The second incident is the incident in Lalgarh involving local administration and Maoists.  This seems to be total breakdown of any kind of administration in that place. Everybody is doing whatever they want.

Maoist gunmen on Wednesday emerged from their stronghold in jungles along the Bengal-Jharkhand border for an audacious strike near Jhargram town, killing a local CPM leader and two activists in full public glare. As Trinamool Congress activists and Maoists have battled to capture turf from weakened CPM cadres, nearly 25 people have been killed, mostly CPM workers and supporters. At many places, the anti-CPM forces have been supported by locals who see the CPM as a receding force in the face of Mamata Banerjee's electoral surge.

Atleast one news paper claimed that in the past police just outsourced the security to local CPM cadre and finally maoists just had enough and when the came the police, already having abdicated, was nowhere to save them.

The murders today underline how administrative institutions, systematically subverted over the years by the CPM, collapse when there’s threat of a power-shift reducing party cadres to sitting ducks. Nothing illustrates this better than the story of those who were killed: 27-year-old Tinku Mahato; Anil Mahato, 48, the branch committee secretary of the CPM, and 23-year-old college student Abhijit Mahato.

An MA in Sanskrit from Vidyasagar University, Tinku was recently employed as a “para-teacher” in the village primary school. But Tinku Mahato was also the secretary of a “security syndicate” that employed nearly 200 youths of the village as security guards. The other two killed, Anil Mahato and Abhijit, were also key members of this syndicate. Their job: to provide security cover to vehicles on National Highway 6 as they passed the vulnerable Lodhasuli forest stretch where armed robbery is common.

This should have been the job of the Jhargram police but they had, in effect, “outsourced” this responsibility to this syndicate largely comprising CPM supporters. Routinely, armed robbers deflate tyres of vehicles on this stretch by littering the road with “improvised nails” and loot passengers. The police asked Tinku Mahato’s team to take over.

Seems to have another disaster in the making.

Calorie Burning modern style

I stay in an apartment complex where the clubhouse is located some 100mtrs from the residential block. As usual the clubhouse provider a decent gym and many people make use of it. Here are some interesting things that I observed that make life interesting.

• A significant percent of clubhouse users actually drive in their cars from residence parking to clubhouse parking. As I have mentioned earlier, this distance is no more than 100 mtrs. In this distance these gentlemen (ladies) floor the accelerators of their cars, start honking when they are atleast 50mtrs from the clubhouse so that the security opens the gate and then don't have to slow down. Makes for a sight more thrilling then a F1 race start. Only doubt I have that most probably the car is burning more calories then the users of the gym.


• Even though lockers have been provided for people to put stuff when they are using gym equipment, it is not uncommon to see a IT style conference call going on while people are running on treadmill.

Anyway, all this makes walking to clubhouse really interesting.

New age five star hospital

Off late many new age five star type hospitals have started opening all over the place. I have always wondered whether the quality of healthcare delivered by these hospital is also in line with the shiny interiors and well dressed receptionists. My own experiences in Wockhardt hospital in Bangalore have not really been great. But since there is little most of us understand about medicine, one assumes that may be we are unduly worried. Here is someody's experience from Wockhardt which kinds of points in the same direction. Please make your own conclusions. I have just received this email through friends that I can not vouch for the accuracy of events or assumptions.

Rashmi's Story

My name is Rashmi B.T. I am 35 years old, married to an air force officer, Vivek, and have a four year old son, Dhruv, delivered by emergency Caeserean section in 2004. On March 4th, 2009, my life was changed unalterably. I lost a baby that I had carried inside me, completely healthy, for a full 41 weeks.

I understand that doctors are human, that mistakes happen. However, I have come to believe that what happened to me could have been prevented if the doctor and the hospital had provided the most basic level of care and expertise. What's worse, they refuse to take steps to prevent someone else going through the same nightmare, simply because they want to protect
themselves from the possibility of litigation - something I am not interested in unless it is the only way to force them to change their protocols.

The Beginning

In June 2008, Vivek and I learnt that we were expecting our second child. The pregnancy was uneventful. I was healthy and fit. Every prenatal visit and test showed that the baby was healthy and developing well. During my 35th week, I decided to consult Dr. Latha Venkataraman at The Nest, Wockhardt's Bannerghatta Road maternity facility to see me through the rest of my pregnancy.

Despite the fact that I had already undergone a C-section, she urged me to opt for a V-BAC (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean Section) or in layman's terms, a normal delivery. She brushed aside my concerns, telling me that a second C-section would be six times more risky and assuring me that a V-BAC would be less risky and almost pain-free.

