My Journey to the Rest Room

When I was very young, toilets were called toilets, whether at airports, railway stations or in homes. Then they came to be know as Lavatories, Wash Rooms and now Rest Rooms. That matter currently rests at Rest Rooms. In most homes they are still called toilets, however. I guess, they were looking for better sounding names to label public toilets, hence the migration. The place presumably stinks less when called by a less offensive name. Also, "I am going to the rest room" probably sounds more civil and agreeable than "Let me go to the toilet". Ugh, how can one go to a toilet, when just a few minutes of "rest" should take care of all that effusive urge?

Having studied in a Hindi medium boarding school, I was used to the term shauchalaya (शौचालय in Hindi) even for the hostel toilets, a term that remains unchanged to this day. Hindi speaking Indian homes have called them pakhana (पखाना in Hindi) without wincing or pinching the nose. There was a separate bathroom (गुसलखाना or स्नानघर in Hindi) With  the advent of the combined bath and toilet the term changed to a less offensive "bathroom (बाथरूम in Hindi too)". So, even when one was going to the loo in an Indian home, one would say, "l am going to the bathroom". Taking a bath or a shower was not implied every time one announced the destination. 

Well, the designation of the toilet underwent this massive change when I was not even watching. And, I learnt about this march of civilisation in a rather educative way. Having been dumped by an International flight at the Newark airport late one night we were looking for a place to stretch our legs. The connecting domestic flight was scheduled the next morning. One of us spotted a rest room sign in the terminal building. We were delighted at the prospect of a dormitory or a room with lounge sofas where we could spend the night. So, I despatched a member of the team to go look for it.

He went up and down the "Rest Rooms" sign a few times and came back. "Sir, there doesn't seem to be a rest room over there", he said.

I reprimanded him, "Can't you see the board there? It clearly says Rest Rooms. Let me go and check for myself".

Well, I too walked up and down the sign and found no trace of a rest room. Not even a narrow passage in the wall that could lead to a rest room deeper into the building. Every time I walked up, I would see a door to the toilets. Then coming back to the sign, I would see the same door again. Confused, but determined to solve the mystery, we went into a huddle just the way the West Indies cricket team had taught us. We came to the conclusion, "THE TOILET IS THE REST ROOM". Thus I made the discovery of the Rest Room on the American land. Wouldn't Columbus be proud of me?

Now, of course, Indian public places of some sophistication, such as Malls or Airports have rechristened their toilets Rest Rooms. The eponymous facility in the Indian Railways is used by loco pilots (engine drivers) for rest between duties, kind of a small running room. And, they actually do there what the name suggests - lie down in a bed, catch forty winks and wake up fresh to run the next train. And, of course, in the rest rooms they also have a rest room, oops .. .. a toilet. 

For the hoi polloi caught in the maze of modern civilisation a rest room promises nothing more than a place to rest one's bladder and bowels. Maybe in the fast lane of life today that is rest enough.

                                                  ---ooo---

De-innovating to innovate. (Or, when is a no feature a new feature?)

It is a religion for the technogeeks, tech editors and reviewers to fawn at whatever Apple throws at them. Now here is another Apple phone, the iPhone7, which ditches the headphone jack and it is being touted as a new feature!

In the highly competitive smartphone business, where not only innovation has reached a dead end, even sales are stagnating, de-innovating is the next innovation.

Just the other day they created mobile phones, which played music through either wired or wireless headphones. Now, you have a "new and improved" phone, which does what all phones were already doing, play music through A2DP Bluetooth headphones, but takes the wired feature out. Except that it doesn't! You can still connect your old wired earphones into the power port of the iPhone7.

But, aren't we all supposed to thank Apple's relentless innovation, which continually blesses the humankind with manna raining down from the ninth cloud, where Steve Jobs now lives, presumably. My guess is that the iPhone will remove the screen itself from the iPhone8 and then the phone itself from the iPhone9. After all, we have time to live through the supernova of our sun and well into the days when the earth encircles a white dwarf.

Meanwhile, go ahead and buy those $159 EarPods, a small price to swim in the holy waters of Applelake and to keep up with the Jonses. 

