India Elections Tidbits #1: Why I think parties are looking at the wrong place for votes

Since the biggest entertainment of India i.e. parliamentary elections is just around the corner, I thought to understand the last parliamentary elections little better. As a researcher, I have learnt that the best way to understand any event is through the telemetry that it generates. So I decided to look at the data.
First my experience, even though election commission puts all the data on their website, it is extremely difficult to use in any meaningful way. They put PDF files for everything and the PDF files are also generated through bizarre set of input document. It required lots of hard work to get the data into a database so that one can make some sense out of it. This is first in a series of (hopefully) posts related to parliamentary elections 2009.
Now to answer the question that is mentioned in the title, why I believe political parties are looking for votes in the wrong place. A primary look at data suggests that many of the winners in the election don't represent anybody. Just have a look at the table. The figures in brackets in third column are voting percentage in the constituency.

Winners with low voting percentage

Winning Percentage (of the total electors)	Number of seats	Total Voting Percentage
10%	2	Buxar,BH(46.51%) Nawada, BH(38.13%)
11%	2	Salempur, UP(39.21%) Chatra, JH(45.67%)
12%	5	Madhubani, BH(39.83%) Pratapgarh, UP(44.66%) Phulpur, UP(38.69%) Gonda, UP(45.12%) Palamau, JH(45.95%)
13%	11	Jamui, BH(38.13%) Anantnag, JK(27.10%) Bhiwandi, MH(39.39%) Jalore, RJ(37.98%) Lucknow, UP(35.33%) Farrukhabad, UP(46.78%) Baharaich, UP(41.12%) Sant Kabir Nagar, UP(47.27%) Machhlishahr, UP(40.99%) Chandauli, UP(46.39%) Bhadohi, UP(43.35%)
14%	17	Begusarai, BH(48.75%) Banka, BH(48.74%) Arrah, BH(35.78%) Sasaram, BH(42.70%) Srinagar, JK(25.55%) Rewa, MP(48.34%) Kalyan, MH(34.30%) Mumbai North East, MH(42.46%) Agra, UP(42.03%) Akbarpur, UP(43.62%) Hamirpur, UP(48.40%) Deoria, UP(45.26%) Bansgaon, UP(39.02%) Lalganj, UP(43.62%) Ghosi, UP(45.23%) Varanasi, UP(42.61%) Godda, JH(56.48%)
15%	16	Mujaffarpur, BH(46.41%) Gopalganj, BH(37.40%) Ujiarpur, BH(45.89%) Karakat, BH(41.61%) Palghar, MH(48.10%) Aligarh, UP(51.44%) Kheri, UP(54.58%) Misrikh, UP(41.48%) Fatehpur, UP(45.19%) Faizabad, UP(49.94%) Kaiserganj, UP(41.10%) Shrawasti, UP(43.06%) Rajmahal, JH(55.18%) Kodarma, JH(56.14%) Dhanbad, JH(45.03%) Lohardaga, JH(53.21%)

As we can see in the table, except for couple of constituencies in Jammu and Kashmir where the voting percentage itself is very low, other constituency have not so bad voting percentage. Bihar, UP and Jharkhand seem to be states where this trend is prevalent. Also these constituencies are not obscure constituencies, these are represented by Meera Kumar, Murali Manohar Joshi, Salman Khurshid, Lalji Tandon among other candidates.

So, what is my point here. I think that political parties are just not paying attention to the the block of voters that doesn't vote. That is more than 40% of voters who have not voted and can tilt the election in each of these constituencies.

That's where parties like AAP are more successful. Because of their design, they seem to be easily able to attract non-voters. I think new parties like AAP need to get their message out to these non-voters and get them out on voting day. Old parties, need to put candidates that can inspire non-voters to come out and vote. That's why I believe old belief of "winnability of candidates" is a wrong approach. If parties put candidates that can inspire people to come out and vote, they can easily get a positive result in each of these constituencies.

The Samurai Revisited: Theoretical to Theatrical

“What NONSENSE!” thunders Vinay Avasthi,

These morons have made e-business a travesty,

Idiots are running all the Internet business,

None with intelligence, it’s plain craziness.

