The easy way out: Ban Uber

Again Delhi is in a media lime light for a heinous crime. A cab driver of Uber has been accused of this crime. These frequently happening despicable incidents triggers alarms bells in our society and bound us to think when will be our metropolitan cities will be safe for women.

Unfortunately nobody has any idea, this issue has become a political gimmick in our nation. Nobody wants to address the core issue of women safety, they just want to do anything to ease pressure from media and public, banning of Uber services just represent this thought process. Authorities are very brave and bold to take the most easy way, Ban it. It is also perfect way cover up your own failures and regardless of whatever we do with start up's, we gonna still campaign for "Make in India".

In my view when Uber has initially started its service, then why not its operational architecture or management was questioned? Why not guidelines were laid down for operations? Why always authorities have to wait for terrible incident to happen in order to act? I do have used Uber cab services many times. One will astonished to know many drivers left there conventional jobs, what we called in our society a good job then to being driver, in order to support their and their families rising financial needs. A day I took an Uber cab to go back home from my office and I was amazed to know the driver was well educated and used to work in a private bank where he gets only 22K per month as salary. He left his job and and joined the Uber fleet now he earns upto 35K-40K per month. As per Indian standards of society a bank job is far better than a drivers job even though how much less you earn or however hectic or intolerable your working conditions may be. He defy the conventions laid down by the society and make a choice for the betterment of his and his family but failed to comply the incompetence of our system now he has to pay the price of being unemployed.

Media reports are indicating that the accused is a repeat offender but did get police clearance anyhow. if this is true, it clearly indicate the lapses in our system. however the Delhi police did a commendable job  by arresting the accused in short span of time. I have only questions for policy makers did they really thought about drivers who actually did there job in best possible way to facilitate their customers. Before coming to conclusion over banning a complete fleet of any cab service, do a survey how many people are actually comfortable to hire a private cab. it is always an easy way to abandoned the entire system or ban the complete organization but who will pay the price, authorities travelling in red beacon's or the end customer or the people now employed by the decision. Why not opting the hard way, that they introspect the system fix the loop-holes and laid down stringent policies which will benefit all. After all our PM also quote regularly 'Sabka sath sabka vikash'

The Media Justice

Recent Rohtak eve teasing incident shows the diminishing values of human behavior and degrading aspects of law and order. The bravery shown by the girls is also very commendable.  Keeping all these things in my mind I want draw the attention towards a dangerous pattern evolving in our society, nowadays we are so impatient for justice and have a mad rush for questioning the authorities or our system, that one day it will lead to a disaster.

This story is getting covered on all news channel as headlines and in the manner it is being presented is not very appropriate. Less than 48 hours have passed and the accused have been already rejected by the Indian army, Announcements have been made to honor the girls on the republic day (source: TOI). Everybody is in some kind of conclusive mood over the incidents as the accused has been proven guilty and heroic behavior of the girls is being treated as a turning point in the transformation of our society. I am not saying not to applaud anybody’s resistance towards any injustice but at least one can refrain itself from jumping at a conclusion without a fair trial of the accused.

All this hue and cry defies the principle of, law of natural justice which grant every accused, right for a fair hearing. We have seen in past that hype has been created for any incident and post investigation the truth was entirely different. I advise my readers before making any decision or reacting over this incident on social media always remember that there are three versions of a story, my version, your version and the truth. Let the trial carry out.

Eve teasing or any other incident undermining dignity of a women is very unfortunate and perpetrators involve in such incidents should get severe punishments, but being part of a civilized society please don’t get carried away by a media justice.

Qualification OR Competency?

Smt. Smiriti Irani taking oath 

From last few days I am bound to say that I am exhausted by watching debates after debates over the row erupted on the educational qualification of our current HRD minister Smt. Smiriti Irani Ji. To be very honest when the news broke about her portfolio I too was skeptical not because I was aware of her qualification but because of her administrative inexperience. So far she has undertaken the responsibility of party activities and probably she would have delivered  her responsibilities in a very efficient manner, but directly HRD ministry with cabinet rank certainly raised my eyebrow. But nevertheless I had seen her in much of debates and very found of her vocal  and debating strength, therefore it came to my mind she could be a good administrator and time will tell.