And, don't forget to charge three pieces of innovation every evening - the two EarPods and the phone itself. Aren't you feeling blessed already?

http://www.computerworld.com/article/3117622/smartphones/why-apple-dropped-the-headphone-jack-in-the-iphone-7.html

Shobha De, You loser!

Shobha De,

You mocked the Indian athletes in the Rio Olympics thus:

"Why do with bother with the Olympics? Goal of team India at the Olympics: Rio Jao. Selfies lo. Khaali haat wapas aao. What a waste of money and opportunity."

Well, you have been lambasted enough for this singularly crass and insensitive comment. You have dismissed it all as trolling. Let me not go into that domain once again. I just want to compare you with Indian contingent that has gone has gone to the Rio Olympics. Remember that Olympics are not the only world sports contests. There are many more, which are sports specific and equally, if not more, demanding. Some of our Olympians have won medals in such events. Agreed, nothing fires up the imagination and charm like the Olympics. Well, let's see what our boys and girls have done there.

Deepa Karmakar lost the bronze by a whisker and came fourth in the world, yes fourth in the Whole World. She is also the first Indian to have ever qualified for the Olympics in gymnastics. She recently won gold in another world event and has won our hearts.

Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna also came forth in the world by narrowly missing the bronze play off in a tough fight 6-1, 7-5. They have won medals earlier. 

The hockey team broke a 36 year jinx and reached the Olympic knock out stage and reached the quarter finals for the first time after 1980.

Badminton players Kidambi Srikanth and PV Sindhu reached pre-quarter finds of badminton coming in the top sixteen in the world.

Abhinav Bindra came a close fourth in shooting and was all grace on his loss in the medal race. That he has earlier won a Gold and has taught Indians to dream is a far bigger story.

And so on .. ..

 

Now, let's see what you have achieved, Shobha De! In spite of passing off porn and sleaze as literature, or possibly because of it, you have no appeal beyond Page 3, the incestuous "civil society" and it's cocktail parties. Where do your so called bestsellers stand in world rankings? Well, let me examine your pulp on an even smaller yardstick, just the Amazon/Kindle rankings. Some of your popular books are ranked as follows on Amazon India:

SURVIVING MEN: 90,148

SPEEDPOST: 67,400

SOCIALITE EVENINGS: 62,959

They hardly qualify to be bestsellers, eh!

So, next time you shoot your mouth off in the Twitterland, be sure that your feet are clean. You will prevent a foul breath.

I really want to help you, but ...

O Dear, I understand your problem and I really wish I could do something for you. After all, I am here to serve the people of India. Am I not a public servant, appointed just for this? 

Your problem seems genuine and your grievance authentic. I can't tell you how pained I am at the insensitivity of the system of which I am a part. This problem should not have arisen in the first place if my colleagues in that department and the rules of this other department had been a bit more accommodative. I must now solve your problem. Let me see .. .. Let me see .. ..

Hmm .. Umm .. Uh .. Oh ..

Ah .. There you are. Here is your file. Let me see .. Let me see .. Oh my God! Look at this clerk of my office and see what he has written. There is no rule to do this! How can the rascal write that? I truly want to help you out here and this lowly clerk write here that it can't be done!

Sorry, my Friend! The rules don't permit. Or else I could have done it in no time at all. I know what your are thinking. You are shocked that this great bureaucrat of the government of India, this guy selected out of lakhs and lakhs of bright candidates by the UPSC through the toughest selection process on the planet can't help you!

You see, my Friend, I may have been the brightest, the most educated and the smartest of all. But, my mind is pawned to that clerk sitting in that corner at the end of this dingy corridor. Yes, he is only high school pass, but he does all the thinking for me. He interprets the rules, links precedents, brings out perils of decision making and predicts the outcomes of my decisions on my behalf! He verily tells me what I should do sitting in my chair. In most cases he even drafts my orders and tells me where to sign. If he tells me to just sit there and twiddle my thumbs, I would do that too for I have outsourced my thinking to a high school pass clerk.

He thinks for me. The junior clerk runs this office. Why don't you sit with him and explain your case to him? Maybe I can help you then, provided he writes a favourable noting. But, that is between you and him now .. .. I really wish I could do something for you. After all, ain't I here to help you?

वंशीधर के वंशज (The Salt Inspector lives .. ..)

