My hands are tempting to write something...after such a long interactions with computer, my fingers have fallen in love with the keyboard.. always want to write..to browse..to push the keys..they are so immersed in this love that they don't need much help of my eyes to the keys...sometimes i feel as fingertips have some memory. my fingers......all of them..are just always ready to touch their beloved (keyboard).
i remember in college days we used to dream that when will it happen when we would be able to type without looking on to keyboard like a typical software geek :-o . now that day is here... it had been 8 years of using the computers ...how much it has changed...from a bulky P3 with win98 to a small laptop with vista! but the funny thing is that in 2001-02, that 256MB RAM 4 GB HDD 800MHz PC was worth 35-40K and this 2GB RAM, 2Ghz, 80GB HDD laptop is cheaper than that!! and imagine the value of Rs40k then and now. And the irony is that , the old big box was faster than this hi-fi laptop! I don't know how is this happening ...we are having faster technology but still slower PC...we are having faster RAM but a heavy OS which eats up all of it! there was no single PC in hostel which could bear me..as soon i start working on it, it used to hang ..and unfortunately i have yet not found a fast enough! computers has become a part of an average family in India....i am so much used to of doing everything online...from booking of movie and travel tickets to bill payments and banking...everything! without internet, a computer is a soul without body (or vice versa). and now this has changed the way we live...out community is now ONLINE..we meet friends online...talk on video chat to friends and family on skype ..and can't complete without mentioning orkut..that enable us to keep our social circle alive! we are living in virtual world!! so lets get real.... go out of the door and meet the real people there :-)
We are all used to of two things about Indian political system and Bureaucracy: "chalta hai" and "kuchh nahi ho sakta" . By these two we all accept them as they are. We dream of an accountable and honest system but don't bother how it will come!! Right to Information Act 2005 is one of the biggest achievement of a government and people of India. Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) deserve a big applause for its effort. Now BIG problem is that people don't know about it. The good things is that address of all public information officers are available online. So here we all ..people of internet word..who care a lot about the world but feel helpless against the system can make a big difference . in RTI you can send application about any thing happening ( or not happening) anywhere in india. You don't need to even tell the reason. So if a particular got office is not working properly, you can ask them why..or can even visit their office to see how they work. RTI is properly utilized have empowered citizen. So now we all should start a RTI campaign. Whenever you see a problem, right an application and send it. This is bare minimum we all can do..and here is how to do it:
1. Find out the address of PIO from internet or directly from the office against which you want to send RTI Application 2. Write application on a plain paper with all the questions and information you want to seek. 3. provide your complete address and contact number on the application. 4. Get a Indian Postal Order of Rs 10 from any post office and make it payable to the account officer of that organisation. Check the website or inquire in the office directly. Otherwise just write "Account officer," e.g. Account officer, Department of Heath & Family welfare". 5. keep a copy of application and IPO number with you. 6. send the application only by registered post of speed post . Keep safely the receipt of your post. Do not send by normal post of courier. If you submit application personally, take receiving on its copy with stamp of that office.
Withing 1-2 week you will see action on this. And if you dont get anything in a month complaint about that PIO to appellate authority. You will find all the required information here http://www.rti.gov.in/
I would say just start sending RTI to all places you see corruption , unaccountability or harassment of public. If a good officer is transferred, send an RTI application with question why he/she got transferred. If a bad officer is still not handled, send a RTI asking why. If there are path-holes in your road, send RTI to municipality asking why. Just go on..wake up.and ask..why Public Department dont work for public. Just start it.. believe me...you will see the change!!
Take the print of the acknowledgment and sent it using ordinary post to the Bangalore office as specified on the acknowledgment. I got the receipt of my acknowledgment in a week. :-)
The IITs have taken up an initiative of starting online teaching and thus have started offering course materials online for every engineering stream.
Many professors from all the IITs have provided course materials for each chapter and each subject..
Every Chapter has been described with diagrams and charts. Please spread this message to everyone, as many can benefit from this program taken up by the government and IIT.