What I’ll do, I’ll finally start ARRIVING,

Gonna stop my mindless cross-country driving,

Will set up my new business, with new criteria,

You guys want in? Have any good idea?

Milind: Yes, Yes. Washington taught me many new skills,

With these stupid environment laws, you can make a few kills,

Though my business acumen makes my family go pale,

My only real problem is- I don’t know how to scale!

How market leaders take the monopoly way,

Shiva got business ethics from MS the hard way,

In competitive marketing, I can show you the way,

Boycott canteen, eating out daily is the only way!

Swapnajit complains, yaar this is simply not fair,

I just want a Thesis idea, and no one seems to care?

I will join as soon as my proposal is finalised,

And will ask the prof how yours should be crystallized!

Srini grins, Sorry guys, I woke up late,

Yes, social media, twitter can open up a floodgate

Intel from fourth estate to data mining can be our spectrum

And ‘Early to bed early to rise’ should be our dictum!

Vinayan: You see, just what I was afraid of,

Corruption! Even before your business has taken off!

You are already following a corrupt method

All this estate, mining, spectrum, will go the Vigilance road!

Habeeb: So So So and So, whatever it is that you wish,

Tell us in two lines; don’t beat about the bush,

I can well be a part of your paraphernalia

As soon as I sort out my Europe and Australia!

Rohit: It’s just a problem of project management,

Put it all into a PERT/CPM arrangement

I don’t mind becoming your consultant,

As long as my profit is a sure resultant!

Getting rich is what sets Tarit on fire,

Other than jalebis I have just one secret desire,

But surely I’ll join your Corporation,

If for the above secret desire, I get your cooperation!

What nonsense! Avasthi thunders,

How can I work with these idiots, he wonders,

They don’t have even one chance out of five,

Hell with them, I’m going on a cross country drive!

Written between 1100 and 1140 on 4^th Dec 2013 in Room 213 IIM Indore

(Thesis presentation of the FPM I Guy)
By Vinayan J

Class 1 Officers

I am currently at one of the "premier" management institutes of India doing my course work. Yesterday, late night, I was sitting in the lobby of the places where I am staying, three elderly gentlemen walked into the lobby and an interesting conversation ensued.

Elderly Gentleman 1 : Get me some tea!
Reception Man: Sir, this is late at night, almost the dinner time, there is no tea.
EG1: Tea has no time!
RM: I am sorry sir

EG2: क्या यार, क्लॉस वन ऑफिसर को चाय कैसे नहीं मिलेगा। (How can a class 1 officer not get tea)
RM: Nobody is there in kitchen, you can get tea only in the morning

EG3: At what time will I get tea in the morning
RM: Between 6-7 the tea is served in cafeteria

EG1: रूम में नहीं मिलेगा। Won't I get it in my room
RM: No sir, the team is served in cafeteria

EG2: क्या हाल है, क्लास वन ऑफिसर को चाय के लिये भी इधर उधर भागना पड़ता है।

At this time I had almost had enough of this class one officer business when one of those gentlemen turned towards me. From my dress, I looked like waiter of a highway dhaba.

EG1: पेपर किधर है।
Me: मैं तो पेपर को एक महीने से ढूँढ रहा हूं, आपको मिल जाये तो मुझे भी बता देना।

At the end of this conversation, I am thinking why have these guys been sent to a management school by the government. I am sure they have no interest in learning anything here. They are already missing their class 1 officer status. Let them enjoy it in their place of work and leave this management institute alone.

Food security bill and middle class hypocracy

Off late I have decided to disengage myself with political conversation because the political discussions are so polarized now-a-days that any time you express you view which does not tally with somebody else's view you hear back abuses rather than arguments.
Today being the day when Lok Sabha passed the Food Security Bill is another such day. The argument went something like below.
A Gentleperson: Why this UPA government is destroying the country, now this food security bill, 2G, Coal Scam...
Me: I think we need food security bill because there are people who don't have food and it is a shame that in this country people don't get sufficient food.
AG: This is all for corruption, what good has come out of the PDS system. Whole of the food is diverted to blackmarket. It is our tax payer's money....
Me: Those need to be fixed, but somebody who is not getting food, if he has better chances of getting food, I think it is worth it.
AG:No, we need to stop all these things, till the time we fix corruption, we can not give these subsidies, all the tax payers money....
Me: Ok, so since there is black market in gas cylinders, should the subsidy be stopped there as well. Let's stop that subsidy as well and when we can build a corruption proof system, we will give gas subsidy.

