I am amazed by how I continue to be shocked by instances of corruption in India: starting from 1987, there hasn't been a year where a scam hasn't rocked the nation. The numbers have gotten bigger, and now have reached a point that my brain no longer comprehend them: how much is 1.76 lakh crores worth ?
And yet, as a scam-battered citizen of the modern India founded by the likes of A Raja, Madhu Koda and Suresh Kalmadi, I find the latest revelations in the Karnataka land scam deeply disgusting. Consider, for instance, the list of people to whom Chief Ministers of Karnataka alloted 1300 acres of land at throwaway prices. The CMs are, under a provision that bestows a discretionary quota, entitled to give away land for 'public persons'. As one would expect, most of these people are politicians or sons/daughters of politicians.
There's something profoundly disturbing here: what are the achievements of some of these people? The only one I see is that they were hatched from an egg that was fertilized by a politician's sperm. This biological lottery makes these fully-grown zygotes entitled to everything: prime land worth crores of rupees, seats in the legislature, live targets to practice their shooting skills, etc. If there's nothing, then there's at least chairmanship of Khadi Gramodyog or Fisheries commission. Then fully-grown zygotes in turn will fertilize even more eggs - the evolutionary cycle continues.
No wonder the scam numbers continue to astound - the next generation is much smarter, fitter and better in adapting to the environment modern India provides.
Friday, November 26, 2010
Friday, November 19, 2010
Guest Post: Would we know if the Idea of India is Dead?
Are social institutions like faraway dead stars? Looking at a star, light-years from earth, we are not sure that the star is still alive, we are still seeing it from the past - it might have been dead thousands of years ago, but its death wouldn’t yet register on us.
Similarly, cities (like Mumbai) might have died years ago, but still continue to live (though the decline is visible.) Charles Correa, noted architect, says:
“Cities grow—and die—much faster than we think. Visiting Calcutta today, it is difficult to understand how turn-of-the-century travellers could have deemed it as one of the great metropolises of the world—the finest east of Suez, a jewel in the crown and so forth. Could they not see the grave (perhaps terminal) illness that was already tightening its grip on that marvellously humane city? No, obviously there is a time lag during which calamity is not overt. So that late into the 1940s and 1950s, we still couldn’t see the fatal symptoms—the writing on the wall.
Obviously this is true of Bombay. As it is getting better and better as a city, and disintegrating (very rapidly and quite unnecessarily) as environment. Perhaps what the people of Bombay are experiencing is the last burst of energy—the spastic twitches before the end. Living in this city one wouldn’t notice it oneself.”
Many of the companies (earning mostly maintenance/legacy revenues) might have died years ago, but have sustained as the revenues are still flowing. It’s been years since Microsoft turned out a decent innovation (some would say it never did), but is one of the most valued companies in the World today (Apple’s market capitalization overtook Microsoft’s only recently).
Has the idea of India died? The muck we live in today is much different than the India envisaged by its founding fathers. A Raja, Madhu Koda and Suresh Kalmadi have replaced Gandhi, Ambedkar and Nehru as the founders of the Modern Indian Nation. Today we inhabit the nation these gentlemen have built – a nation where every pillar of the systems has crumbled: we elect Mafioso to the parliament, where chief ministers swindle land, army generals own tracts of land in cities, influential media-people morph into deal fixers, and the retired Chief Justices don’t even bother to refute corruption accusations by senior counsel.
The idea of India died long ago- we are living through its funeral.
osted by Bhushan Y. Nigale
Thursday, August 26, 2010
The being-good penalty: Guest Post by Bhushan Y. Nigale
The worth of a society can be judged not by how it treats those who violates its laws, but by the penalty it imposes on those who follow them.
An example from our day-to-day life: the next time you are in traffic jam, watch the vehicles zoom past by you by driving in the opposite, free lane, while you feel like an idiot, following the rules. If you obey the rules and don't cut the lanes and wait for the vehicles in front of you to move ahead, and thus be a law-abiding citizen, you lose time. But if you drive on the wrong side, or on the footpath (a common occurrence in Bangalore) you reach your destination much faster.
Another example is loan payment. Thousands of Indian farmers commit suicide every year because they are unable to pay their loans. They try to be good citizens, by following the laws (repay the loans you take) and obligations. When they fail, they kill themselves. And yet it is a central rule of Indian politics that unless you commit a crime (murder, rape, dacoity, embezzlement, etc.) you cannot rise to the higher echelons.
The examples abound. A parallel to the American society, though in much less cynical terms, can be found from this insightful passage from Warren Buffet's recent pledge:
“I've worked in an economy that rewards someone who saves the lives of others on a battlefield with a medal, rewards a great teacher with thank-you notes from parents, but rewards those who can detect the mispricing of securities with sums reaching into the billions. In short, fate's distribution of long straws is wildly capricious.”
What struck me is how much of this applies to India: we live in a society that rewards our war heroes by letting loose on them the water mafia, harasses the very few who fight corruption, but rewards people like A Raja, Suresh Kalmadi and the Reddy mafia with millions.
PS: BTW, the entire Warren Buffet speech is moving – read it here.