Munshi Premchand wrote how regulation and taxation of the commonplace salt led to black market, illegal trade and corrupt officialdom. The opening paragraph of the famous story, नमक का दारोग़ा, read as follows:

जब नमक का नया विभाग बना और ईश्वरप्रदत्त वस्तु के व्यवहार करने का निषेध हो गया तो लोग चोरी-छिपे इसका व्यापार करने लगे। अनेक प्रकार के छल-प्रपंचों का सूत्रपात हुआ, कोई घूस से काम निकालता था, कोई चालाकी से। अधिकारियों के पौ-बारह थे। पटवारीगिरी का सर्वसम्मानित पद छोड-छोडकर लोग इस विभाग की बरकंदाजी करते थे। इसके दारोगा पद के लिए तो वकीलों का भी जी ललचाता था।

The salt satyagraha of was a turning point in the freedom struggle. The Mahatma, through his Dandi March in 1930, turned that folly of the British to his great advantage and mobilised a whole nation against foreign occupation. Non-violence protest and civil disobedience were defined for an oppressed nation and a timid mass of humanity, which found a powerful weapon to fight the mighty brutal Empire.

Do you know that this nation of timid masses still bears the cross of the Salt Inspector. The British are gone and salt tax was a not insignificant force in their ouster. Yet, cess on salt remains and its regulation is an important opportunity of discretionary use of power. A population, which threw out the largest power on earth for regulating salt still perpetuates the same tax and regulation!

Did you know that there is an All India Service called the "Indian Salt Service"? It is a Group B service, with officers posted all over, which rules the sea coasts of the nation.

The Website of the Salt Commissionerate defines some of its its function as follows:

1. Leasing of Central Government land for salt manufacture.

(How much land is owned by the Central Government, which it leases?)

2. Planning of production targets.

(Why should the government set production targets for salt? Are resources, like the sea-water, in short supply?

3. Arranging equitable distribution and monitoring the quality and price.

(Why can't the market forces do that? The government doesn't do that even for food grains.)

4. Promotion of technological development and training of personnel.

(Technology? Why does it require the government's intervention?)

5. Maintenance of standards and improvement in quality of salt.

(Really?)

6. Collection of Salt Cess, Assignment Fee, Ground Rent and other dues.

The website goes on to say:

"As per document available the salt department has been in existence prior to 1802 AD. Salt manufacturing activities were brought under licencing system by an Act containing stringent panel action .. .. The collection of salt revenue was originally vested in the Collectors of Districts; subsequently a separate Department under a Salt Commissioner on the recommendation of a commission appointed by the Government of India in 1876 was created."

Well, the Salt Commissioner, created in 1876, exists even today.

In the constitution of India, Salt is Central subject and appears as item No. 58 of the Union list of the 7th Schedule, which reads : (a) Manufacture, Supply and distribution of salt by Union agencies : and (b) Regulation and control of manufacture, supply and distribution of salt  by other agencies. The Central Government is responsible for controlling all aspects of the Salt Industry through Salt Organisation.

 

The British Government finally abolished the "duty" on salt. And lo and behold, it imposed a "cess" on it on 1-4-47. This was subsequently ratified by the Government of Free India as Salt Cess Act, 1953. 

Guess, what was the purpose of this cess. It was to meet the expenses of the salt organisation, the very organisation, which should not have existed in the first place!

Through several legislations, reports of committees and commissions, in the year 1996 the Government of India decided to de license the salt industry. But, the Salt Commissioner exists along with his sub-offices and an army of salt officials recruited in the "Indian Salt Service".

Amongst other things, the Salt Commissioner certifies if the salt being transported by rail is for Industrial consumption or human. Indian Railways carry the latter at a concessional tariff. If the concessional tariff was to be removed, the salt we eat would cost us some fifty paise extra per head per month. But, we could then get rid of the entire salt Commissionerate as a result!

Munshi Vanshi Dhar, the original Salt Inspector, must be turning in his grave.

http://saltcomindia.gov.in/HistoryOfSalt.html?tp=html

DON’T CRY MILORD! (Just do your job)

Your Honour!