At this point, the discussion turned into an abusive slanging match which I had feared to start with. I think I will stick to my stand of now having political conversations.

Aadhaar card enrolment, an experience

Since the day GoI declared that in not so distant future, the cooking gas (LPG) subsidy would be delivered directly to the customer through a scheme called direct benefit transfer (DBT), Whole of India is running after getting an elusive piece of number called Aadhaar number. I never bothered to go for it, because it involved standing in a line for hours.
Yesterday, I saw this website that had a method where I could get an appointment online, fill the form online and then only show up at the enrolment center for document verification and biometrics, so I decided to give it a try. Here are my experiences for getting enrolled for Aadhaar.

• Getting an appointment was easy, may be because the website is new and not many people are aware of it. But I could get the appointment for next day and there were many slots open till the evening.
• I also filled all the forms online but since I was not certain of how the data would be made available, I also took physical forms and filled them and carried them with me.
• As I reached the enrolment center, I was pleasantly surprised to find a person sitting there with a list of people who had taken the appointment for document verification. He verified the documents and asked me to go to the adjacent room which had the setup for enrolment.
• This is where proceedings took a turn for the worse, The guys who were actually doing enrolment, had no clue of the appointment system. It was every individual for him/her self. The person with the loudest voice was the next person in line.
• We waited for an hour hoping that somebody would call us but nobody called up.
• To make things further complicated, there seems to be another system at http://appointments.uidai.gov.in which is also issuing appointments at the same center with same timings. The center does not have list of people from this system. They only have list of people from the system I mentioned earlier. This is resulting in the people at the center getting overloaded since they have twice as many people showing up.
• Anyway, we also used the loudest voice method to get ourselves scanned for biometrics and got our enrolment done.
• The data that we entered online, is not available at the center so it has to be entered again and that is extremely time consuming.

In nutshell, like most of the other ideas of GoI, it is a brilliant idea gone horribly wrong in implementation. I only hope, as time goes along they fix it.

Logistics: Why we suck

I needed to buy two components that go inside of a PC. One of them was available with IT Depot which is based in Chennai. Other item was not available with any retailer in India, so I decided to order it with a vendor in US.
The vendor in US (Amazon) did not ship that item to India, so I decided to use one of the address forwarding services (Borderlinx).
Both the orders were placed one after another on June 06, 2013 around 1:30PM. Today is June 12, 2013. I already received the order placed with US retailer yesterday night, while the order with Chennai retailer is still showing a status of "Ready to Ship".
How is it possible that these online retailers based in India can be so pathetic for an item that they claim is in stock and was paid for so long ago.

Seven jyotirlings, Thirteen days

This summer (2013) we decided to drive around and try to see maximum number of Jyotirlings that we can see in 11 days. This post is just to capture what happened. Following were the jyotirlings that we covered as part of this trip.

1. Ghrishneswar Temple near Aurangabad in Maharashtra
2. Bhimshankar Temple, Maharashtra
3. Trimbakeshwar Temple near Nashik, Maharashtra
4. Somnath Temple, Gujarat
5. Nageshwar Temple near Dwarka, Gujarat
6. Omkareshwar near Indore, Madhya Pradesh
7. Mahakaleshwar in Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh

Following is the itinerary that we followed.