My due date was estimated as 26 Feb 2009. I visited Dr. Latha on 28 Feb. She wrote on my record: "delivery will be attended by Dr. Latha/Dr. Prabha." Since I had neither met, heard of, nor been examined by Dr. Prabha before, I was concerned. Dr. Latha explained that Dr. Prabha Ramakrishna is another consultant at Wockhardt, and that it was a hospital requirement for her to write both their names down as possible attending doctors for my labor/delivery. However, she assured me that it was just a formality, and that she would be the one to attend to me when I went into labor.

On 3 March, I visited Dr. Latha again. Since I was so far past my due date, I requested that a scan be done to check on the baby.

When I called her to read out the results of the report, she did not want to know anything other than the liquor content, though I specifically asked her if there was any other information she would require from the scan. She told me I could either wait for labor to start or choose a day to come in and have my labor induced.

The Nightmare Begins
I went into labor at 2am on 4 March, and got admitted to the hospital at 5.15am.

By 7.45 am, I was experiencing contractions less than a minute apart. Dr. Latha came and did a quick examination. I was shifted to the labor ward at 8am where I remained until 1.50p.m., under the sole care of nurse Savitha. Dr. Latha was not present at all.

A junior doctor, Dr. Shirley, was available intermittently. She spent most of the time on her cell phone, talking to her husband. She was keen to see him before he left on an 11-day vacation. A Dr. Chetna substituted for her while when she went to see her husband off.

There was no other doctor present. Dr. Prabha was called each time the fetal heart rate fell (this happened a couple of times). She was seeing outpatients and attending two other deliveries simultaneously, so she was only able to come to the labor ward to see me four times, for less than 5 minutes each time.

At 10am, I was given Syntocinon, a drug used to enhance labor; the dosage was increased at 10.45am. At 12.30, there was vaginal bleeding, and the nurse phoned Dr. Prabha, who advised her to "keep a watch". The bleeding reduced, but I began to feel pain of increasing intensity during contractions. Dr. Shirley reappeared at 1.00 p.m., examined me vaginally and announced that I was almost fully dilated and would deliver by 1.30pm. I complained several times of excruciating pain but was told that it was
normal. At 1.30pm, Dr. Prabha came in and was told by Dr. Shirley that I was fully dilated and would deliver any minute. Despite that, Dr. Prabha breezed off to visit another patient in the OPD.

I felt no urge whatsoever to push, yet was asked to do so. The stirrup on the delivery table kept breaking off - I was told that this is a recurring problem that "needed attention". At 1.50 pm, the fetal heart rate dropped to 80 beats per minute. Dr. Prabha was called again. She checked the fetal heart rate on the CTG, explained that this was normal when the baby
was passing through the birth canal, and asked me to hold my breath and push hard. I felt no sensation in my cervical area, but felt intense pain tearing my stomach apart. I felt like my baby had rolled into my stomach and could see its body pushing up against my ribcage. I was screaming, pointing at my stomach, and telling them that my stomach was hurting, and there was no urge to push. But she told me to "push, push harder". I then heard Dr. Prabha saying "Get the OT ready". She told my husband that she was going to attempt to deliver by forceps - if that was unsuccessful, she'd have to do a Caesarian.

The OT wasn't on standby, wasn't ready. I was numb with pain. They wanted me to get up and move to the operation table. I couldn't move. They eventually slid something under my back and I pushed myself on to the OT table, as there was no transfer stretcher available. I complained of severe shoulder and chest pain. No one paid me any attention; everyone was busy
preparing the OT, and the anesthetist was attempting to top up my epidural.
The fetal heart rate was never monitored in the OT. Dr.. Prabha unsuccessfully attempted a forceps delivery at 2.20 p.m., and then cut me open. I heard a deafening sucking sound, after which I must have passed out.

Later, I learnt that my uterus had ruptured along the scar of my previous Caeserian section. My baby was found floating in my abdomen. He had no heartbeat and he wasn't breathing. He had been deprived of oxygen for a long time - 43 minutes. They "resuscitated" my son and put him on a ventilator.

When I opened my eyes I saw Dr. Latha leave, followed by Dr. Prabha. Dr. Shirley was suturing me while laughing and talking with another nurse. I felt reassured that my baby was okay, even though I had neither seen nor
heard him. "Don't Worry, You Can Conceive Again"

At 3.30pm, a nurse struggled to take my BP reading; the BP apparatus wasn't working and had to be replaced. Dr. Latha met Vivek at the NICU and told him that the baby was doing fine and had to be kept under observation.
She also told him that my scar had ruptured, but said that I was okay. At 4.30 pm, my husband repeatedly begged the nurses to give me pain relief. I was then shifted to the ward.