Posted by Bhushan Y. Nigale
An example from our day-to-day life: the next time you are in traffic jam, watch the vehicles zoom past by you by driving in the opposite, free lane, while you feel like an idiot, following the rules. If you obey the rules and don't cut the lanes and wait for the vehicles in front of you to move ahead, and thus be a law-abiding citizen, you lose time. But if you drive on the wrong side, or on the footpath (a common occurrence in Bangalore) you reach your destination much faster.
Another example is loan payment. Thousands of Indian farmers commit suicide every year because they are unable to pay their loans. They try to be good citizens, by following the laws (repay the loans you take) and obligations. When they fail, they kill themselves. And yet it is a central rule of Indian politics that unless you commit a crime (murder, rape, dacoity, embezzlement, etc.) you cannot rise to the higher echelons.
The examples abound. A parallel to the American society, though in much less cynical terms, can be found from this insightful passage from Warren Buffet's recent pledge:
“I've worked in an economy that rewards someone who saves the lives of others on a battlefield with a medal, rewards a great teacher with thank-you notes from parents, but rewards those who can detect the mispricing of securities with sums reaching into the billions. In short, fate's distribution of long straws is wildly capricious.”
What struck me is how much of this applies to India: we live in a society that rewards our war heroes by letting loose on them the water mafia, harasses the very few who fight corruption, but rewards people like A Raja, Suresh Kalmadi and the Reddy mafia with millions.
PS: BTW, the entire Warren Buffet speech is moving – read it here.
Posted by Bhushan Y. Nigale
Friday, August 20, 2010
Obituary: Sa Hs Deshpande
Sakharam Hari Deshpande , known to all as Sa Ha, passed away at the ripe age for 86, leaving behind friends, admirers and researchers pondering how such a loss could be withstood. Saha is used both as prefix and suffix in Sanskrit and obviously in Marathi and Deshpande had a passion for both. Saha means with, together and jointly in both languages as coinages like sahajeevan, sahavedana and tyanchyasaha (with them) would testify. Deshpande was an example of all three—he interacted with people all his life, worked with a significant number of them as colleague and scholar and shared his experiences and findings with all throughout his 50 year career as teacher, university professor, researcher, public speaker and writer. He informed, he documented, he analysed, he theorised, he opined, he criticized with an intellectual rigour and presentational skill generally in short supply amongst the post-independence intelligentsia in India and Maharashtra. In this exercise he made remarkably few enemies, earned the respect of most and struck warm relationship with many. His positive mindset and open attitude encouraged three generations of Marathi intellectuals – his contemporaries, his students and their students. Sa Ha was thus an observant, keen fellow traveller to all those who willingly opted to undertake the journey into the world of ideas and action—he was a mentor appointed by the mentees of their own !
Deshpande was born into a traditional middle-class joint family of Marathi Brahmins from Shirwal( 50 kms from Pune and in the historic Satara district )and had deep roots in the rural agricultural community. This Deshpande family has a niche of its own in Maharashtra—his eldest brother Pandurangshastri was Ayurvedacharya, his middle brother Wamanrao was one of the most successful Chartered Accountants of Bombay but so great was his passion for Hindustani Classical Music that he was better known as a music critic, historian and connouiser ( Satyasheel Deshpande is Wamanrao’s son). It is no wonder that such rich ancestral tapestry provided Deshpande with the best of both the rural and urban, traditional and modern and creative and critical streams.
The city of Poona where Deshpande had his schooling and and college education in late 1930s and 40s was a beehive of intellectual and patriotic activity. It was in Poona that he came across the social reformer-writer Shripad Mahadev Mate and was tutored by Puruhottam Ganesh Sahasrabudhdhe who was friend, philosopher and guide. It would be no overstatement to say that Deshpande carried forward their legacy of a pro-modernity, reformist, politically viable and socially liberal, forward-looking Hinduism during the years to come. Like most Brahmin boys of his time Deshpande did join the RSS and had some exciting memories of those days. But thanks to the deep influence of Mate and Sahasrabudhdhe Deshpande never really got converted to the RSS ideology (whatever it was); in fact he leaned more towards the rationalist Hinduism of Sawarkar.
Deshpande never tired of telling how and why he took up Economics! His inclination was towards Sanskrit—he had scored very well in the Inter Arts examination in that subject. But Sahasrabudhdhe would not have it. In the cryptic wit which was his forte, Sahasrabudhdhe wryly remarked ( said Deshpande) “ Enough of the beauty and blushes of Shakuntala—we have to throw ourselves in to the task of nation-building. Take up something that will contribute to this great venture.” True to the wish of his mentor, Deshpande enrolled for Economics and later emerged as a rare species—a hindutvawadi with sound knowledge of Economics. His whole career both during his working and retired life was to be an effort to amalgamate the various brands of Hinduism with the modern ideal of a civic society based upon democracy, liberalism and development of all.
The Deshpande cannon, though mostly in Marathi, is discrete and extensive and can be divided into three categories. The foremost, in my opinion, would be his evaluations and reports of various development projects in Maharashtra launched by individual development workers during the upsurge of genuine Voluntary Agencies (not the present day NGOs) during the 1970s where his docummentational perseverance and analytical skills are adequately demonstrated. The second category covers his grand project on Hindutva where he traces the journey of political Hindutva from Sawarkar to Bharatiya Janata Party via RSS. Deshpande kept going back to this project time and again and examined his own and others’ positions in the wake of new developments—a testimony to his scholastic integrity. The last would be his miscellaneous writings—memoirs, personal sketches, author studies etc. It’s an intellectual treat to pick up any of his books and give yourself to the power of argument, precision of expression and an overall aesthetic of narrative that Deshpande was so keen about.
