Small Change

The 26/11 attacks were covered “Live” by the television media. For almost 60 hours straight, we had a view of the action taking place outside the Taj, Oberoi and Nariman house from different angles, depending on which news channel your were watching.

So did the masters of the terrorists.

And the terrorists had mobile/satellite phones to communicate with their masters, enabling them to keep track of the whereabouts of the commandos and they sneaked from one room to another in complete darkness.

While this knowledge was given to us by the news channels themselves, none of them stopped the live broadcast of events to protect the safey of the hostages or the commandos who were risking their lives.

It was already common knowledge while seige was still going on that the terrorists were trying to communicate with their handlers using mobile phones and/or satellite phones. If that was really the case, and the media had knowledge of it, why did they not try to stop the coverage?

In the their oneupmanship for TRPs, the word used more frequently than terrorists was the word “Exclusive”. Every channel seemed to be having exclusive coverage of the events that were going on from a different angle.

When the airdropping of the commandos began at the Nariman house the sound of the helicopters would have been a big give away, but we were easily able to see the number of commandos that were mounting the operation. It would have definitely helped if the terrorists did not have knowledge of this.

No doubt, I was one of the many who sat glued to their television sets throughout the entire event, but I realized that it was wrong to show such coverage just for the sake of TRPs. When the media has such great freedom, thhey should behave responsibly and know when to put national security above “Exclusive” coverage.

It is obvious that the operation would have been much shorter had the terrorists no knowledge of the setup of the security forces outside the Taj and oberoi.

Vishal Dadlani ( the music composer of movies like Om Shanti Om ) has started a campaign to encourage or force the media to behave more responsibly. He plans to go to the courts for this purpose, and has started a signature campaign for the same. Readers of this article can go to the website http://smallchange.in and put in their comments and support for the movement. I strongly encourage everyone to spread the word, it is in the interest of our national security.

How much do we care for our Commandoes?

When the operation ended at the Taj, there were loud cheers for the brave commandoes who risked their lives to ensure the terrorists holed up the in two hotels & Nariman house did not cause more deaths.

However, the commandoes suffered casualties in accomplishing their task. Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan was killed while trying to flush out terrorists from the Taj & Havaldar Gajendra Singh was killed at the Nariman house. Apart from them, there were a number of casualties to Mumbai Police, including at the very top.

While no one doubts their bravery, some thought needs to be put into whether they really should have been killed in the circumstances.

With lesser and lesser encounters with the Underworld and more trouble being caused in the city due to terrorists who are well equipped with latest arms it is pretty obvious that the Police is ill equipped in terms of training and equipment to face the threat of terrorists.

How does one expect a constable weilding a lathi or an inspector with a service revolver to face a terrorist armed with grenades and automatic weapons? I think such a face-off should not be classified as anything but attempted suicide.

Even the NSG commandoes, the elite of the elite that the country has, had to take local transportation buses to reach the action zone. They were wearing helmets that looked more like 1960s scooter helmets, lacking even a visor. The bullet proof vests that they wore seemed to have plenty of room to allow bullets through. They were seen using walkie-talkies to communicate.

The biggest problem when the commandoes entered the hotel? It was too dark to see!! How come even the most elite soldiers of the country do not have night-vision goggles? I am sure they operation would have been over within hours had they been able to locate the terrorists with greater ease.

With the level of technology used in other countries, I think it is high time that it is adopted by us. Why can’t we have radios embedded in the collars of the jackets of our commandoes? Its not that it just looks cool on TV, it eases communication also.

When Mumbai has been such an oft-repeated target of terrorists, why cannot commandoes stationed closer to the city for faster action? Why cannot the Mumbai Police or the ATS have a squad of crack commandoes of their own? Why are we Martyring our brave men so that the needs of palatial houses and luxurious cars of politicians are met? Why is it that anger always has to boil over before any action is taken? Why cannot our politicians lead from the front for once?

These are some serious questions that the government really needs to answer.

Improving Infrastructure

Living here in the United States after having spend almost 22 years of my life in Bombay (I still cannot bring myself to call it Mumbai) was quite a different experience. Here people say there is a lot of “traffic” when there are more than 10 cars going in the same direction. Comparatively in India, such a situation would be a dream come true, at any point of the day. Even small cities have buildings that are taller than most skyscrapers in Bombay. But the thing that hits me the most is the cleanliness of the roads here. Even the roads in the most run-down of areas are cleaner than most places I have been to India.