At 9.30 pm the neonatologist told Vivek that the baby had been deprived of oxygen for over 40 minutes, possibly resulting in "some extent" of brain damage. This was the first inkling we had that something had gone wrong.

The next morning, I was given a sponge bath at 6am. I then lay unattended until 2.30 p.m., when Dr. Prabha, Dr. Latha, and Dr. Prakash (the neonatologist) saw me for the first time after the operation. Dr. Latha unceremoniously ripped the dressing off my wound without using any gel or spirit, and pronounced the wound clean.

We were told that our baby would be kept under observation for another 24 hours. Later that night Dr. Latha came in at 9.50pm. Her only words to me: "Don't worry, you can conceive again. Your uterus is intact." "Do Japa and Tapa To Get Better""
None of the consultants saw me on 6 March. That night, my milk came in, and my breasts became swollen and painful. I asked in vain for assistance. After repeatedly begging for help, I sent Dr. Latha a text message at noon on 7 March. At 4pm, a nurse told me that the doctor had instructed them to use a breast pump to relieve my pain - however, since the hospital didn't have one, I would have to go and buy one.

Dr. Latha finally visited me at 7.30 pm. She confessed that she was unaware that there had been a 43 minute delay in performing my C-section. She also admitted that instructions delivered over the phone could never substitute for personal supervision. She said, and again I quote, "Do some pranayama, japa, and tapa to help you get better."

Throughout my stay, nurses didn't know what medication I had been prescribed. They kept asking me what medication I was to be given. They had to be repeatedly reminded to give me medication.

For the next 13 days, Arnav was in the NICU on a ventilator. Throughout that time, he was completely reliant on ventilator support, his eyes were dilated and non-responsive to light, and there was no sign of movement. After a week, the neonatologist asked me to express milk and said they would feed the baby with a pipe inserted from his nose to the stomach. I did this for the next six days.

On 16 March, we decided to let Arnav go. We requested that he be removed from life support.

"We Would Do Exactly The Same For The Next Patient Who Walks In"
Vivek and I wanted to learn what had gone wrong with such a healthy pregnancy. Basic reading indicated that scar rupture is a well-known risk when you attempt to deliver vaginally after a first C-section, and must therefore be monitored very closely by a doctor if attempted at all.

We met with the hospital administration and the doctors. All we wanted was an explanation. To hear the words, "I made an error in judgment". Instead, we were met with a wall of defensiveness. Dr. Latha said that despite knowing the outcome, she would take exactly the same steps with the next patient who walked through her door.

I decided to get a second opinion. And then a third, and a fourth, and a fifth. Three of Bangalore's best-known gynaecologists (and other doctors too) categorically stated that given my age (35), the estimated weight of the baby (> 4 kilos), and the duration of gestation (>40 weeks), a vaginal birth should never have been attempted, and scar rupture was a logical, obvious outcome.

All reading I have done has backed this up. Even a layperson's book like "What to expect when you are expecting" (pages 363-364) says that abdominal pain during a V-BAC indicates a scar rupture and outlines the procedure for safe delivery of the baby. Given that I was complaining of excruciating abdominal pain, shoulder pain and chest pain, the doctor should have known my scar was rupturing. I should never have been asked to push; it exacerbated the rupture. Nor should I have been given a drug that intensified my contractions. By Dr. Prabha's own admission, she did not know about the rupture until she opened me up.

Several doctors have also told us that keeping Arnav on the ventilator for 13 days was an exercise in futility from the first. At no point were we told that he would never survive if taken off the ventilator - had we known that, we would never have subjected him, or ourselves to two weeks of anguish. All we were told was that he "might be" brain damaged to "some extent" but they couldn't predict how bad it would be.

A Brick Wall of Defensiveness; Discrepancies Galore

When I attempted to engage with the hospital to ask them to change their protocol of treatment based on an unbiased review conducted with the inputs of external gynecologists, I was met with a brick wall of defensiveness. They refused to conduct a fair, transparent investigation, claiming that their internal investigation showed that they had done everything right and that losing the baby was "my destiny". Dr. Latha went so far as to say that since I am educated, I should have been better informed about the procedure.

I don't want to sue them for money. I just want them to change their policies and protocols so that this doesn't happen to someone else. I have been hitting a brick wall for two months, and feel that the only way to make them pay attention is to tell my story to people.