Deshpande lived a full life— a devoted husband, loving father, dedicated teacher, honest researcher, warm friend, unforgiving analyst, lucid writer, positive intellectual and ever-young traveller into the domain of ideas. He was choosy about company but those who had the good fortune to be his intimates will be proud. He enjoyed his smoke and his drink—though discretion was the watch word in both. Deshpande loved Shakespeare and Kalidas and other greats from both languages. He ,when in mood, recited poetry, recollected for you many an anecdote in his own uncanny style. His sense of humor was ever present and his jokes used to be decent and intellectual. He will be missed—now and hereafter! It is for us to keep in mind W.H. Auden’s obituary on W.B. Yeats
“ The words of a dead man
Are modified in the guts of the living”
(This posts was written for 'Freedom First').
Vinay Hardikar
Deshpande was born into a traditional middle-class joint family of Marathi Brahmins from Shirwal( 50 kms from Pune and in the historic Satara district )and had deep roots in the rural agricultural community. This Deshpande family has a niche of its own in Maharashtra—his eldest brother Pandurangshastri was Ayurvedacharya, his middle brother Wamanrao was one of the most successful Chartered Accountants of Bombay but so great was his passion for Hindustani Classical Music that he was better known as a music critic, historian and connouiser ( Satyasheel Deshpande is Wamanrao’s son). It is no wonder that such rich ancestral tapestry provided Deshpande with the best of both the rural and urban, traditional and modern and creative and critical streams.
The city of Poona where Deshpande had his schooling and and college education in late 1930s and 40s was a beehive of intellectual and patriotic activity. It was in Poona that he came across the social reformer-writer Shripad Mahadev Mate and was tutored by Puruhottam Ganesh Sahasrabudhdhe who was friend, philosopher and guide. It would be no overstatement to say that Deshpande carried forward their legacy of a pro-modernity, reformist, politically viable and socially liberal, forward-looking Hinduism during the years to come. Like most Brahmin boys of his time Deshpande did join the RSS and had some exciting memories of those days. But thanks to the deep influence of Mate and Sahasrabudhdhe Deshpande never really got converted to the RSS ideology (whatever it was); in fact he leaned more towards the rationalist Hinduism of Sawarkar.
Deshpande never tired of telling how and why he took up Economics! His inclination was towards Sanskrit—he had scored very well in the Inter Arts examination in that subject. But Sahasrabudhdhe would not have it. In the cryptic wit which was his forte, Sahasrabudhdhe wryly remarked ( said Deshpande) “ Enough of the beauty and blushes of Shakuntala—we have to throw ourselves in to the task of nation-building. Take up something that will contribute to this great venture.” True to the wish of his mentor, Deshpande enrolled for Economics and later emerged as a rare species—a hindutvawadi with sound knowledge of Economics. His whole career both during his working and retired life was to be an effort to amalgamate the various brands of Hinduism with the modern ideal of a civic society based upon democracy, liberalism and development of all.
The Deshpande cannon, though mostly in Marathi, is discrete and extensive and can be divided into three categories. The foremost, in my opinion, would be his evaluations and reports of various development projects in Maharashtra launched by individual development workers during the upsurge of genuine Voluntary Agencies (not the present day NGOs) during the 1970s where his docummentational perseverance and analytical skills are adequately demonstrated. The second category covers his grand project on Hindutva where he traces the journey of political Hindutva from Sawarkar to Bharatiya Janata Party via RSS. Deshpande kept going back to this project time and again and examined his own and others’ positions in the wake of new developments—a testimony to his scholastic integrity. The last would be his miscellaneous writings—memoirs, personal sketches, author studies etc. It’s an intellectual treat to pick up any of his books and give yourself to the power of argument, precision of expression and an overall aesthetic of narrative that Deshpande was so keen about.
Deshpande lived a full life— a devoted husband, loving father, dedicated teacher, honest researcher, warm friend, unforgiving analyst, lucid writer, positive intellectual and ever-young traveller into the domain of ideas. He was choosy about company but those who had the good fortune to be his intimates will be proud. He enjoyed his smoke and his drink—though discretion was the watch word in both. Deshpande loved Shakespeare and Kalidas and other greats from both languages. He ,when in mood, recited poetry, recollected for you many an anecdote in his own uncanny style. His sense of humor was ever present and his jokes used to be decent and intellectual. He will be missed—now and hereafter! It is for us to keep in mind W.H. Auden’s obituary on W.B. Yeats
“ The words of a dead man
Are modified in the guts of the living”
(This posts was written for 'Freedom First').
Vinay Hardikar
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Revival of anti-Congressism?
I write this on 5th of July after a bike-ride of 20 km through Pune on the day of the Bharat Bandh organized by all opposition parties. The roads are less crowded, shops are closed, public transport vehicles do not ply, schools have a holiday, small vendors’ services are at a standstill; in short the usually buzzing city wears a sleepy look at mid-day! I can see the headlines of tomorrow; the opposition will call the bandh a total success, the government will pat itself on the back and claim to have exploded the conspiracy of the opposition, the so-called neutral media will resort to the phrase ‘partially successful’-as if to reiterate that willy-nilly media are ‘partial’. There will be usual estimates of loss to the economy and also to the daily-wagers (for who the bandh has been organized per se); tomorrow we will be back to square one ?