1. 06-April-2013 Left Bangalore, reached Pune for night stay
2. 07-April-2013 Left Pune and reached Aurangabad, planned night stay in Aurangabad. In the after noon, visited Ghrishneshwar temple and Ellora Caves. Both are next to each other
3. 08-April-2013 Drove to Bhimshankar, after darshan continued to Nashik and stayed night in Nashik
4. 09-April-2013 Went to Trimbakeshwar. Darshan took longest here. Temple seems very popular with devotees so one must plan for couple of hours for darshan even on lean days. Continued driving to Ahmedabad for night stay
5. 10-April-2013 Stay in Ahmedabad for relaxation.
6. 11-April-2013 Drove to Sasan Gir stayed night
7. 12-April-2013 Stayed in Sasan Gir for safari
8. 13-April-2013 Left for Somnath Temple. Reached around 10am. This place looks most commercial of all the jyotirlings. Continued driving to Dwarka. Stayed night
9. 14-April-2013 Did darshan at Nageshwar Temple and also visited Dwarkadhish and Bhet Dwarka
10. 15-April-2013 Drove to Surat. We decided to drive to Indore via Surat because we got very bad opinion on direct national highway from Ahmedabad to Indore. We were sure that road to Indore from Surat via Dhule is good, so we decide to drive longer.
11. 16-April-2013 Drove to Indore, reached night
12. 17-April-2013 rest day
13. 18-April-2013 Visited Omkareshwar in the morning and Mahakaleshwar in the evening.

Most of the route that we followed, roads were good. Detailed travelog for the journey would come up later at my other drive blog at Bimmer India.

Life, what can I say, is interesting

As I am driving around the country, I landed up in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. I generally would have waited to write this post till the end of the trip, but life turned so interesting today, that I had to do it now before I regained my composure.

I am staying in a no-service chain of a popular five-star hotel in the city and because of them being no service hotel, they don't have an in-house restaurant. There is another restaurant in the same building which is called Asia Kitchen.

I visited them yesterday and the food was really good quality. We were generally satisfied with the food and service. When I reached the hotel room and was generally looking at the bill, I realized that they had charged me Rs. 125/- for a bottle of water. That sounded little excessive to me because even in Bangalore five star hotels the bottled water was never that expensive. Also, this was no fancy water brand, it was regular Himalaya. Just to confirm, I looked at the water bottle, which is generally priced Rs. 20/-, was labeled Rs. 40/-.

So, when we decided to visit next evening again for dinner, we picked up a couple of water bottles from the vending machine in the hotel where it still cost Rs. 15- for half-liter bottle. Our decision made life really interesting. As we landed up at the restaurant and got a table, here is the conversation went on.

Waiter: Sir bottled water or regular water?

Me: We don't need water, we have our own.

Waiter: No sir, you either take bottled water or regular water, outside food item not allowed.

Me: What? you won't allow me to bring my own water, I can't drink regular water and your water is priced Rs. 125/-

Waiter: No sir, that is our policy

Me: Please let me know if you won't allow to drink our water, then we can leave and go somewhere else.

Waiter: (mumbles something...)

Me: Can you confirm with your manager? Let us know and we will leave if you don't want us.

Waiter: Ok.

At this time the waiter leaves and in a few minutes, the manager comes to our table.

Manager: Sir, it seems you have got the bottles from the hotel vending machine, it is Ok. 

Me: How can you recognize that these are from the hotel vending machine? I could have brought it from anywhere. How can refuse somebody to bring their own water? At this time my wife chimes in that one many have special needs for water e.g. boiled water etc. and they may bring their own water.

Manager: Sir, we are just following what the owners have decided for us.

Me: I get that, but can you give feedback to your owners that they are marking up water too high, even higher than most five-star hotels.

Manager: Ok, sir I will do that and I apologize but you should understand that we are just employees and we don't decide on prices.

Me: Ok.

At this time life suddenly turns super interesting. There is a European couple in the table next to us who joins the conversation.

European Couple Husband: I think you should leave this restaurant.

Me: Maybe I will, but that is for me to decide.

European Couple Wife: They are running a restaurant and they need to make a profit.

Me: Yes, but not by marking up packaged drinking water.

ECH: I think you should leave this restaurant.

Me: (ignores)

At this time the hotel staff is feeling very nervous, the manager is already apologizing to us and another employee goes to their table and starts apologizing to them.

ECW: I think you should never visit Europe?

Me: I am not in Europe, am I?

Now I am furious, I almost want to do some physical damage somewhere, but in the name of "Incredible India" and " Khushbu Gujarat Ki" I decide to keep quiet and not continue the conversation anymore with hotel staff or guests.