There are many discrepancies and attempts to cover up the hospital's inefficiency (to name a few: baby's weight recorded as 3Kg despite the fact that he was never weighed; post-facto note of fetal heart rate as 180bpm despite the fact that the heart rate was never monitored in the OT; discharge summary says "live term baby extracted" even though Arnav had no heartbeat or respiration at birth; half-hour discrepancy between CTG trace and labor room clock). I asked questions to which I was given ludicrous answers (Eg: Our pediatrician is very experienced, so he can guess the weight of any baby just by looking at it).

We were charged approximately Rs. 2,20,000 by Wockhardt. Of this, we found over Rs. 7000 billed for things that had never been done (spinal anesthetic, an extra day of room rent, food not consumed). We subsequently found more extraneous charges, amongst them an amount billed for tests that were performed on 18 March, two days after Arnav's death.

My Story Has Just Begun...
My uterus is still healing. My back still hurts from the trauma. And my heart aches for Arnav, the baby I will never hold.

More than that, I am filled with the fear that this will happen again. After all, Dr. Latha says she would "do exactly the same again" even though she knows the outcome. And the hospital agrees that she - and they - did everything right.

Wockhardt delivers approximately 80 babies each month. With BP machines that don't work, a delivery room stirrup that's falling off and that has "needed to be fixed for a while", nurses who don't know what medication they are supposed to administer, and one (yes ONE) OT dedicated to emergency deliveries. That OT wasn't ready when I needed it. What guarantee do you have that it will be ready when you need it? Sure, they claim to have nine other OTs in the hospital - but if they are all as woefully unprepared as the one I was in, my story could be yours.

I want them to change their policies, and I won't give up until they do.

Thank you for reading.

Restaurant Review : Taste of India, MP Nagar, Bhopal

On my trip to Bhopal recently, I ended up visiting this restaurant called Taste of India. Looked like a decent place, not really posh but good and cost effective food. Service was good and quick. We ended up having soup, paneer handi and dal tadka. After really long time, I ate good dal tadka in a restaurant. I am really amazed at number of times I have seen restaurants messing up something as simple as dal tadka.
Paneer was good, really spicy. Breads were also good. All in all a really good food that finally costed Rs. 197/- for two people.

Indian Election Results

Finally there seems to be a clear trend at 11AM that UPA (Congress+) seems to be headed to form the next government and Dr. Man Mohan Singh seems poised to form the next government. There seem to be some clear plus points that have come out from these elections.

• Left parties are out, I think apart from their negative politics in respective states, they might have been better served by taking credit for good things happening in the last five years.


• I believe it was a good thing for congress to go alone in UP, atleast they provided an alternative to people


• Nobody believed LKA when he said that there is nothing to give credit to congress for.

I think this would be a good election result for this country.

Varun Gandhi

As I am watching in mumbai airport and listening to the news, it seems Varun Gandhi is in making waves again. He wants to bring back forced sterilization and compulsory military service.
We all know the futility of the first one but the second point is bizzare. If he felt so strongly about that, why did he now bother to join military. He is not too old, he could have joined military before this fulfilling political career.
But then politicians never were known to do sane things.

Indian political parties -- they will say anything to make you happy

It is election time in India and during these times, the political parties would say anything that makes their constituencies happy. Some would even say things that sound outright illogical.
Here is a political party that has declared in their manifesto that they are against computers and English.
So I tried to analyse if these guys really get elected and have their prime minister installed what would be the scene of India at the end of five years. Please add your things in comments if it comes to your mind.

• We will be booking train reservations the good old way. No e-ticketing, no computerized ticket. It the good old large sized register in your city station. What would be real impact of all this? Quotas based on per station basis. You can not book through tickets, you have to bribe the TTE to pretty much every booking and many other things.


• Mobile networks and all the CDOT revolution would be yanked out, you will be back to the manual exchange era where a person would be connecting your telephone lines.


• No income tax filing electronically.


• No online banking, No ATMs, No NEFT and RTGS. Everything will be rolled back. You will be back to an ear when transferring Rs. 100/- from Delhi to Mumbai took 15 days.


• Stock exchanges will be closed down. No equity, only debt would be allowed to run the companies.


• Different governments in India will be communicating in their own languages, for example a government in Delhi will write a letter to Tamil Nadu government in Hindi which will be translated in Tamil on the way. You can replace your favorite state with Tamil Nadu here.


• Half of the TV channels will have to shut down because they broadcast in English. Poor Mr. Pronoy Roy and Sardesai will be out of job.