But now there is every where Smt. Irani ji and her qualification and there I do also have some opinion. Some people give this argument that this is the India of 21st century and if we the young, educated and dynamic Indians are expecting a highly qualified education minister what is wrong in it? After all we also pass the barriers of degree in order to get a job. By this logic this question is very legitimate but here is my question, Literacy rate in India is 74%, means there are 26% of illiterate people also have  voting rights, means they have a stake in deciding the government. So by the above logic they shouldn't have this responsibility. and even If you make qualification as check to judge this responsibility then many qualified people do get carried away by caste and religion while casting their vote and you add this number too, there will be a huge amount of voters who will be put to dock, keeping in mind the responsibility they have. But we had faith in there competency of judgement so we should do the same with Smiriti Ji. Let's watch her work for a while.

In a debate I saw a person stating that she is just 12th pass how she is going to interact people in II M's and II T's. What kind of ill-logical thinking is this? Did degree of these prestigious institute make people insensitive or there is an sense intellectual supremacy and arrogance prevails in there campuses? I think this is not true, by my own experience I can only say that an old saying is absolutely true in there respect that "A talented person is always polite in same way a tree laden with fruits is always bend". I don't think her qualification will ever bother them but her competency may, which can only be seen by letting her to the job given. Well I to have admitted my job is much easier as many have given this argument that a health minister should have to be a doctor or civil aviation minister shouldn't have to be a pilot (courtesy: Omar Abudullah).

But I have seen many leaders are jumping in and using this incident as leverage to cover there own academic background and eagerly putting this argument that  if she can be a competent then we are also. I don't want to take names but I have a request for them please don't buzz in, she is competent enough to be qualified for this discussion but with due respect you are not, please carry on with your caste and regional politics.

This discussion of qualification verses competency is going to echo louder in coming days with lot of argument and counter argument and this debate will go on. Some people will also took out the resume of very qualified peoples and raised the question about there competency just for the sake of argument but I don't want to get into all this. In my advice Smiriti Irani ji you don't have to win any debate, you have to win people, for which you should continue with your hard work and the world will acknowledge and admire your effort, just ignore this kinds of petty and irrational controversies, after all your party symbol is lotus, " the more sludge will be thrown, the more will lotus bloom". if you did justice with this ministry, you will be idol to millions of Indians and who knows in 2029 general election you are running for country's top job. i.e. Prime Minister of "Republic of India". Now it all depends on you future course of hard work and commitment towards the people of this country.

Losing My Left

In this general election things have changed drastically in political spectrum on India, it has shifted from parliamentary form of election to a presidential form of campaigning. But in this whole exercise, I want to bring attention on one of the outcome of this election i.e. loosing of the left philosophy dynamically in India which can be well explained by the below graph.

 This philosophy gives us cold war. It raises the voice for workers and peasant which comprises the majority population of world as well as India and you like it or not, post industrialization in the modern world due to birth of this very own philosophy the labor laws were advocate and in today’s world every developed and developing nation gives values to this basic idea of labors or workers right and upheld its values by law in various forms.

In India the journey of left is mix with bullet and ballot. When in 1957 the first left government was elected in Kerala. It was the first time in entire world when the leftist have seized the power by a democratic process and it send a strong message of emergence and acceptance of this philosophy in India. Sino-Indo war 1962 war created a split in communist party of India. One section of communist favors China and one section adopted the philosophy of nationalism. The one who where in support of china did so on the basis of ideological basis of communism, the one who opposes did so on the basis of their own idea of nationalism first and then followed by communism. Everyone is entitled for their opinion, but now since 1957 in the history of 57 years the grounds for left is shrinking. Now look at their performance in recent election, they are reduced to 3.2% vote share and with 10 seats to represent. Certainly this number is not going to help in their objective and keeping their acceptance level in general public, in future also I don’t see any improvement either. Although I am not a very representing voice but trust me you are no longer the point of conversation in drawing room of middle class or topic of conversation in farmers sitting under a banyan tree, it doesn't matter how true and committed your ideology is towards workers and farmers.