Why restaurant business in India is hopeless

Of late I have been thinking about the fact that the quality of service in almost all the restaurants has gone down to abysmal levels. What could be the reasons for it. The only places where one can expect decent service is the restaurants situated within five star hotels.
I realised that this general decline in service happened around the same time when almost all the restaurants in town started charging something called "Service Charge" which resulted in almost all the customers stopping to pay tips.
Now most of the restaurants are nothing but almost like public sector undertakings, guaranteed salary with no incentive to work better.

What is god particle?

What is God Particle?Why has it caught our fleeting fancy? Is it more important than proton,photon,electron? Utpal Chattopadhyay explained it in a series of tweets, I am just reproducing these here. Edited after first publish.

One of the not so well understood problem or puzzle in Physics is why the electron or the proton or the photon are as heavy or as light as they are? What are the laws that give rise to these masses? For example, we know that  the (rest) mass of the photon, the particle of light, is ZERO. We may ask why it is zero. Is there a deeper reason? It turns out that the answer is yes,  the zero mass of a photon is directly related to a deep symmetry of the electric and magnetic fields.

Weinberg , Salam and Glashow tried to unify electromagnetism with weak nuclear forces. Weak nuclear force is what causes radioactive elements to decay. One problem they encountered is that  in order to unify through a symmetry principle, most particles needed to be zero mass just like the photon where as we know that the other particles have non zero mass.  This problem was solved by giving one of the fields a "Vacuum Expectation Value". What do we mean by  vacuum expectation value of a field? It means the following: Take elctromagnetic fields for example. In vacuum far away from everything, you would expect the strength of  these fields to be zero. That would be almost right. Almost because thanks to quantum mechanics, electric and magnetic fields will always fluctuate. so their strength is never exactly zero but zero plus minus small amounts. In other words, the AVERAGE value of electric and magnetic field in vacuum is zero, Stated differently, its vacuum expectation value is zero.

What physicists realized in 1960s is that the vacuum expectation value can be NON zero, More importanly, a non zero vacuum expectation value will "spontaneously break" the symmetry of Weinberg, Salam and Glashow,  BUT as a bonus it will generate mass for these too.

Bingo. In one stroke we can begin to understand what part of the physics might be responsible for mass of these particles. Hence the search for this particle. This particle used to be known as "Higgs-Kiggle-Englert-Brout" boson after all the physicists who developed the idea independently but people got tired of the long name. Hence the name Higgs boson survived.. It is called a boson because it follows the statistics of S N Bose (1894-1974) !

The Higgs boson is  no more fundamental than the electron, or the photon. BUT the beauty is that  it allows a unified view of why some particles are massive. This was the last piece of the puzzle of Weinberg-Salam-Glashow theory. BUT it generates another question.. Why does Higgs boson field have non zero vacuum expectation value? NO ONE knows for sure as yet.

How gullible are we as a nation

I have been wondering of late, how gullible are we as a nation? Anybody can tell us anything and we start running behind them. Only thing we don't trust is ourselves. Here are two instances that incidentally happened this week.

STEN LINDSTROM comes out this year on the 25th anniversary of bofors scandal and says that he was the whistleblower and he saw his leaks being used selectively (in content and timing) by The Hindu at that time and did not do much about it. Now 25 years laters he is talking again.

Then coincidently the same week S&P downgrades India's credit risk to negative and Moody's goes ahead and writes a almost political report on India.

The report termed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as an "ageing technocrat who now appears tired of the rough and tumble of Indian politics" and added that the UPA didn't have the numbers or the leaders to push through tough-minded reforms needed to drive the next wave of growth.

Now what moody's and S & P are saying is nothing new, everybody agrees that business and investment climate in India has taken a beating but we (the mainstream media) wakes up only when foreigners tell us to do that.

I expect our media to do much more homework rather than just listening to STEN LINDSTROM, Moody's or S & P whose credibility it not really great anyway.

  

Here are some more strange happenings today.

According to a source in LNJP Hospital, the doctors immediately began to provide CPCR, which involves pressing down hard and rapidly on the chest and blowing air into the patient's mouth. The doctors also removed the girl's clothes to administer an injection, but were unable to save the girl. At this, some of the people accompanying her began shouting that the doctors had misbehaved with the girl and killed her.

Why, in such stupid cases, does police look for amicable settlement. They should just book these mobs.