Indian Railways are struggling with nearly 30% vacancies in the cadre of track maintainers. We are also short of 20% Loco Drivers over the sanctioned strength. Indeed, we are short of manpower by the given yardsticks in almost all areas. But, we run ALL the trains with 90+% punctuality, we carry all the goods cheaper than any other mode and our safety is improving every day. We add new trains every year, run specials during festivals and holidays without additional resources. Our online ticketing is rated to be the best in the world. Our stations and trains are cleaner than ever, quality of food is improving and so is the passenger satisfaction across the country. True, we lack resources for expanding our network, but we do our assigned job well and without complaining.

We don't keep a pendency in running of trains. We do not have a hundred or a thousand trains waiting to run tomorrow or next week just because we have vacancies in our ranks. Yet, we find that the media, political parties and public at large are ready to accept backlog of cases in our courts on account of vacancies! 

Yesterday you cried, Milord! You lamented the vacancies in superior courts and stated that vacancies were the reason for pendencies. In my heart, though I don't think believe that you subscribe to that view. Vacancies can never be zero. I read in the newspapers, after the NJAC judgement, that the real problem of the judiciary is vacancies – 30% of late. But the pendency is older than this recent spurt in vacancies, which has worsened due to the NJAC issue. I have learnt that twenty-four High Courts together sit on a pile of some forty-five lakh pending cases. Appeals in criminal cases against conviction are waiting to be heard for as long as thirty years, more than the maximum sentence in the cases. I am certain all this cannot be explained away by vacancies alone. In any case it was the collegium, which ought to have filled those vacancies.

The only way to overcome this problem is that those, who are in the saddle, work a little harder to compensate for the vacancies. All of us do that in government, public sector or private enterprises. We work longer hours till late evening, on weekends, forego personal leave and certainly do not go on summer vacations. Even Secretaries to the Government of India are now required to punch-in their attendance sharp at nine AM every day. Surely, working longer hours is not anathema to you, My Lordship!

I often get judgements and awards from courts for compliance within two months, one month, or even a fortnight. I have no option but to burn the midnight oil and fulfil the orders in the judgement. How I wish I could one day beseech or request, though certainly not order Your Lordships, to deliver a judgement in two weeks since an important developmental project is held up, a contract is getting annulled or an international agreement is at stake! But, that would be a contempt of court, I guess. Surely, the judiciary is entitled to its independence and autonomy, surely it can rightfully claim non-interference and neutrality, but it ought to know that like other organs of state, the legislature and the executive, the judiciary too is paid out of taxes and that it is ultimately answerable to the paymaster, the common citizen of the country. The common person is increasingly getting restless. She wants good governance, she wants delivery of goods and services and above all she wants a just society. And, she wants them quick. Judiciary is answerable to her for its own share of deliveries.

How does the common citizen force change in governance? He votes. He votes a party out and brings in a new government. He gets the opportunity to do so every five years. Political parties, after having fooled the masses and after their repeated failures have realised that the public means business. They have yielded to a change in discourse from caste, religion and freebies to development and performance. How does a common man pull up the executive? How does he seek relief from exploitation and unfairness? He goes to a court of law. Leave aside the delays for a moment, he still hopes for justice, solace and compensation. What is important is that he has a door, which he can knock. But, were does he go, when the same door is closed to him for thirty years in his face? Whom does he implore, when the very institution he implores, has queued up lakhs of relief seekers ahead of him?

This frustration with the judiciary has led to abject hopelessness in the masses and ridicule of the process of law. Undertrials and appellants spend the best years of their lives in incarceration, people resort to coercion and murder for solving land and property disputes and an occasional dejected one commits suicide. 

Any organisation works with hierarchies, which are arranged in the fashion of a pyramid. The senior levels have fewer positions than the lower ones. Indeed, the entire supervision and management structure follows this dictum. Yet we have a State in the country, which has an inverted pyramid in the judiciary. There are one hundred sixty High Court Judges and just seventy-five district Judges! Yet, this High Court has the highest number of cases pending within its portals.

All organs of the State have undergone reforms and infusion of technology. Most departments of the government and companies in the private sector have become leaner as a result. The judiciary too has had its share of modernisation and IT embrace. But, the courts work at the same pace, actually slower than ever. One of the High Courts of the country has, on the 17th October last year, invited bids for supply of iPhone6S for use by the Hon’ble Judges. This model of phone was launched in September, i.e. just a month ago. We do not mind Our Lordships owning the latest gadget in the world costing sixty thousand Rupees each, not even if the poor people of India pay for it. But, we want a return on that investment. Please give us that.