• Malls will have to be shut down

Reading all this, I am wondering why do we blame Taliban in Pakistan. Many of these things sound so much like what they are doing there. Better still why don't they just take us back enough so that we don't have to worry about complex things like currency systems, we can just live off barter system.

I can only hope that better sense prevails in the states from where these morons derive their base of power and people just kick these guys out.

Nothing logical or scientific about Economics or Economists

I am really fed-up with economics and economists. They just can't seem to be able to make up their mind on what is the right thing to do. They almost sound like an old-boys-club for rich people. Take following as examples

• When Government of India declares loan waiver scheme in 2007-08 for farmers a majority of whom can't repay their loans because of failure of crops and other reasons, everybody is up in arms. Everybody starts talking about how it is the worst thing to do. When President Obama talks about trillions of dollars in bailing out US banks who are essentially private enterprises and they are in trouble because of their own mistakes all of a sudden it becomes a prudent economics. So somehow it seems that bailing out really poor private citizens is bad while bailing out private enterprise is good.


• When GoI talks providing stimulus to economy, S&P and their friends worry about fiscal deficit while when same things is done by US government it seems to al right.

May be nobody just has a clue and they just keep on propounding their favorite theories till the time these are debunked.

India's horrible neighborhood

As I watch this news update by the NDTV and The Times of India, I come to know that Sri Lankan cricket team has been attacked with guns (probably grenades etc. as well). This again brings out the fact that we live in extremely dangerous neighborhood. Our neighbor have just descended into anarchy. If the country's security apparatus can not guard a cricket team which, everybody knows, is under threat, then one can only assume that there is not control in the hands of police/military.

I have always believed that societies would have to pay for ignoring troublesome elements in their midst. I think it is about time that societies that harbor dangerous elements are asked, they either need to get rid of these elements or they have to pay the price for letting these elements exist.

Hopefully the world will realize, what India has veen saying for all these days and do something about it. But I know that everybody is looking after their short term gains and unless this problem becomes their problem, nobody is bothered.

More signs of recession

Lately as you move around, you see more and more signs of recession and when a top MNC can't afford to pay even for signages, you know that cost cutting is in full force.



Just so that people don't think I am making this up, here is the photo with more context.

Aero India 2009

I went to Aero India 2009 airshow. Following is a set of pictures from there. I would say it was really amazing.

Aero India Slide Show

My really old comb

I blogged about my geyser that blew up, since it really did not do much damage except the fact that there is smoke everywhere, I would not have bothered too much about it. But what is really sad that it destroyed my 15 years old comb. I know it is just a comb but I had it for 15 years. :-)

My geyser blew up

Six years ago I bought geysers with plastic casing. I was sold that as a high end product because it is more safe and works longer.

Today when I turned it on, it just blew up. Now geysers can blow up for many reasons and I don't think that itself is a huge issue (apart from the fact that it can hurt somebody, which it did not in my case), the geyser body caught fire.

The plastic started burning and very soon whole bathroom and bedroom was full of smoke.

I am sure there was some short-circuit but the power went off within a minute of me powering on the geyser so the there was no chance of persistent sparks that might have aggravated the fire. What is really surprising to me is the ease with which the geyser was burning.
Now I am thinking that may be the old style metal body geysers are better, atleast they would not catch fire and become an inferno in themselves.
Some more photos down below.

What is modi upto

Gujarat chief minister has a strong fan following among some of the Indian who seem to see him as the savior against everything. But I don't seem to understand what does modi want to achieve by his utterances on Mumbai terror attack. First he went on to say that Pakistan position on terrorists is justified.
Pak capitalises on Modi's 'Kasab' jibe
Then he goes on to say that there might have been people in India who are involved in these attacks.

26/11 wouldn't have taken place without internal help

Now I can allow for the fact that both these assertions may be true but at a time when the government of country (whether one likes it or now) is trying to force pakistan in acting against terrorists, what is the point of contradicting the line of government. Talk about working on narrow political gain.

Ideology and Political Parties

I sincerely believe that in democracies, ideologies of political parties has not role to play. I would like a party to rule that just believes in ruling and that is its only ideology. Only such a political party would be scared of the voters. Anytime it does something that majority of people don't like, they can let it be known that they would vote against the party because of that issue and it is very likely that the government would not take that action.

Take for example a party that has a ideology, if they really believe in that ideology, they would take actions that match that ideology and even be willing to sacrifice the government. Now as we know, in most of the democracies, the government is hardly voted with more than 50% voters, there is a very good chance, after coming to power they would do things that most of the voters don't agree with. I think that is non-democratic.

So, If you ask me, vote for a party that has no ideology.