The accused party was accompanied by the police and brought to us. We had a talk wherein they profusely apologized for their misbehavior following which the doctors decided to call of the strike. The issue is being solved amicably," said a senior administrative officer at LNJP Hospital. 

Travelog: Sanchi and Udaygiri

Finally after staying for couple of decades in Bhopal, I decided that it is high time I need to pay a visit to Sanchi. It is approximately 50 to 70 kms from Bhopal depending on the route that one takes. One can go to Raisen and then go to Sanchi. This route is longer. The other option is to go to Vidsha and Sanchi is around 10 kilometers before Vidisha.
The place is very nice, the ticket price  is cheap, only Rs. 10 per adult and children up to 15 years are free. There is a very good audio tour available and provides good information about the monument.

Sanchi is part of Vidisha tourism circuit which is littered with ancient archaeological discoveries around that place. One can check Madhya Pradesh Tourism. There are many places which have archaeological finding ranging from BC to few hundred AD time frame.
Coming back to Sanchi, it is a buddhist monument and decently preserved. Most of the construction was carried during Gupta dynasty.
Food & Stay
There is only one decent hotel in the city, called Gateway Retreat and us run by Madhya Pradesh Tourism. MP Tourism is the government of MP undertaking responsible for development of tourism in the state. Since it is directly run by the government, hospitality is not one of their strong point. I would suggest any visitor to not have hopes for great service here. They should stay in Bhopal and drive down to Sandhi. The drive should not take more than one and half hour.
Road Condition
Road to Sanchi is in pretty good condition, the road towards vidisha is much better compared to one via Raisen.
Udaygiri Caves
Udaygiri caves are around 10 kilometers from Sanchi and have a set of caves that were constructed around 5-6 BC. The caves have sculptures cut from monolithic rocks. There is no entry fee here.
Important Facts

• Around 50-70 kilometers from Bhopal, roads are good and easily reachable from Bhopal. Should take around one and half hours. The Sanchi monument opens at Sunrise.
• Best to start from Bhopal after early breakfast, visit the monument in Sanchi, either carry packaged lunch, or have lunch at Gateway Retreat in Sanchi, and be back in Bhopal at night.
• No fee for camera in Sanchi, tripods are prohibited
• Great audio tour available at entry of Sanchi monument, they also rent out umbrellas at a rent of Rs. 20 per umbrella.

India's telecom revolution -- a missed opportunity

A lot is said about India's telecom revolution and it is a positive story but now making this claim almost sounds like repeating yourself again and again. I have not heard of a positive outcome of this revolution in last 4 years. Why is it so? I believe if we look at this closely, we will realise that it is a story of lost opportunities.
Anybody with even a little knowledge of telecom would appreciate that telecom is nothing but a communication medium. It was revolutionary initially because it provided a voice communication medium to masses that government run operator coud not provide in 50 years but once we reached a significant population with this medium, nothing was done to leverage it further.
None of the e-governance initiatives exist on mobile phones as applications or mobile web. Even the applications for which data readily exists in digital form have not been translated to run n mobile phones. Look at http://agmarknet.nic.in, it has mandi rates from most of the mandis from all over India on a daily basis. If a farmer can look at the rates in mandis around his place, he can make decisions on when and where he wants to sell his produce. Similarly weather information can be made available in more granular and location targeted fashion to farmer. For urban poor, making whole e-governance infrastructure in a mobile friendly fashion would result in real revolution.