1] Type the following address on internet explorer http://www.nptel.iitm.ac.in
2] Click on Courses http://www.nptel.iitm.ac.in/courses.php
The video courses are available on you tube http://youtube.com/iit
Please spread the word, so that this initiative benefits as many students as possible.
Its good to see such initiatives coming in India. MIT has a very good online course material website http://www.nptel.iitm.ac.in/index.php
"Write to be understood, speak to be heard, read to grow."
Black Money: a money for which you have not paid tax, money of people stolen either from government or directly from us! Whenever we don't take a bill for our grocery purchase, or pay a bribe to some babu(clerk) or mamu (traffic police), or buy pirated CD, download pirated songs/movie/software, we are contributing to the realm of the black money. Its kind of fascinating that as there is "matter and anti matter" , we have "money and Black money". Both were created at the "moment of creation" (of course their individual creation). They coexist, with out interfering to each other. But there is one thing very different about this cognate of money with that of matter. Matter cannot be converted to Antimatter but money can! Its like playing the role of its cognate twin.
I believe that e-money or plastic money is a good solution to this twin brother devil. Once, while getting my CNG car refulled, the man at the gas station gave a very fantastic pragmatic idea of dealing with balck money problem. That was "sare currency note badal ke naye chhaapo to sara kala dhan, jo bekar pada hai, ekdam khatam". The government should cancel all the old notes and issue a new currency. They should slowly replace the existing currency and support e-money and plastic money. This will reduce the value of all those crores of rupees of black money to a pile of scrap (raddi). And then , at least that heap of black money cant be used to fertilize the corrupt business practices and also the crime and terrorism. but as most of the black money is with the poerfull businessmen or Netas(politicians), this kind of change has to come with a very string political will to fight against black money! Till than,dont pay bribe, dont buy pirated CDs, and use your debit/credit card instead of paying cash or take a billl (pakka bill..not just a rough paper).
Woman development and empowerment is a key requirement for the growth of any society. And education is that can make that possible. But unfortunately, in rural areas of India, which comprises a very large part of India's population, due to poverty, children are not able to go to school. Woman and kids work in fields at very low wages. Mostly the work from woman and children comes free with the employed man labour. And in such scenario, even the daily school meal scheme is unable to attract poor kids to school. Over that the corruption level in the system which leaks most of fund to the corrupt officials makes it worse.
We all are aware of this problem. Talking about this on this forum won’t help at all. We should take some action. We all have some links to village, our neighbours, distant relatives and friends can coordinate in this. If each one of us supports one girl child, give her fees and basic monthly expense that her family will otherwise get by putting her in some child employment, it will really make a difference. And in long term, we can make a informal group of such girls who will themselves got o the families and will motivate and pursue the parents of girls to send them to school. An amount of 2000/- may not be large for we living in the cities, working on our laptops and spending 500 for a lunch. But that money is enough for a month’s expense to a family in a village. So we, if cumulatively support such group, things will really take shape. There are NGOs but they also have limitations and again no one works for free. So it will be better if we try implementing this at personal level, giving few hours a week to work towards this. At very minimum, we can at least support the poor families in our vicinity, be it the domestic help working at your home or a peon in your office. We don't need to go too far to find a poor family.
I've been awakened and I want you to be awake too. I realized how important it is to stop complaining but start voting to make a difference. And now, it's simpler than ever before!
Jaagore! One Billion Votes - a nationwide movement on voter registration - has made it possible to fill a voter registration form online and that too in just 5 minutes!
Go to www.jaagore.com to learn more and register to vote right now..
If you have already registered to vote, you can still register with Jaagore! One Billion Votes movement and get periodic confirmation of your voter status, and election related news and reminders. Believe it or not, even registered voters sometimes do not figure in voter lists!
Go to www.jaagore.com for more information, and to learn about voting related rules and procedures.