While we are seeing a plethora of new buildings coming up throughout the length and breadth of Bombay, rarely have we seen a project being implemented at such a pace for building new roads or flyovers, while the existing infrastructure keeps on crumbling. A number of the flyovers took years and years to get constructed due to huge delays, the Bandra-Worli sealink has been under construction for a while now. I remember going to my engineering college (almost 6 years back) in Bandra and looking at the constructed sections (I deter from using the words “construction going on” because i rarely saw that). While this constant delay has been troublesome and little can be done about it, the motorists are facing much larger delays because the present network of roads that we have in place are not functioning as well as they are supposed to. Given the number of potholes and congestion present on the roads, it is difficult to maintain a good speed to ensure the fast movement of traffic.

I would liken this situation to that of many of the other public sector undertakings. Many of them were struggling and were incurring huge losses, but the moment they were privatised they transformed from bulky slow-moving, babu-dominated workplaces to lean, profit making ventures. The difference here was the urge of the private sector to make a profit and the fear of failure that pushed them to become more competitive. This is never the case for government companies where one has a job for life immaterial of the performance of the company and hence they tend to be lax when it comes to work and lag behind when it comes to work ethic.

Currently the BMC is responsible for the maintainence of all roads in the city. The typical government job equals job security takes effect here. Rarely do we see the sweepers on the roads cleaning taking effort to clean the roads they are paid to. Minor maintainence work on the roads is subcontracted out and these people are in no way accountable, they often fill potholes with gravel and claim they did their work. If we can bring the residents to be participate more actively in this situation, then it will be possible to bring more accountability into the whole system.

I would suggest the one idea out of this conundrum is to start something akin to the privatization of roads. Currently the work of repairing roads and filling potholes is mostly sub-contracted out by the BMC. Rather than stop at that, why not sub-contract the entire year long maintainence of the road ? It will surely drive the contractors to keep the roads clean if there is sufficient financial incentive in keeping the roads clean and fines for falling below certain quality standards. And most importantly rather than some BMC official who will easily fall for a bribe, the residents themselves be the judge for the quality of the road.

We have seen similar successful implementation in the form of ALMs(Advanced Locality Management) which involved committees of residents to maintain the cleanliness on the streets where they reside. However it is a full time that job and they ALMs were not given enough freedom to work, the ALMs primarily concentrated on keeping the streets clean, and their effort was commendable. But it is a model that has not been successfully implemented on a large scale. Plus as with any other organization involving humans, politics come into play. A single contractor working on such a project would keep the work befert of politics.

The residents of the streets could be surveyed keep a tab on the working on the contractors to keep them accountable. Few contractors can be hired as a pilot project and depending on the results they could be awarded more streets to maintain depending on what the residents of the streets they have previously managed have to say about them.

Earthquake!!

Now that we all know that it was an earthquake that sent (mild) shivers across the Midwest, and thankfully there has been no major damage or fatality, we can relax and look at the events of the morning with ease.

Location: Indianapolis

Time: Around 5:30 AM

Roomie: Hey dude wake up, looks like the guys in the apartment above ours are jumping around a little too much, the roof is shaking.

Me: Dork, why did you wake me up for that, why don’t you go there yourself and ask them to calm down. (and i went back to my blissful slumber)

Time : Around 7:30 AM

( I had just woken up and started reading my feeds, when I saw the headline, Quake measuring 5.4 on the Richter Scale hits the Midwest!!)

Me: Hey dude, it wasn’t someone above us, it was someone BELOW us who was shaking it!!

CHAMPIONS ELECT !!

And there we have it!!!! What a kick on the ARSE!

There was a lot of cribbing going on (from my friend, mainly) in the run up to this match about how the referees have been unfair towards Arsenal, but they had their fair share today and had no excuse for the loss.

To be fair, Arsenal dominated the match for long periods during the first half, but somehow managed not to score in the first half. While Arsene Wenger might have managed to breed some fantastic young blood, they lack the experience when it comes to crunch situations. No doubt most of their current crop will achieve greatness some day, but not with the current setup which is so lacking in experience. William Gallas should stop wearing the captain’s armband, Gilberto Silva looked more of a leader than Gallas.