A personal landmark

Today I complete 20 years in the work force. I started working for Bharat Electronics exactly 20 years on today's date, i.e. 16-December-1991. It is a important personal landmark so I thought I would summarize last 20 years of my life through this post.
Joining BEL
I completed my graduation in June-1991 and was asked to join BEL on 16the December, 1991 in Bangalore unit. We had three months training and we were called probationary engineers till our training was completed. Once we completed our training, we were designated Deputy Engineer and posted to our units which in my case was BEL Kotdwara in the foothills of Garhwal mountain ranges.
BEL Kotdwara
I, alongwith the group of other 5 engineers from the batch, joined BEL Kotdwara on 11th March, 1992. I still remember it was one day before the festival of Holi. BEL Kotdwara was fun, regular visits to Siddhabali, Lansdowne. We even drove our bikes to Dehradun, Mussoorie once. On 28th of September, 1994, I left BEL to join Motorola India Electronics Ltd. in Bangalore.
Motorola India Electronics Ltd., Bangalore
I joined MIEL on 3rd of October, 1994 in Bangalore at their office on St. Marks Road. The building was called "The Presidency". Since the building was full, after joining and training I was sent to work at a rented facility at Manipal Center at the junction of Dickenson Road and Cubbon Road. In few months the new facility of Motorola, called The Senate, was ready at Ulsoor Road. We moved there and I worked out of that facility for next almost 10 years. Eventually Motorola built another facility in C. V. Raman Nagar in Bagmane Tech Park. We moved to that facility on 27th February, 2004. I worked out of that facility till 2010.
Leaving Motorola
In June 2010, Motorola decided to close the group (Enterprise Applications Research Labs, Applied Research Center, Bangalore) in which I was working and I was one of the causality of that decision. Anyway it was time to leave the place.
Entrepreneurship
In July 2010, I joined the startup  with few of my friends  which was building a product in the telecommunication infrastructure space. We built a prototype, demonstrated to few tier-1 operator across the world and then we were acquired by Movik Networks in October 2010.
Movik Networks
I joined Movik Networks as part of that acquisition, did some interesting work for next few months and finally left them on 31st March, 2011.
In April 2011,   I joined Hewlett-Packard in Bangalore.

To summarize, it has been interesting ride for last 20 years. What is the most disappointing is the level of technology ownership in most of the Industry. I had expected that we would see more technology and product ownership with Indian industry which does not seem to be case. Hope things would improve in next few years.

FDI in Retail

The big question being asked now a days, FDI in retail is good or bad. I really don't know so I decided to verify the argument of pro-FDI groups that there are lots of inefficiencies in the supply chain and that's why we need FDI. So I looked at the prices of certain vegetable items on 26-November-2011 in one of the Karnataka Mandis and compared it with the prices that I paid on the same day with one of the retailers. The chart on the right shows the price markup that I was subjected to the price between one of the Karnataka mandis to what the retailer charged me. As we can see that in most cases the markup is upwards of 50%, much closer to 100% with highest markup being 400%.
This is the case with vegetables which are perishable goods and have to be sold by the end of the day, one would assume that the prices of these goods would have least markup.
For people who want to verify, here is the data that I compiled and used.

	Store Price	One of the Karnataka Mandi
Tur Dal	89.9	39.25
Onion	18	11.5
Brinjal	30.49
Capsicum	36.9	20
Potato	16.5	13.8
Tomato	15.9	14
Bottle Gourd	35	7

So, there is definite markup, in many cases it does sound un-reasonable but whether bringing FDI in retail really solves this problem, I am not so sure. Anti-FDI people claim that MNCs are just for profit and they may squeeze everybody. So looks like complicated issue but in my experience, additional competition has always helped customer.

The magic that is Indian Customs Department

I recently got a mobile phone shipped from one of the online stores in UK. The shipment contained two items, one mobile phone and a USB charger that was thrown in free by the retailer.
When the shipment reached customs, DHL was responsible for getting the shipment cleared by customs. Normally I have seen that the customs charged on mobile phones is between 4-5% but this time it was around 25%. The only logical explanation that I have is that customs department looked at the free item and classified the whole shipment in that category and charged customs at that rate.
Anyway, that's how it is. I can only rant about it.

What Team Anna needs to do?

Over this week, Team Anna seems to be in complete disarray. It had to happen. Earlier it was easy, bunch of guys, with very strong point of views and different opinions about many topics, came together on a cause for which all of them agreed. Corruption was the issue that was common to all of them and they all agreed.
As Team Anna started diversifying into other issues and plunged themselves into rough and tumble of electoral politics, although from sidelines, they broadened their scope and all of sudden the issue of them not agreeing on all issues started coming to fore.
For last three days, I have seen comments from, Kejariwal, Kiran Bedi and Bhushans contradicting themselves and each other.
I think Team Anna needs to take a step back, make sure that one issue that they have taken up is taken to closure before opening up the field.