Nobody can deny the fact that left government has always pushed for land reforms and put their best efforts to abolish caste ism and feudal infrastructure. For the left which participate in elections it’s high time for them to introspect that what went wrong? or they will turn into history. You cannot only roam around a secular ring and think it will revive your fortune. What humor is this that in India more than 1 million people works in IT industry and they are not in the purview of any labor or employment law. Did you ever confront the government in parliament over this issue? At least in my knowledge it never happened and yet you claimed that you pioneered in protecting the rights of labors or workers but you enthusiastically participate in secular debates. I have one request for you don’t evolve around communal ring, it is very important that India must remain secular but in socialism or communism ideology, religion in non existence. You are it making it communal by arguing about certain community, which can be evidently perceived by your election manifesto.

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The violent form of left emerges when Charu Mazumdar and Kanu Sanyal adopted the path of bullet to change this system. If I take the violence form of left (i.e. Naxallite Movement), it is also not finding the place in drawing room discussions of the general public, they only see soldiers getting killed by armed extremist whatever your noble cause may be and I do share the same opinion. Still some time I get mesmerized by the lines of a revolutionary poet Gorakh pandey who also inspired the life of Anuradha Gandhy (a naxallite leader) :

“It’s thousands of years old

Their anger

Thousands of years old

is their bitterness

I am only returning their scattered words

With rhyme and rhythm

And you fear that

I am spreading fire.

For them I have only one request please drop your weapons, your own founder Kannu Snayal committed suicide raising question about the current movement of extreme leftist. In the land of Gandhi and Buddha, if someone thinks that since he get inspired by the ideas of Mao, Lenin and Stalin and believe that the same idea will nourish and get a mass acceptance in this land, you are mistaken. They are great leaders but there idea work for their own nation but it doesn't mean it is universal and moreover people in this country needs improvement in current system, they don't want to completely change the system, they still have trust in current running system for justice.

It has been said that an idea never dies, it prevails in different forms. May be your all ideas or philosophy will someday partially or fully absorbed by one or more political parties which in my view be great thing but how absurd is this, that someone who claims to be a pioneered of something turns out they were not, they were only rich of words but someone else implement their idea on  the ground level. That will be your end, and if I am not wrong it has already started. Please get together in non violent movement, in India there are thousands of peasant and workers still residing and they want that there voice to be heard in parliament in same furious manner in which you claimed to advocate. It’s hard to see such a dissenting philosophy of modern world slowly dying.

*Diclamer

The data shown in the graph can have the variance of +- 10%.

General Election 2014: Whom should I select?

General elections are just few weeks away, and in current situation we have chaotic environment of accusation, development models, policies and issues. Various political parties are pushing their ideologies in front of us in order to get our votes. There are three people are around the core of this election and they are Mr. Narendra Modi, Mr. Arvind Kejriwal and Mr. Rahul Gandhi and there several other options which I don’t find laudable enough to put any views on them not because they limited in various regions and it is very hard to put them all in under one coalition which can form a stable government. But I must admit there are several very highly honest and competent leaders in various regional parties. I am writing this article to put my view in the public domain, it may please some, and may bite others.

Let’s take the man of the hour first “Arvind Sir” to whom I admired most, till the day he didn't resign from the post of CM of Delhi. His decision outraged  and disappointed me. Sir, you promised us change, we trusted you and then with a small hurdle you just give up, you are absolutely right about yourself you are a common man not a leader and I will cast my vote a person who can lead this nation. You give the reason that you had a minority government therefore your hands were tied up, but I think you are unaware of the fact that P.V. Narsimha Rao led congress government was the first minority government to complete its tenure and they did which the country has never witnessed in its history, they pushed the first series of economic reforms and I should remind the people that in 1991 it was almost impossible for the government to advocate the idea liberalization, privatization and globalization as we were living in the socialist and license raaj mindset from last 4 decades. But Mr. Rao had the courage to unshackle the stagnant economy from its barriers irrespective of minority government which many parties furiously opposes the move.

You wanted to push for lokpal which has been passed by parliament, certainly you don’t like but you could have given you own lokyutta more powers and independence and you could have observe how things are taking shape on corruption. After all you are CM of a state and your jurisdiction is on a state only, if you had fail once you could have pushed for other rounds but no, you gave up sating minority reasons, if Mr. Rao has done the same thing then we have been more backward then what we are today, plus you have the luxury of support from everybody including common man to fight against corruption but for Mr. Rao it was never a case.