We have all heard Justice Ruma Pal, who candidly showed the mirror to the judiciary by enumerating its seven sins – turning a blind eye to a colleague’s indiscretion, hypocrisy, secrecy in appointment of judges, plagiarism and prolixity, verbose judgements, personal arrogance, professional arrogance and nepotism.* We have all heard you, Your Lordship! You want total independence and autonomy. We agree with that too. You also said that you will improve the system from within. We know from experience that insulated systems are the most difficult to change and often a change promised from within is more of a chimera than an action plan. Yet we trust you for this time once again. But, remember, the outcome of the reforms will be judged by the people of India and not by the government or the legislature. Next time, the call for change may not take the legislative route.

So, here is my twopenny advice. All of these are within your purview. Maybe, if you followed some of these, you could smile the day you lay down your office.

1. Tell your colleagues and subordinate judges to come to office at 9:00AM and not leave before 6:00PM.

2. Fix a yardstick for judges and courts by which their performance will be measured - limit number of adjournments and hearings, limit the total span of time over which a case is heard and limit the number of pages a judge will write in his award.

3. Spend quality time in courts hearing arguments and delivering justice and stop playing the adjournment game, better known as tareekh-par-tareekh.

4. You and your fellow judges in superior courts are also supervisors to lower judiciary. Do that job well. Pull up the lazy ones and compel them to deliver.

5. Force some discipline on lawyers to come in time and come prepared on the first appearance itself.

6. Learn some English and unlearn all that Latin. Make it simpler for the common man to understand what you say and intend.

7. Tell your colleagues to cut that sarcasm out of their speech in the courts. Don't speak what you cannot write in your judgements.

8. Make it possible and easy for a common man with an average level of education to argue and contest his own case rather than be fleeced by greedy lawyers.

9. And, last but not the least, give up that summer vacation. You do not have to sail to England to avoid the Indian heat. Stay here, and feel for the fellow citizens.

http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/justice-ts-thakur-breaks-down-before-pm-modi-stresses-need-for-more-judges-1398829?site=full

MAN AND CHILD (Aged 22 and 29 respectively)

Here is a man. Capt. Pawan Kumar of the Indian Army. Martyred at the age of 22 in the service of the nation. When he turned 22, he had already put in three years of active service, earned a promotion and was leading a team of soldiers, who were ready to die for the country. Capt. Pawan Kumar led his men against entrenched terrorists and made the supreme sacrifice for the Motherland. There is not a single person in the country who is not proud of him. Capt. Pawan Kumar joined the Army not because he wanted to die for the country. He did so because he wanted to protect his country. He entered the Armed Forces not because it was easily available. He did it through a tough process of selection called the NDA examination - A highly competitive written test, a rigorous physical test and a test of his aptitude. He, of course, knew the risks and dangers of an Army Officer's life. Yet he chose it over easier career options of Engineering, Civil Services or IT.

Here is another man,  err.. a boy. Kanhaiya Kumar. All of 29. Pursuing a PhD in a subsidised education system of the country that Pawan Kumar laid down his life for. Kanhaiya Kumar earns a scholarship of nearly thirty thousand Rupees per month, gets free housing, free medical care and has all the time in the world to profess breaking up of his Motherland. A parasite that he is, he leads a team of equally parasitical "boys and girls" to apologise to a terrorist's soul, who was responsible for slaying Kanhaiya's compatriots. Kanhaiya Kumar does not study "African Studies" (his topic for PhD) because he is even remotely interested in Africa, its history, literature or its people. He is studying it because a seat was available in that department, which paid him a handsome salary-like scholarship for five years of mollycoddling campus life. He did not choose to do a PhD to contribute a great deal to the knowledge of mankind. We will also check out his PhD thesis for original thought it is supposed to contain. He opted for a PhD because he did not get a job with his earlier education. He chose it because he was actually good for nothing else. His academic scores in JNU will prove that once again.