My idea of a Lokpal bill

In my last post I analyzed all the publicly available Lokpal bills in details. Here I am trying to do a cut and paste job and try to come up with a Lokpal bill that I believe is the best solution in our context. Before I do that, let me list down what is my expectation from Lokpal bill.

• It should be a strong deterrent for corruption in public officials without damaging independence and decision making of these institutions.
• The Lokpal should have jurisdiction over whole country

Prime Minister : Lokpal should have jurisdiction over Prime Minister but since any inquiry against Prime Minister can result in clamor of his resignation. The resignation of PM can result in vacuum in central government because there is no equivalent of President's rule at central government level, there should be checks and balances against exercising this jurisdiction over PM. I like the idea of NCPRI in how to deal with corruption by PM. In summary it is outlined below.

• Any complaint against PM is evaluated by full bench of Lokpal for prima-facie evidence. Once the bench finds the prima-facie evidence in the complaint, they refer it to a full bench of Supreme Court for their opinion. On positive opinion from SC, Lokpal notifies the ruling dispensation of imminent inquiry proceedings with a notice of few days giving them time re-elect a new PM.

CMs, Ministers, MPs, MLAs, MLCs : Nothing special against then, Lokpal exercises complete jurisdiction against them and can initiate inquiries against them on receipt of complaint. The reason CM is treated differently than PM is because there is provision of President's rule at state government level and no power vacuum is created if CM has to resign.

As for MPs, MLAs, and MLCs conduct inside Loksabha, Vidhan Sabha, Rajya Sabha is concerned, in the light of recent cases of mis-conduct of members during proceedings of these houses, Lokpal needs to exercise jurisdiction against them but sufficient protection needs to be given to members for their behavior in house. We can probably adopt the model suggested by NCPRI for PM with few changes for bringing MPs behavior in house.

• Any complaint against a member of any house by Lokpal can be sent to the presiding officer of the house, who will, within a limited (well defined) time, either approve the inquiry to be conducted against the member or if he wants to reject the inquiry refer it to the bench of Supreme/High court who has to validate the reasons of his rejection.

Public Officers : I believe that the skills that are required to inquire against corruption done by higher officers are very different than petty bribery committed by peons and lower officers. I believe that all the officers that are holding supervisory positions (i.e. there are people reporting to them), need to be brought under Lokpal. For this purpose, CVC and other equivalent agencies in states need to be merged into Lokpal. There is a difference in an individual demanding bribes and supervisors institutionalizing bribes and that's why these need to be tackled differently. For non supervisory officials (clerks, peons etc), departmental methods need to strengthened. All the supervisors need to be held accountable for corruption within a department. If there are more than a certain number of complaints against non supervisory employees of a government department, automatically it should trigger an inquiry against the supervisor of those employees by Lokpal.

The idea here is that it is the responsibility of supervisors to make sure that people reporting to them are not corrupt. Non supervisors can be handled with departmental disciplinary mechanisms.For example we could decide that if a department receives more than 5 complaints per week, the supervisor will be inquired by Lokpal for institutionalized corruption within his department.

Judiciary : Judiciary is our only safeguard against Lokpal and his officers gone rogue. We can not include Judiciary under Lokpal and to eliminate corruption against Judiciary, we need to probably strengthen Judicial Accountability Bill on the lines mentioned by NCPRI.

Summary : We need a poweful Lokpal but as I have always maintained, the most corrupt departments in India are the departments with most amount of power. A all poweful Lokpal will eventually become a all corrupt Lokpal. The government department will also have to start collecting the Lokpal officers' share of bribe and the cost of dealing with government with go up for every citizen.

We need to guard against creating an institution with tens of thousands of officers who start interfering in every part of citizen's life.

The Lokpal should also restrict itself to corruption, we probably also need to define corruption, where money or favors are demanded to get something done. Incompetence or decision gone wrong with best intentions, should not be part of what Lokpal should worry about. Take the case of a situation where there is a natural calamity and a district official needs to procure somethings urgently, if he buys goods and gets favor in return, that is corruption, but if be buys things quickly, may be at inflated prices, bypassing regular tender process with his best intentions to serve people, Lokpal should stay out of such cases.

My 2 cents.

 

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.