The first goal by Man United once again exposed Arsenal’s sudden explicable weakness immediately after scoring a goal. Ronaldo managed to stay cool under pressure and score on the second attempt.

The cross by Evra to Ronaldo was amazing, materializing out of nowhere and a testament to the understanding of these players. Ferdinand was not at his best today, but van Der Sar was there to cover for it. Ferguson’s confidence in him despite a few blunders in the past seems to be paying off.

The goal by Hargreaves was an absolute beauty. The world (wit the possible exception of Hargreaves and Ronaldo ) was expecting Ronaldo to take the kick but, out of nowhere Hargreaves took the kick and was celebrating even before the ball touched the back of the net.

With the schedule remaining, I think even Chelsea will have a difficult time catching up. Hope we get a double this season!!!

Check out the video, I wonder why Adebayor is celebrating so much after the goal, is it because he managed to sneak in a goal with his hand ? Or is it because the referee was kind enough to allow the goal ? We might never know

With due respect, WHO CARES?

The highlights:

Manchester United v Arsenal
Uploaded by thefootie

Was Nikum Sir fair in Taare Zameen Par?

While most of us who have seen the movie were moved by the sensitive portrayal of Teacher-Student relationship, something about it hit me while I was pondering on how Taare was different from Black. While Black involved Amitabh Bachchan as personal helper for Rani Mukerjee’s character,  Taare involved much more interaction with the world of its principal characters. Amitabh Bachchan’s duties were solely towards his student, but that was not the case for Amir Khan’s character, who concetrated more on one student as compared to the others.

While the efforts that Amir Khan’s character put in helping a single student of his was commendable, was it fair towards the other students?

It is shown that the most of the teaching was done after schooling hours, but was very obvious around the school that there was one favourite student for the teacher.

What kind of an effect would this have had on the some of the students who were in the “middle of nowhere” situation i.e. they were not good enough to be appreciated by those “other” teachers but at the same time not bad enough to catch the eye of the considerate ones?

Any Thoughts?

Air India does it again

The national carrier is at it again. Despite the tall claims and the much publicized merger with Indian, the services provided by Air India continue to lag amongst the worst in the world. At this rate they are going to lose the even current crop of loyal customers that they have. At least they should know how to behave with passengers. Air hostesses seems to stop just hort of spanking passengers at times. What the hell is going on?

Just google for “Air India Lost Baggage” and you will be lost in a list of myriad list of links, all discussing woes about trying reclaim lost baggage/compensation from AirIndia. But the people at Air India could not bother less. This is probably the bane of the Public sector in India. Nobody cares as long as you have job security, and it is one of the most compelling reasons to privatize the airline to make it more competitive.

My personal experience on travelling with Air India has not been a pleasant one either. The only reason that hordes of students – like me – travel Air India is because of the extra baggage allowance for students going to the United States for studies for the very first time. And they prefer it second time is because they usually have the cheapest fares by about 50-100 dollars – a substantial sum for someone who is yet to start earning.

I had booked a flight from Chicago to Bombay via London, and was coming by the reverse route during the month of August’07. Firstly, there was no communication from Air India regarding the baggage allowance at London. Only one piece of hand baggage is allowed at Heathrow, something I came to know while I was standing in the queue to get my boarding pass. Having checked in my baggage at Indianapolis, it left me with the taskof fitting a laptop bag into my hand luggage.While waiting for the flight I checked on their website – there is no information regarding this limitation on the Air India website, just one rag of photocopied paper next to the start of the queue.

While I somehow managed to fit my laptop bag inside the hand luggage that I was carrying, it was above the weight limit and hence I was forced to check in the hand luggage I wanted to carry with me. Since the laptop bag was small, I was not permitted to even carry my camera in its pouch separately. I was nervous about having to check in my small electronics stuff at the airport, and as it turned out, for good reason. When I got my luggage in India, all my bags were half opened and pieces of cloth hanging out from those unopened pieces of luggage. Still I was like what the heck! that is not unusual for India. But when I opened my bags and tried to reach for the camera to take pictures of my reunion with my family, I was shell-shocked to notice that my camera was missing!!