Capt. Pawan Kumar also holds a degree from the JNU. If he had lived to be 29, like Kanhaiya, he would be a Major in the Army, living a life of fulfilment and inspiration. He could still die for the nation as a Major. In fact he would protest if ever he was not sent to the front. He would be commanding a few Captains and a much larger unit of soldiers, each one of whom would look up to him for lessons in grit and gallantry. 

Kanhaiya Kumar would have turned 36 by then and would be pursuing a second PhD in "Gender Discrimination in Angola", raising slogans against the Country and promising to destroy it. He would, however, still be called a simple misguided boy. If Kanhaiya played his cards well, which he seems to be doing, he could become a Professor in the same incestuous system of education and spawn more middle-aged boy-traitors like himself in a never ending chain process. Worse, he could become a politician himself, given his recent display of power over them, to unite against the country. In the worst, though not unimaginable case, Kanhaiya Kumar could become the forerunner of a new ideology, where biting the hand that feeds is fashion.

गाल-सटाऊ चुंबन

उमुआँ .. उमुआँ .. .. 

आपने अक्सर पार्टियों में ऐसी आवाज़ सुनी होगी। अरे ये मैं क्या कह रहा हूँ? आपने कहाँ सुनी होगी? आप तो हिंदी पढ़ रहे हैं? ये आवाज़ें हाई सोसाइटी की पार्टियों में सुनने में आती हैं । क्या कहा आपने? हाई सोसाइटी क्या होती है? हाई सोसाइटी का हिंदी में कोई अर्थ या पर्यायवाची शब्द नहीं होता। अरे भाई साहब, हिंदी में तो हाई सोसाइटी होती ही नहीं|

अरे मैंने भी कहाँ सुनी थीं ऐसी आवाज़ें, मानों कोई बिल्ली अपनी सहेली से सालों बाद मिल रही हो। वो तो एक बड़े उद्योगपति की पार्टियां आजकल टीवी पर दिखाई जा रही हैं, उसी मैं मैंने सुना। आप भी वॉल्यूम ऊँचा करके ध्यान से सुनेंगे तो आपको सुनाई देंगी। उन्ही उद्योगपति, मच्छीमार हवाईजहाज वाले या बियरवाले दढ़ियल साहब की पार्टियों की बात कर रहा हूँ, जो करोड़ों लेकर फुर्र हो गए| इन पार्टियों में गाल से गाल सटा कर एक दूसरे के कान में हौले से हवा छोड़ते हैं और कहते है, "उमुआँ .. उमुआँ"। और भी कुछ बोलते होंगे, जैसे, "यूअर प्लेस और माइन?" या, "उस कमीने को देखो, कैसा मिसेज़ शर्मा पर लाइन मार रहा है।"

सुना है कि सरकारी बैंकों और सचिवालयों के अधिकारी भी इन हाई सोसाइटी पार्टियों में शरीक होते थे। क्या वे भी उमुआँ .. उमुआँ करते थे? अब कंडक्ट रूल्स में उमुआँ .. उमुआँ करना मना तो नहीं है? सो करते होंगे, मेरी बला से। लेकिन एक उमुआँ पर नौ हज़ार करोड़ न्यौछावर कर दें, ये भी कोई बात हुई। मैं तो ऐसे गालसटाऊ नाटक के पाँच रुपये भी न दूँ। कान में हवा जाने से मेरी तो फुरफुरी छूट जाए। और बेचारा आम करदाता जो फ़िल्मी मैगज़ीन में उन सुंदरियों की तस्वीरें निहार कर ही अपने को निहाल समझता है - उमुआँ तो एक दिवास्वप्न सा ही रह जाता है। नौ हज़ार करोड़ हालाँकि उसी की कमाई के जाते हैं|

आपसे फिर मुखातिब होउँगा। तब तक के लिए उमुआँ .. उमुआँ|

एंड टेक केयर!

DOES THE FARMER REALLY KNOW?

Creation, or non-creation of jobs, has been discussed as a yardstick of success or failure of a government. It is indeed a meaningful measure of the wellbeing of the economy. An ITI-pass plumber or a welder in a small town can at best hope to earn subsistence wages of about ten thousand Rupees a month. In fact even graduate engineers go abegging for such a salary. Thinking of a marginal farmer or a small milk-producer (gwala) numbs the mind. He has no salary - he and his entire family work for free in the field or in tending to the cattle. He sells the produce out of what is leftover from family's own consumption. That pays for his other needs - clothes, medicines, house-repair, cooking, education of children and the other myriad necessities of daily life.