E-mail has become really powerful. Just send a mail to customer care or lodge your grievance online, you will be surprised to get response. So if you bought an electronic device and it does not work well, or your bank does not work well or your policy insurer is delaying the payment, just send a mail to their customer care/grievance cell or public relation officer, and you will see the action. There are so many sites
Online Public Grievance Lodging and Monitoring System http://pgportal.gov.in/ National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission http://ncdrc.nic.in/ RBI Ombudsman for banks http://www.rbi.org.in/Scripts/bankingombudsman.aspx
Always go goggle to know more cases and sites. keep visiting http://india.gov.in/ http://india.gov.in/spotlight/spotlight.php http://fcamin.nic.in/index.asp http://business.gov.in/consumer_rights/index.php
I have spent three years in Bangalore with cherishable moments of the very first years of my career as a software engineer. But on 24th December 2008,I spent my worst night in Bangalore. I was on my holiday visit to Singapore and at immigration check I was detained and was denied to board the flight. This incident was my worst encounter with regionalism and with the poor system of police and government my very own country.
Day: 24 December 2008, 10 PM Place: Bangalore International Airport
I reached airport before 9 to catch my flight to Singapore, Singapore airline’s Fight SQ502 at 11:10PM. After checking in my luggage with my friend, I reached immigration counter. When I presented my passport to the Immigration officer, he looked at me strangely and asked “Are you Punjabi?”. I clarified that not all “Singh”s are sardar/punjabi. Then he asked me do you have a nick name “Pitta”. Now I was puzzled what’s happening. Then he took me to the inspector to discuss the case without telling me what the matter is. Then they started talking in Kannada without bothering to tell me about why I am not being told anything. With my little knowledge of Kannada, I could make out that there is a person name “Pardeep Singh” whose name is of course similar but not same to my name Pradeep Singh. This person is a Punjabi with nick name Pitta and has a FIR against him in 2006. In Nov 2006, Punjab police has sent a LOC ( Look out circular)
The immigration officer named Mr. Vasu didn’t allow me to go on the basis of an LOC which was against Mr. Pardeep Singh alias Pitta who is a resident of Punjab. This LOC was more than 2 year old and was raised in November 2006. As per CBI guidelines, an LOC must be as per the Proforma and must have at least three parameters of identity other than name and is invalid after a year.
They didn't listen to any logic and told me that they will let me only when they get a written confirmation from Punjab police that I am a different person. Even after a confirmation on telephone by a senior police officer (SP) that the real convict Pitta was arrested in Nov 2006.
And as per the “smart” and “intelligent” officers and Bangalore airport, I had a match of three parameters with a criminal out of which, two were sex and Nationality. So according to them, all Indian males have a 50% probability of being a criminal.
There was no sufficient information provided in that LOC just the name and father name. Despite the spelling of my name was different and there was no other information like passport number, age or physical parameters were available, they detained me. And at worse, they literally trapped me. My fault was that I thought being innocent I will be freed soon and they are just doing formality as part of their duty. I didn’t realise the gravity of situation and took it lightly which cost me a whole night there at airport and ruined the very first day of Singapore visit!!!
They knew that I am not the same person. And i can’t believe and they didn’t know that they shouldn’t stop me on the basis of an LOC more than a year old, but they were too pro-kannada and didn’t like not just north Indians but all non kannadiga people.
I was stupidly thinking that mater will be resolved. But I was kept in dark. They didn’t tell me what was happening. And when I tried to ask any question or give any justification, they threatened me to put in jail with no body available to listen to me. I didn’t realize they have determined to trap me probably for two reasons, one being I was a north Indian and dint know kannada. And they were stubborn on their argument that I was a Punjabi and all people with surname “singh” are Punjabi. And they argued that anyways UP and Punjab are very close having same borders. ( I wish they would have ever seen India ‘s map). At an international airport there were people who didn’t understand their country’s geography and demographic diversity.
And they didn’t like me going from Bangalore, when i could have gone from New Delhi. I told them that i worked in Bangalore for 3 years and have lots of friends. And also flights are cheaper from Banaglore. But they were not listening any of my argument.