I immediately mailed Air India regarding this, but have yet to receive any response from them till date, more than three months after I mailed them my complaint. However the story was far from over as I still had to fly back via the same airline.

Something Positive

The very first thing I noticed when I got onto the flight was…… was…….. was……… Individual screens for all passengers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OMG! was I dreaming?? This can’t really be true! In Air India?? WOW!!!!

….And the resultant negative

No no I knew I was not dreaming when a few minutes earlier I realized that some of the screens were not working at all. Others did not have functional remotes. Now THATS more like Air India.. Fortunately I was not amongst those unlucky few who had to read and re-read through the trash 50 page magazine for the next 22 hours of the flight. During the flight, half the touch screens were not working.

This is just half the torture story. The other half was played while coming back. The flight was delayed by 6 hours. Although I was not complaining about getting a chance to spend a few more hours with my family, it meant that I would miss my connecting flight to Indianapolis. This meant that I had to spend the night at Chicago airport. What was the compensation for that? A $7.50 food coupon! And of course I was given the option of using any of the numerous couches at the airport for a nice long snooze.

This attitude of Air India seriously needs to change if they are to truly become an international airline.Numerous airlines of our neighbouring countries like Sri Lanka, Thailand and Malaysia have much better airlines. Heck, I reckon even the PIA has better service. This creates a very bad impression about the quality of air services in a country when the sole national carrier is operating so pathetically. No doubt the situation is bound to improve as the private carriers get permission to fly on international routes in the coming months, but this might sound the death knell for Air India. Or just might spur them into action. Jet Airways did the same thing with Indian (then Indian Airlines) and the reaction from Indian was nothing short of woeful. Hopefully things will be better this time round. However nothing less than sweeping changes are going to bring back things in order.

Gutsy & Gorgeous!!

It has been the talk of noob-town for the past few weeks. And for good reason.

The new incarnation of Ubuntu, the Gutsy Gibbon was launched three weeks back to much fanfare. And it did not disappoint. It is easily the best Linux distro that I have come across. Best because it is truly made for human beings, not for the relatively tiny community of nerds who swear by the command line.

First thing that hits you about Linux is the price difference as compared to Windows. Its is Free. No registration Key. No validation required from Windows Genuine Advantage. Just download or order a free CD/DVD and it is all yours. The price is one of the reasons that draws people away from their beloved (and slow, virus infected) windows systems to try something different.

The installation process is fairly similar to that of the previous versions, and the only time you have a few nervous moments is while selecting the right partition for the installation. This is the single reason why I would still suggest that installing Ubuntu is not for the not-so-geeky. One wrong selection or format command can ruin the data stored on the other partitions. But one just needs a little bit of guidance to get through it. Once the partitions have been selected, the rest of the installation process is a breeze. What really hit me was the installation time. It took like 1/10th the time it took me to install XP. WOW!! Things were already looking good!!!

One thing about Ubuntu that stands out is that there is far less dependence on the command line as compared to some other distros. This, apart from the relative ease of installation, makes it the first choice of many first-time linux users who are scared of getting lost between those un-understandable commands necessary to install programs/drivers or even start an application.

Most of the drivers are now present in the kernel and this saves the effort of getting a wired connection to your computer (especially in the case of a laptop) and setting up the wireless. However the integration for Broadcom wireless drivers is still not upto the mark, whereas the ATI graphics drivers have seen quantum leap in the ease of installation. I vividly remember going nuts trying to install ATI drivers on Fiesty, which required reconfiguring about a hundred files. Gutsy gets it done within a few clicks.

There is lots of eye candy, more than even what vista users can imagine once the graphics drivers are setup and Compiz (which now comes pre-installed with Ubuntu) gets going. Although few of the tools add to productivity, it does make using the desktop a much better experience. You can easily spend over a day trying out the various combinations of Compiz Fusion.

Installing programs is also a whole lot easier now. But this is also the time when Linux’s biggest weakness is exposed – lack of compatible programs. Although many applications are now compatible on Linux, it still has some way to go before it gets close to the Windows repertoire. The necessity to enable the various repositories for installing differently supported programs is a tad irritating. It leaves one confounded when installation of a particular software is rejected when for some vague reason while in fact just one of the various repositories need to be enabled.