You suddenly perform an audit of Gujarat and highlighted loop holes and told development in Gujarat is exaggerated  but sir can you please let me know what you have done in your 49 days tenure. No single fly-over, road, sewage system and even a public toilet has been sanctioned. I wouldn't say that it was an ample time to do so but I certainly wanted at-least one single step towards development, but you were most of the time indulge in politics of freebies. Sir, with due respect I want to quote as IT guy “It is easier to find defects and raise bugs in a system than to go and fix them and it is worse when it is designed or coded by other person”. In political terms what you are doing is the politics of opposition, just to oppose and criticize everything, but in the long run you would not be able to survive with this tactics. This only suits to activist.

You are making accusation against corporate houses for irregularities. I agree with you that there may be some people who might be using loop holes in the system for their personal benefits and may be indulge in corrupt practices too.  But what is the possible solution for this? Playing with accusation,echoing and sensitization of economic disparity, is exactly what naxalite group does, the only difference is that they are armed. Take Vodafone tax dispute as an example, in spite of full efforts government lost the tax liability claim to Vodafone in honorable Supreme Court of India and later government passed an amendment to fix the situation which was applicable from a retrospective date, just to get tax claimed by IT department from Vodafone.  Due to an ambiguous law government lost the case, now when they fix it, still they are in talks with Vodafone to crack a deal which is acceptable to both parties (government and Vodafone). Why they are not simply give notice and if they fail to comply shut them down as per the law.

Taking a note on the second option i.e. Congress, I surely don’t want. Mr. Gandhi although you are not part of the current government so legally you should not be blamed for their miss-deeds, but seeing your aura and position in your party I am not going to buy this story. You once express your views on an ordinance and the government takes you turn. How can you say that you were not part of the government? If you are ill-informed or unaware about the government machinery. It was your responsibility to know, to check and to be a vigilante. Congress is all about your family, sir you should have been more proactive. I will say “It is better to be guilty than being idle”.

In your recent interview you were emphasizing that you were busy with party activities which include opening up and improving the democratic process within your party. It was a appreciable job but you forgot that people has given you a mandate to run this nation as well. There were some congressmen doing this job with dedication but they failed. Didn't you see that public perception was getting adverse for the government? If yes you should have pitched in and have taken some responsibility and if the answer is no then I believe the whole discussion is of no use. After all the primary task should be governance not the party activities.But now it is good to see you taking the challenges head on, wish you good luck in future but please forgive for this time.

While considering the third and last option Mr. Modi, a man under whose government innocent peoples were killed and he fails to protect that misfortune but he has one advantage over the others in my eyes. i.e.  he got really nerves of steel , a mandatory requirement for a leader. From 2002 to till date every institutional mechanism was use at its full throttle to make him guilty in 2002 riots cases but failed. He not only holds the ground but also now making a pitch for country’s top job. A best examples one one give one rise all gains all odds. In my eyes there can be only two reasons. One he is really innocent, two he is much smarter than his peers which in turn forced me to acknowledge his capabilities. Nowadays people are getting outburst by few months media bashing. He is dealing with it from last decade.

One very profound allegation is made on him that he may be honest but his party is not. It is full of tainted people and when he comes to power he will not be able to take action against him or stop them. I find this allegation baseless because not only his few ministers go to jail in riots cases but also he super ceded his own mentor in terms of career. He cannot be blackmailed. Strong people never respond to threats. If he is vulnerable enough to be restricted, people would have done it long back. He has that caliber to take job head on and lead the people till its accomplishment. Good or bad I can’t comment on that.

Now coming to the conclusion what should I do. It will be never be a case that AAP will form government in center with a clean majority even they do they can’t even pass a single bill in parliament since they are not present in any state therefore no representation in Rajya Sabha, their all bills will be stalled and it means no governance, a possible case scenario worse than UPA-II, and given his track record in minority position and I don’t want him either. Definitely I don’t want congress and third front was never ever in my mind. So in last considering all the good and best option I have, If Mr. Modi could persuade minorities community that he will work for there development and security also then I think he is the only option as if now.