Supporters of this hackneyed drill of protest make strange bed-fellows in that except the BJP all the other passengers on the bandh-wagon have been Congress-collaborators generally in the recent past (ironically to keep the BJP away from power !) and even the Shiv Sena, the trouble making bitter half of the BJP, was supportive of Congress during the infamous Emergency of the mid 70s. So ideology ,if at all, has nothing to do with this nationwide tamasha. In the heart of their hearts they all probably know that de-control of fuel prices was a bitter pill that the country had to swallow sooner than later and that, at least for the cooking gas the consumers had been unnecessarily pampered and were getting it almost free. Had they been in the driver’s seat they probably would have taken the same step—some of them might be feeling relieved that the unpleasant task was left to the Congress and not to the Left or Right of our political establishment.
It is high time that we realized and professed that populist economic policies will spell ruin and and spending is as much a function of money as earning and the poor have to be helped through pragmatic economic measures creating more jobs through emphasis on decentralized entrepreneurship and not through sops. On this, despite its bold step on fuel prices, even the Congress is not at all clear—look at their policy-schizophrenia—they still continue to talk of low-price grain shops (remember the ‘fair price’ shops of yester years ?) and claim that the present hike will not hit the poor.
And what about the poor—personally, the poor I come across are busy in taking a small upward step in earning—the maid servants turned up for their (essential ?) service in the morning- so did the milkman. The poor are not beggars or handicapped persons—they are looking for opportunity to work and to earn both wealth and health. If somebody have a stake in poverty, it is not the poor themselves but the self-proclaimed do-gooders in politics and economic theory !
Anti-Congressism failed in the past and will fail in the present because it never addressed the policy-issues. Will it be too impractical to hope that this will not be a revival but the last breath of shameless politicking ?
Vinay Hardikar
Pune. 5th July 2010.
Supporters of this hackneyed drill of protest make strange bed-fellows in that except the BJP all the other passengers on the bandh-wagon have been Congress-collaborators generally in the recent past (ironically to keep the BJP away from power !) and even the Shiv Sena, the trouble making bitter half of the BJP, was supportive of Congress during the infamous Emergency of the mid 70s. So ideology ,if at all, has nothing to do with this nationwide tamasha. In the heart of their hearts they all probably know that de-control of fuel prices was a bitter pill that the country had to swallow sooner than later and that, at least for the cooking gas the consumers had been unnecessarily pampered and were getting it almost free. Had they been in the driver’s seat they probably would have taken the same step—some of them might be feeling relieved that the unpleasant task was left to the Congress and not to the Left or Right of our political establishment.
It is high time that we realized and professed that populist economic policies will spell ruin and and spending is as much a function of money as earning and the poor have to be helped through pragmatic economic measures creating more jobs through emphasis on decentralized entrepreneurship and not through sops. On this, despite its bold step on fuel prices, even the Congress is not at all clear—look at their policy-schizophrenia—they still continue to talk of low-price grain shops (remember the ‘fair price’ shops of yester years ?) and claim that the present hike will not hit the poor.
And what about the poor—personally, the poor I come across are busy in taking a small upward step in earning—the maid servants turned up for their (essential ?) service in the morning- so did the milkman. The poor are not beggars or handicapped persons—they are looking for opportunity to work and to earn both wealth and health. If somebody have a stake in poverty, it is not the poor themselves but the self-proclaimed do-gooders in politics and economic theory !
Anti-Congressism failed in the past and will fail in the present because it never addressed the policy-issues. Will it be too impractical to hope that this will not be a revival but the last breath of shameless politicking ?
Vinay Hardikar
Pune. 5th July 2010.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
An update
I am pleased to announce I have joined as an adjunct faculty member at the FLAME University, from September 1st, 2009.
I am currently teaching a course in Public Speaking and Debating. I will soon be designing a course to be called Discover India and shall, in due course, start some mentoring as well.
I am currently teaching a course in Public Speaking and Debating. I will soon be designing a course to be called Discover India and shall, in due course, start some mentoring as well.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Guest Post: Using Mobile phones to improve transparency in NREGA
This note briefly describes a proposal to improve the transparency and empower some of the stakeholders of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) by providing them with data, using simple mobile phones.
A. The Problem:
a) A constant main complaint about NREGS is its lack of transparency: workers don't know whether they have been paid their wages, they don't know if their attendance is marked in the muster. Social auditors don’t know whether funds are allocated to the scheme or not. It's also difficult to find how much budget was allocated and then utilized.
b) The above is ironical, because transparency is wired inside the implementation of NREGA: any one with a net connection and a PC can get whatever details they like about the scheme (e.g. see http://nrega.nic.in/workers/wrkinfo.asp).
c) This access to information via the PC, though laudable and helpful, is however impractical: very few workers (if at all) can be expected to log on to the Internet, navigate to the said website and obtain the necessary information, which is currently in English.
d) But many of them have mobile phones (especially the social workers doing the social audit, a pillar of NREGA), India has one of the lowest connectivity rates in the World. There are also reports of non-farm income reliant labor-force (e.g. petty shopkeepers, artisans) entering NREGA due to the ongoing drought, and they can be expected to own at least basic mobile phones.