Now, there is no job like that in the world that doesn't pay wages. Surplus produce cannot be called a wage, certainly not for all the members of the family. The wife, the mother, all the children are actually working for free. Each one of them should actually be getting the minimum wage every day for their back breaking labour, say ₹200 to ₹300 per diem. If they did claim that wage, our milk would cost us seventy-five Rupees a litre and wheat sixty Rupees a kilo. After all a large farmer or a dairy-owner does pay his workers some wage. So, our cheap milk, vegetables and food grain are actually a product of self-inflicted slavery. 

So friends, pray to God that the small farmer doesn't became aware of this!

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BLOATWARE IS BACK

With the advent of Android and iOS there was a hope, howsoever slim and shortlived it proved later, that software writers were back to being sensible once again. I was told the Windows XP had a billion lines of code. The initial years of Android and iOS were ruled by constraints of limited processing power, low memory in the mobile devices and need to quickly roll out software. Apps, the nifty little pieces of software, had made the routine easier and quicker. The mobile Operating Systems themselves were compact, yet functional and stable.

Soon, the cliques of code-writers realised that they would be out of business and jobs. So, the guild struck with a vengeance. They soon started writing bloatware once again like there was no tomorrow. And lo and behold, the hardware industry lapped up the opportunity like a drowning man clutches a life buoy thrown to him. So we are now commonly looking at 1.7GHz Octa Core processors, dedicated graphics processors and assisted cooling accompanied by 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage.

We are back to the past, where software was distributed on double sided DVDs. Apps now are as big as half a Gigabyte. Even an upgrade is a few hundred Mega Bytes. Take a look at the attached screenshot - an upgrade of MS Word weighs in at 306 MB. A mere upgrade of just a component of the MS Office, that too of the mobile version is all of 300+MB or the size of half a CD! Not long ago, full MS Office came on ten floppies adding up to just about 14 MB and later on a CD of 700MB. Hard Disks were considered large if they had a capacity of 30GB. But that was before the bloatware took over.

That is not all. All other Apps that I fondly installed on my iPad or the Android phone also need  upgrades every two weeks. So if you have say 40 Apps, not an unusually large number, each one of these will "offer" a free upgrade (update) twice a month, demanding an average of 50MB data traffic for it. That makes nearly 4GB of data every month (2x40x50) just to make up for the stupid code-writers' slip-ups. Well, I often think that I am the stupid one to have fallen for all this. Even unlimited WiFi plan is not really unlimited - we all know that. There was a time, when the industry or the discerning users or at least the nerds cursed Microsoft for coming out with an upgrade (they called it a patch) every six months. But, now we do not even murmur at this rip off - in matter of data charges, personal time and possibly unknown security-holes in the App, which they want to plug every fortnight.

The Empire has Struck Back!

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KANHAIYA KUMAR (Why target a single person?)

Numerous TV debates have harped on this point. Why single out one student, when a whole lot of others were shouting seditious-slogans? Why only in JNU, when they dance tango with similar people in Kashmir? Well, Kanhaiya was (is) the leader of the JNUSU and was leading the crowd that day, when they called for destruction of India. That is good enough reason to put him behind bars. Whether he uttered those same very words from his own lips is not important. But, the legal issues go beyond that. Why make a single person (or just a few) pay for the crime of many? 

Let's go back to the days, when music piracy was at its peak, five to ten years ago. Powered by peer-to-peer networks like the Limewire, BitTorrent or Napster, millions of young men and women, older ones too, downloaded and shared songs, which were copyrighted by record labels or music companies. It happened in India and many countries.  But, in the USA, which prides itself on a tough regime of patents and copyrights (a great factor in its vibrant culture of innovation and creativity in academic, scientific, technological and entertainment fields), the record companies took the matter into their hands. They sued unknown millions for damages. Of course, it was technologically possible to list out each one of those anonymous downloaders and make them party in the legal battle. But, they narrowed down to just a few, out of which two cases are the most celebrated. The judiciary went along with this course.