The support offered by the various forums online is very good and does a far better job of problem identification/solving than that by Windows Help Center. Even searching for known issues is very easy on the forums and goes a long way towards increasing user confidence.

Even for its vastly superior performance as compared to the Fiesty Fawn, there are a few bugs that need to be ironed out. The most common one seems to be the issue of the computer getting stuck in a limbo while putting it into standby/hibernate. This creates the unnecessary irritation of having to shutdown my laptop every time I want to take it from one place to another.

Will Gutsy send shivers down Microsoft’s spine? Not quite, there are still a wide range of applications that many of us would not do without that are currently not supported in Linux. OpenOffice is still a poor alternative for MS Office, though some of the net based applications like ZOHO and Google Documents & Spreadsheets will make the job easier. But it does show ample promise and will surely draw more than a passing glance from Redmond.

I hope to write more as I keep on using my Linux system more and more. Overall the epxerience has been a good one and I see myself booting my computer in Linux more frequently as time passes.

- Newbie Noob

GOOD Morning

Due to the amount of studies to completed while preparing for exams, I barely found time to sleep. One of the positives out of the deprivation of was sleep was I was able to witness one of the most beautiful sights since coming to Indy.

What a beautiful morning it was !!! A cloudless sky with an amazing transition of colors, as my day of reckoning (exams) dawned!

Yeah I did PS it a bit because the response of the CCD of my canon was not good enough to capture the true colors of the early morning sunlight. But heck, it was just to make the representation more accurate! Although I did go a bit overboard while editing it.

All’s well that ends well??

Been mighty busy with exams of late, and what do I read when I come back go through the limitless feeds bundled together while I was busy? Yet another case of pavement dwellers being run over by a rich brat, yet another fractured verdict (But in record time, i must admit). It seems to me like a pattern is developing wherein it is very easy to escape from the clutches of even the court while a case is pursued in the lower courts. The media creates a furore over the verdict in some of the cases, the higher courts take cognizance of the offence, and ensures that justice is delivered. Reading more on case of Alister Pareira, I have come across some interesting articles on the quantum of punishment handed out to him, one of which was particularly interesting.

I came across an interesting blog on CNN-IBN which put the blame of the incident squarely on those squatters & their contractors, rather than Mr. Alister Pareira. Yeah they had no business being on the road, But it wasn’t like they were sleeping in the middle of the road, they sleeping on the sidewalk. Also, what the writer fails to consider is that, it could have very easily been a pedestrian walking. There have been similar incidents in the past, including the high-profile case of Mr. Ravindra Mhatre, PA to none other than Bal Thackeray, but as usual it has all come to naught. Even if the labourers were sleeping on the road, it does not absolve Alister Pareira of his crime. He very well knew the consequences of his action, and not only did he fail to show an iota of remorse for his actions, but was involved in a similar incident barely four months after the first.

The fact that the shanties coming up by the day in Bandra are illegal and should be removed is totally agreeable, I was studying in Bandra for four years and used to visit Carter road, Bandstand and Linking road regularly which are, arguably, the hubs of activity in Bandra and tarp-bamboo-plastic structures are a big disgrace. But the occupants of the shanties are the very same people who are patronized on a daily basis at eateries and garment stores by the residents of Bandra at places like Linking road or Hill road. Nobody seems to be complaining about the traffic menace wrought by the on-the-road outlets on Linking road as they benefit from it – cheap clothes and footwear, and tasty food. But when it comes to the same people living in similar structures where they are interfering with the “beauty” of the place, people want it removed. This “anywhere except outside my house” attitude has to change.

At the end of the day what has happened?? Alister Pareira will be a free man soon, the cops will get on with their lives, the media will have a new topic to discuss, and the relatives of those killed will be left grieving. Where is the accountability ? If the cops responsible for the investigation were personally made responsible for outcome for the case, surely there would not have been such a shoddy investigation. The current hierarchy of the police system makes it impossible for any sort of accountability to exist. Only when the courts, which surely are the last beacon of justice for the common man, intervene do we see the skeletons tumbling out from the police closet.

Till the time police reforms are not implemented, especially with regard to promotions and perks, which are solely at the recommendations of politicians, the common man can hope for little when comes to expecting justice.

Note: By “common man” I refer to the average middle class guy who does not wield enough influence to get work done by the unaccountable system.