B. The proposal:
I propose the development and usage of an SMS-based system wherein small-but-relevant information is presented to the laborers’/social auditor’s mobile phone system.
a) A non-profit agency queries and downloads the information, such as worker attendance and payment schedules, from the NREGA website onto the Cloud (the Cloud is a mechanism to store vast amount of data, usually for a very small fee).
b) A mobile-phone server is made available with a well know five digit number, like for TV reality shows. This server hosts the functionality to receive SMSs, parse the received texts to constructs queries (e.g. show attendance records), retrieve the information, and sent it via SMS to the querying mobile phone.
c) Using an SMS syntax (e.g. ATT ), a worker/social worker can query for his/her attendance, for the funds made available, etc. and gets the necessary records. The syntax could cover ten-fifteen frequently used operations.
e.g. an SMS with text 'ATT 234566 0909 ' to the well-known number in b) above, say 54567 might provide the attendance for the worker with job-id 234566 for the month of September 2009.
C. Benefit:
a) Workers/Social workers need not rely on second-hand information about their attendance records and allocation of funds, and can get the information directly from the central system. They can for themselves verify: how their attendance was recorded in the system, what payment was claimed to be made to them.
b) Some of the operational hurdles plaguing the system could be thus addressed, such as false work measurement, non-maintenance of muster rolls and job-cards.
c) In future, the system could also be integrated with the banking system IT systems (most banks already provide free account information via mobile) so that workers can be alerted about deposits from NREGA to their accounts (this is relevant for those blocks where the payment is deposited directly to their bank accounts).
Rider: every query will involve a small fee for the user (the cost of every SMS), e.g. 50 paise per query.
D. Proof of concept:
a) An SMS-based query engine has been used for Sugar co-operatives in the Warana block of the Kolhapur district in southern Maharashtra before and has reported wide success (see http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/india/projects/waranaunwired/)
Any thoughts?
Posted by Bhushan Y. Nigale
A. The Problem:
a) A constant main complaint about NREGS is its lack of transparency: workers don't know whether they have been paid their wages, they don't know if their attendance is marked in the muster. Social auditors don’t know whether funds are allocated to the scheme or not. It's also difficult to find how much budget was allocated and then utilized.
b) The above is ironical, because transparency is wired inside the implementation of NREGA: any one with a net connection and a PC can get whatever details they like about the scheme (e.g. see http://nrega.nic.in/workers/wrkinfo.asp).
c) This access to information via the PC, though laudable and helpful, is however impractical: very few workers (if at all) can be expected to log on to the Internet, navigate to the said website and obtain the necessary information, which is currently in English.
d) But many of them have mobile phones (especially the social workers doing the social audit, a pillar of NREGA), India has one of the lowest connectivity rates in the World. There are also reports of non-farm income reliant labor-force (e.g. petty shopkeepers, artisans) entering NREGA due to the ongoing drought, and they can be expected to own at least basic mobile phones.
B. The proposal:
I propose the development and usage of an SMS-based system wherein small-but-relevant information is presented to the laborers’/social auditor’s mobile phone system.
a) A non-profit agency queries and downloads the information, such as worker attendance and payment schedules, from the NREGA website onto the Cloud (the Cloud is a mechanism to store vast amount of data, usually for a very small fee).
b) A mobile-phone server is made available with a well know five digit number, like for TV reality shows. This server hosts the functionality to receive SMSs, parse the received texts to constructs queries (e.g. show attendance records), retrieve the information, and sent it via SMS to the querying mobile phone.
c) Using an SMS syntax (e.g. ATT
e.g. an SMS with text 'ATT 234566 0909 ' to the well-known number in b) above, say 54567 might provide the attendance for the worker with job-id 234566 for the month of September 2009.
C. Benefit:
a) Workers/Social workers need not rely on second-hand information about their attendance records and allocation of funds, and can get the information directly from the central system. They can for themselves verify: how their attendance was recorded in the system, what payment was claimed to be made to them.
b) Some of the operational hurdles plaguing the system could be thus addressed, such as false work measurement, non-maintenance of muster rolls and job-cards.
c) In future, the system could also be integrated with the banking system IT systems (most banks already provide free account information via mobile) so that workers can be alerted about deposits from NREGA to their accounts (this is relevant for those blocks where the payment is deposited directly to their bank accounts).
Rider: every query will involve a small fee for the user (the cost of every SMS), e.g. 50 paise per query.
D. Proof of concept:
a) An SMS-based query engine has been used for Sugar co-operatives in the Warana block of the Kolhapur district in southern Maharashtra before and has reported wide success (see http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/india/projects/waranaunwired/)
Any thoughts?
Posted by Bhushan Y. Nigale
Friday, August 28, 2009
Ten thoughts after ten years
Guest Post: Ten thoughts on the software industry on completing ten years
Ten years ago in a big wide room I stood with my buddies in front of an HR executive to start the paperwork that would induct me in the IT industry. I wore a tie for the first time in my life, the Mumbai heat stifled me and what the HR executive told me wrenched my heart: don’t join us today, she said. The batch is full. Come next month. Or later still. From such a bad start, surviving ten years in the industry looks like an achievement. Here are ten thoughts after completing ten years in the industry.
1. Software touches peoples’ lives – so I imagine: I feel humbled by the positive changes software has brought to the global economy and to the lives of millions of individuals. And yet, in my ten years I have never seen a person whose life was changed positively due to my code. This paradox troubles me a lot.