Till I could have realised their intention, I had missed my flight and I was completely shocked that they have actually detained me and I am being treated as a suspect criminal. They didn’t listen to any of my point. I had many proofs to tell that I was a different person but they didn’t bother. They were determined to harass me. I was in identity crisis. Every time I tried to say anything, they threatened me that they will put me in jail. They were very rude and uncooperative. Very soon I realised that they were “kattar” kannadiga as the officer was very often showing people that he sign in kannada language. They were talking in Kananda and didn’t tell me anything about what is happening. Anyone who was not talking in kannada was being treated as an alien and was being questioned rigorously and illogically. For example they just coudn't bear a girl from bangalore not knowing Kannada and tried their best to stop her and to ruin her honemoon plan.
Now I had no choice. When I tried to ask any question or give any justification, they threatened me to put in jail. I could not sleep whole night. I was very disturbed with this incident. My friend Akash who was also going to Singapore with me, also voluntarily disembarked from flight and chose to stay with me. There was a detention room where I and my friend could have stayed and taken some rest, but until 3 AM in morning (after 5 hours), they didn't let us move from the immigration counter.
Next day morning, the duty officer changed. He also told me that LOC was more than year old and was not renewed so I should have been allowed to go. In morning they got another confirmation call from Punjab Police that the real convict is in Punjab and is attending court for the case against him. Then they verified my passport again. After 11 AM, 25th Dec 2008, I was told that I can go. But I had to wait for the FAX from Punjab police as I knew that at every immigration check point in India, I was going to face this problem.
Punjab police is also responsible for this as they raised an LOC with insufficient information. Had there been complete information, I would have been saved from being humiliated and harassed. Punjab police had complete detail in FIR but still they dint put complete detail in LOC violating LOC proforma.
In my own country I was feeling like an alien. I was on a 10 days holiday plan and all my plan get ruined because of this. I have never faced such torture in my life. These officers behaved as brainless with complete disregard to civil rights.
I want to tell that during my visit to Singapore and Malaysia, I met other country's immigration officers. They were very polite, helpful and respected citizen. But my worst experience was in my own country. Every next moment those officers kept telling me that they are doing their duty, it's MY STATE's police which is delaying the process (by saying this they meant MY North Indian state Punjab) . Every time they were making me feel that India is not one. UP, Punjab and Karnataka etc are not the integral part of same country. I was complete shaken by such an opinion.
I was very much hurt by this incident. I later found that as per CBI guidelines, LOC must have at least 3 parameters other than name. An LOC is valid for a period of one year. However, in case the originating agency wants to extend the validity beyond one year it can ask for the extension before the expiry of the one year period. If no request is made for the extension of the LOC within the stipulated period of one year, the Immigration Officer concerned is authorized to suspend the LOC.
But still as it would have been clear, I was not stopped because of law but by corrupt regionalist narrow minded idiots.
My suggestion to all international travelers to be aware about LOC and other processes at immigration checks. They are all idiots sitting there you assume. As soon as they try to trap you on some illogical basis, immediately contact your family or friend to get some help. Keep a close eye on your passport or someone may tamper it and may get you in trouble. Always keep 1 hour extra for immigration check if you are visiting that airport/country first time. Keep some proofs other than PAN and passport which have your address. If you are a working professional, its good to keep your visiting card and office id card with you.
I thank Singapore airlines for providing me a seat in next day's flight. Luckily on xmas day, flight was having lot of vacant seats so i could go finaly without having to buy ticket. I thanks my friend Akash who also waited with me there and provided moral support.
Now i want to teach a lesson to those unscrupulous people. I dont know what to do. I have already put my grievance on India's official grievance website http://pgportal.gov.in/ . Hope there would be some action.
--- NOW ----
That was in 2008, after that i literally started an RTI campaign to resolve this issue.
In my RTI campaign, i gave some trouble to Bangalore Police and BIAL Airport Police. Thanks to Ministry of Home for taking care of my requests and to direct Immigration Bureau and IB for proper action. This issue was handled at the level of principal secretary in MOH. Punjab police also sent RTI response with all details. I happen to contact Punjab Police, CBI, Ministry of Home, Bangalore Commissioner, Airport Police and Information bureau and also Public Grievance department. Its great to find that RTI has opened door for citizen to directly contact the government officials.
in my further trips i discovered that now there is no such LOC. However, since my passport is old and is handwritten, it takes a minute more than others. I suggest old passport holders to get new digital mark passport.