Jamie Thomas-Rasset, a Woman from Minnesota was fined US$2,20,000 (RS. 1.5 Crores at today's exchange rate) for just 24 songs. She ended up paying US$9167 (Rs. 6.25 lakhs) per song. The case was filed by the Recording Industry Association of America and went up to the Supreme Court, which upheld the penalty.

The second case is of Joel Tenenbaum, a PhD student of Boston University, who ended up paying US$6,75,000 for just 30 songs or US$22,500 (Rs. 15.30 lakhs) apiece. The Supreme Court refused to even admit his appeal.

The argument that a single person should not be penalised since millions others were doing the same fell flat on the judges. The downloaders (pirates, actually) even argued that they would pay for the album, which they had copied, an amount of a few dollars. The judges were not impressed. They said that an example had to be made of them. They also said that the loss to the recording industry went far beyond just the loss of sale of one single album by the accused. Today, such blatant music piracy is virtually non-existent in the USA. One is scared of even making copies of CDs for one's friends.

Well, an example has to be made each of Kanhaiya Kumar and of SAR Geelani. And the damage they have caused goes far beyond mere an evening of slogan shouting and a seditious press-meet. Thank you.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/sep/11/minnesota-woman-songs-illegally-downloaded

http://www.digitaltrends.com/music/appeals-court-denies-piracy-penalty-plea/

THE RADIO WAVES A HELLO FROM THE PAST

One of the biggest regrets of my life is that I have not listened to the Vividh Bharti for decades now. Such has been the invasion of the television in our lives that we have voluntarily surrendered to its designs. Sitting in a couch, staring at a flickering screen while those unrelenting enemies, fat, cholesterol, triglycerides, unburnt-calories, Vitamin-D-deficiency, varicose veins, and flabby-belly ceaselessly shooting at you, has been a lost battle for good health.

The laws of physics are mercilessly unfriendly. A visual must be viewed directly since the line of sight is but a straight line. The potato is therefore necessarily bound to the couch. Sound waves, on the other hand waft and swirl around the house, from room-to room, in you garden and onto you balcony. The radio uncomplainingly sits in a corner, a most tolerant and liberal device not seeking to arrest you into confinement yet regaling you while you read the newspaper, sip your morning cuppa, walk on you treadmill, brush and shave or even take a shower. It works on your mind and not on your eyeballs. It doesn't enslave you, it befriends you. It captivate you, yet doesn’t take you captive. Human mind, the radio knows, is a powerful receiver. It can process multiple inputs, all at once. So, you can listen to the news while you drive, tap the table to Kishore Kumar while you eat your porridge or play with your children while the radio entertains you faithfully unconcerned with what you are doing.

So, whether it was a lazy summer afternoon or a cold winter night, you could be snuggled indoors and let the tuner beat the blues for you. The radio was a democratic device that entertained no matter where you were in the house. It enchanted the children, the Dad and the Mom, the housemaid and the passerby alike. If you wanted to enjoy a primetime serial, though the term serial was not invented then, you could curl up in warm blankets and listen to the Hawa Mahal. Or you could tune in to Radio Ceylon and enjoy the Binaca Geetmala, the weekly "award" rating of music that could easily outdo the glitzy Grammy Awards function. The best part of it was that the compère Amin Sayani came out tops every Wednesday, beating the songs that he played. The Vividh Bharti was the station, we didn't have channels then, that kept the love of music alive across generations through special programmes like Chhaya Geet and special programs for Fauji Bhais. Does Jhumri Talaiyya still exists on the planet earth? Let me find out next time I tune in. Raju, Babli and Pinki must have grown up now. Their postcard requests were read out as if they were personal messages from long lost friends.

Tuning in to obscure and distant radio stations gave greater pleasure than actually visiting London, Peking or Washington DC. The Aha Moment of locking into the clearest reception of the BBC or the Voice of America was as rewarding as a grandmother's success in threading a needle without glasses. The modern avatar, the FM Radio, comes close to the old faithful AM, but the latter still wins because it served you, without aerials and antennae, in basements and on sky-scrapers, in the hills and forests, on sea beaches and on high seas.

I have missed you, Radio! The #WorldRadioDay just told me that I have missed a lot in these years. I promise to make up for it. #ThankYouRadio.

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