2. People are the real treat: In my ten years, I have made friends with people from diverse backgrounds: sons of farmers from AP, a topologist from Boehm, daughter of a sari vendor in Mumbai. A majority of the people I met have been positive influences on me. One of them I married. Meeting fascinating people has been my greatest take-away from my time in the industry.
3. The industry too unites the country: To sit in a cafeteria at office – any mid-size IT company’s office – is a reminder of the vastness of our country: we see Kayasths from Kanauj, Bohris from Baroch, Catholics from Calangute, Deshasths from Nagpur, Jats from Jalandar, Adidravids from Adyar, Jains from Indore, Buddhists from Gaya, Sikhs, Jews, Muslims, Christians, Hindus. We come together to write code, prepare status slides, progress our careers, but ultimately to build great software. We make fun of unpronounceable names, we sneer at accents, we laugh at regional quirks. But then when we speak the language of loops, case constructs and NullPointer exceptions, of KPIs and bonuses, we realize there’s much more common to us than we imagine. We share, we build. And India comes together.
4. The program is a literary form: just like a novel, or a poem, or a play. The programmer is the reader, author, narrator and critic, all at once. To write a program and to instruct a set of registers how to behave is a literary endeavor. Artists try to understand the human condition, we create abstractions that help us understand the world we inhabit.
5. A program is a means of self-discovery: you write code. You think it is infallible. QA colleague reports error. You curse her. She reproduces the crash. You debug. For five minutes. Then an hour. Half-a-day. Log files pile. Then you discover the missing semicolon. You curse yourselves, what a simple mistake. Then you reflect and discover something about yourselves. You become humbler. Until the next bug.
6. We are a great hype-machine: Can anyone beat our industry when it comes to inventing a new technology, believing in them as if they would solve World Hunger, hype them endlessly for six months only to realize that it was a mistake, just like, well, the previous one?
7. Mediocrity abounds: While interviewing candidates for job positions, I am often stuck by pity: the poor guy struggling to sort a String has no clue how programming works and will never have. The guy should have been doing something else. But he fell and entered our industry, for our hype and the money, or to peer or parental pressure. Someone will hire him of course, because our industry needs millions of people, even those who can spell ‘Stack’ can do.
8. The healing power of money: More than anything else, I am in the industry for money. I love the comfort it provides, the pleasures it brings. Our industry pays very well, sometimes astonishingly well. IT has single-handedly transformed, for good, the lives of millions of Indians.
9. Expansion of my identity – foreign visits: When I was a teenager, the farthest I thought I would travel, I imagined, was up to Mumbai. Years later my work has taken me to places: a Coliseum in Rome, the Louvre, pubs in Heidelberg, and yes, Mumbai. I like to believe that visiting each of these places – and staying in Bangalore – has made me a slightly better person than the small-town kid with small dreams.
10. Life’s challenging questions: In the end, I wonder: is this worth? The nature of our work demands a lot of introspection, and sometimes we point it to ourselves. Existential questions abound: what am I doing? Why? What’s the meaning of this all? What’s the purpose of my actions? What’s my Dharma? The brave souls escape. The optimists wait for an opening to quit. And other return to being drones until the next wave hits.
Endnote: I later made friends with the HR executive mentioned above. By a delicious turn of events she took my exit interview when I quit Tata Infotech, my first company. The manager with whom I worked last in Tata Infotech married her later, but this has nothing to do with my quitting, of course. I lost contact with both of them, until suddenly, in the summer of 2006 I found myself dining with them both, eating pasta and sipping wine, discussing Brazil’s prospects for the Football World Cup. I then haven’t met them or spoken to them ever since. What an industry, what a World we Softwarewallahs inhabit.
Posted by Bhushan Y. Nigale
Ten years ago in a big wide room I stood with my buddies in front of an HR executive to start the paperwork that would induct me in the IT industry. I wore a tie for the first time in my life, the Mumbai heat stifled me and what the HR executive told me wrenched my heart: don’t join us today, she said. The batch is full. Come next month. Or later still. From such a bad start, surviving ten years in the industry looks like an achievement. Here are ten thoughts after completing ten years in the industry.
1. Software touches peoples’ lives – so I imagine: I feel humbled by the positive changes software has brought to the global economy and to the lives of millions of individuals. And yet, in my ten years I have never seen a person whose life was changed positively due to my code. This paradox troubles me a lot.
2. People are the real treat: In my ten years, I have made friends with people from diverse backgrounds: sons of farmers from AP, a topologist from Boehm, daughter of a sari vendor in Mumbai. A majority of the people I met have been positive influences on me. One of them I married. Meeting fascinating people has been my greatest take-away from my time in the industry.
3. The industry too unites the country: To sit in a cafeteria at office – any mid-size IT company’s office – is a reminder of the vastness of our country: we see Kayasths from Kanauj, Bohris from Baroch, Catholics from Calangute, Deshasths from Nagpur, Jats from Jalandar, Adidravids from Adyar, Jains from Indore, Buddhists from Gaya, Sikhs, Jews, Muslims, Christians, Hindus. We come together to write code, prepare status slides, progress our careers, but ultimately to build great software. We make fun of unpronounceable names, we sneer at accents, we laugh at regional quirks. But then when we speak the language of loops, case constructs and NullPointer exceptions, of KPIs and bonuses, we realize there’s much more common to us than we imagine. We share, we build. And India comes together.
4. The program is a literary form: just like a novel, or a poem, or a play. The programmer is the reader, author, narrator and critic, all at once. To write a program and to instruct a set of registers how to behave is a literary endeavor. Artists try to understand the human condition, we create abstractions that help us understand the world we inhabit.
5. A program is a means of self-discovery: you write code. You think it is infallible. QA colleague reports error. You curse her. She reproduces the crash. You debug. For five minutes. Then an hour. Half-a-day. Log files pile. Then you discover the missing semicolon. You curse yourselves, what a simple mistake. Then you reflect and discover something about yourselves. You become humbler. Until the next bug.
6. We are a great hype-machine: Can anyone beat our industry when it comes to inventing a new technology, believing in them as if they would solve World Hunger, hype them endlessly for six months only to realize that it was a mistake, just like, well, the previous one?
7. Mediocrity abounds: While interviewing candidates for job positions, I am often stuck by pity: the poor guy struggling to sort a String has no clue how programming works and will never have. The guy should have been doing something else. But he fell and entered our industry, for our hype and the money, or to peer or parental pressure. Someone will hire him of course, because our industry needs millions of people, even those who can spell ‘Stack’ can do.
8. The healing power of money: More than anything else, I am in the industry for money. I love the comfort it provides, the pleasures it brings. Our industry pays very well, sometimes astonishingly well. IT has single-handedly transformed, for good, the lives of millions of Indians.
9. Expansion of my identity – foreign visits: When I was a teenager, the farthest I thought I would travel, I imagined, was up to Mumbai. Years later my work has taken me to places: a Coliseum in Rome, the Louvre, pubs in Heidelberg, and yes, Mumbai. I like to believe that visiting each of these places – and staying in Bangalore – has made me a slightly better person than the small-town kid with small dreams.
10. Life’s challenging questions: In the end, I wonder: is this worth? The nature of our work demands a lot of introspection, and sometimes we point it to ourselves. Existential questions abound: what am I doing? Why? What’s the meaning of this all? What’s the purpose of my actions? What’s my Dharma? The brave souls escape. The optimists wait for an opening to quit. And other return to being drones until the next wave hits.
Endnote: I later made friends with the HR executive mentioned above. By a delicious turn of events she took my exit interview when I quit Tata Infotech, my first company. The manager with whom I worked last in Tata Infotech married her later, but this has nothing to do with my quitting, of course. I lost contact with both of them, until suddenly, in the summer of 2006 I found myself dining with them both, eating pasta and sipping wine, discussing Brazil’s prospects for the Football World Cup. I then haven’t met them or spoken to them ever since. What an industry, what a World we Softwarewallahs inhabit.
Posted by Bhushan Y. Nigale
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Guest Post: The Emergence of Virtual Nations
The Emergence of Virtual Nations
In 2006, when the farmer suicide epidemic in India peaked, I found myself severely distressed at their plight. Even more distressing was the apathy of the Government (especially the then BCCI chief, visionary educationist and industry czar Sharad Pawar, who also held the union portfolio for Agriculture and Food), the media and the society. My anger and distress was impotent – there was nothing I could do, and this frustrated me even further.
Then, during a morning walk in late 2008, I suddenly realized I didn’t care. The suicides continued unabated, but it began to hurt me less and less. I was alarmed at my disinterest: was I transforming into another Sharad Pawar (without a fraction of his wealth, of course)? Why didn’t the deaths move me as they did before? But the question returned and has haunted me ever since: Why should I, a software engineer in Bangalore, worry about farmer suicides in Vidarbha? I don't get troubled by deaths in sub-Saharan Africa, for me it's another continent, another culture. Logic, patriotism, humanity, etc. imply that I must, however, be troubled by my countrymen’s deaths in Vidarbha. But it is as good as another continent for me, I have no connection with them. And yet, not being troubled by the farmer deaths also does not feel right: it violates humanity and empathy.
Upon some reflection, I am beginning to get a feel for an answer: the farmers of Vidarbha and the software engineers in Bangalore inhabit different countries, and as a citizen of a country does not bother too much about the travails of another in a far-far land (how tormented is your soul over the recent deaths of citizens in Urmqui in Northwest China?), the epidemic of suicides in Vidarbha – or say Hassan, or UP – needn’t trouble me at all. The epidemic could have as well occurred in Rwanda, occupying a few column inches of space in the international pages of the newspaper. (As P. Sainath has shown, the epidemic of suicide received even lesser coverage in our mainstream media.)
The answer to my question is neither startling, nor, I fear, original, but I would like to codify the thoughts behind it and pose a few more questions.
a) The increasing pace of Globalization since the 1980s has meant nations interact (or have to) much more frequently than ever before and though the interaction is mostly driven by the needs and channels of commerce, cultural exchanges are on the rise. The process of learning from other societies occurs much faster, and values begin to change.
b) The awe-inspiring development in ICT (Information and Communication Technology) in the recent years means physical distances matter less and less for interpersonal transactions. Thus, de-territorialization begins to occur, and the ‘social space’ for communication is no longer dependent on the physical space for such communication.
c) The rise of mammoth Transnational Enterprises, whose reach of power and influence spans across several nations at once, further encourages this proximity. Coupled with the exchange of values outlines above, this gives rise to large interest groups who identify with a common cause, agenda, and increasingly, identity. I call these emerging social structures/interest groups as virtual nations.
d) A ‘physical’ nation like India (and especially India!) can be a host of several of these virtual nations. The set of professionals staying in gated communities in Indian metros, who celebrate the US Independence Day and Halloween, is an example of a virtual nation.
e) An individual can be a citizen of several virtual nations at once and can derive his/her identity from an interrelationship of each of these nationalities. I am at once a software engineer working in a large MNC, a member of the great Indian Middle Class, a practicing worshipper of the deity of consumerism, a reader of Marathi books, a failed blogger and writer of terrible prose, etc. Some of these identities clash with each other and some reinforce each other: the point is, there are tens of more identities available to me than to my father.
f) The 1648 Treat of Westphalia, which "establishe[s] the important principle of sovereignty that remains the foundation of contemporary international politics…” can be thought to apply to these virtual nations as well. This means the virtual nations are pretty much on their own when it comes to managing their own affairs, with minimum interference from the physical/geo-political world. Two examples would suffice: consider the virtual nation comprising of the super-rich, some citizens of which inflected great misery on the world economy by creating and trading toxic financial instruments. Till date, none of these citizens have been penalized for their actions, rather, most developed nations have bailed out the institutions inhabited and managed by these citizens, because ‘they are too big to fail’. The virtual deeply impacts the physical.
As another example, consider the virtual nation of Marathi fascists, spanning from Mumbai to New York. A citizen of such a nation, originally belonging to suburban Mumbai but now settled in Brisbane, has no qualms supporting Raj Thakre (the President-for-Life of this nation) and his MNS goons (an instance of virtual nations having an army) bash poor migrants in Mumbai from UP (these inhabit the great virtual nation, the Other/Real India, as our news TV anchors like to say). And yet it is this very migrant to Brisbane who will feel threatened when Aussie racists (nothing virtual about them!) thrash Indians. Again, the virtual contradicts the physical.
If this trend about the emergence of these virtual nations is true, then it raises some philosophical questions:
- Are ‘old’ moral values, the foundation of our civilization, valid?
- Does the notion of justice hold any good?
- Does national loyalty mean anything anymore? Do we need it?
- What are the boundaries of humanity and empathy? Are these values dispensable? What economic purpose do they serve?
In short: how does globalization impact ethics? Are there any immutable values left?
Any thoughts?
Possed by Bhushan Y. Nigale
In 2006, when the farmer suicide epidemic in India peaked, I found myself severely distressed at their plight. Even more distressing was the apathy of the Government (especially the then BCCI chief, visionary educationist and industry czar Sharad Pawar, who also held the union portfolio for Agriculture and Food), the media and the society. My anger and distress was impotent – there was nothing I could do, and this frustrated me even further.
Then, during a morning walk in late 2008, I suddenly realized I didn’t care. The suicides continued unabated, but it began to hurt me less and less. I was alarmed at my disinterest: was I transforming into another Sharad Pawar (without a fraction of his wealth, of course)? Why didn’t the deaths move me as they did before? But the question returned and has haunted me ever since: Why should I, a software engineer in Bangalore, worry about farmer suicides in Vidarbha? I don't get troubled by deaths in sub-Saharan Africa, for me it's another continent, another culture. Logic, patriotism, humanity, etc. imply that I must, however, be troubled by my countrymen’s deaths in Vidarbha. But it is as good as another continent for me, I have no connection with them. And yet, not being troubled by the farmer deaths also does not feel right: it violates humanity and empathy.
Upon some reflection, I am beginning to get a feel for an answer: the farmers of Vidarbha and the software engineers in Bangalore inhabit different countries, and as a citizen of a country does not bother too much about the travails of another in a far-far land (how tormented is your soul over the recent deaths of citizens in Urmqui in Northwest China?), the epidemic of suicides in Vidarbha – or say Hassan, or UP – needn’t trouble me at all. The epidemic could have as well occurred in Rwanda, occupying a few column inches of space in the international pages of the newspaper. (As P. Sainath has shown, the epidemic of suicide received even lesser coverage in our mainstream media.)
The answer to my question is neither startling, nor, I fear, original, but I would like to codify the thoughts behind it and pose a few more questions.
a) The increasing pace of Globalization since the 1980s has meant nations interact (or have to) much more frequently than ever before and though the interaction is mostly driven by the needs and channels of commerce, cultural exchanges are on the rise. The process of learning from other societies occurs much faster, and values begin to change.
b) The awe-inspiring development in ICT (Information and Communication Technology) in the recent years means physical distances matter less and less for interpersonal transactions. Thus, de-territorialization begins to occur, and the ‘social space’ for communication is no longer dependent on the physical space for such communication.
c) The rise of mammoth Transnational Enterprises, whose reach of power and influence spans across several nations at once, further encourages this proximity. Coupled with the exchange of values outlines above, this gives rise to large interest groups who identify with a common cause, agenda, and increasingly, identity. I call these emerging social structures/interest groups as virtual nations.
d) A ‘physical’ nation like India (and especially India!) can be a host of several of these virtual nations. The set of professionals staying in gated communities in Indian metros, who celebrate the US Independence Day and Halloween, is an example of a virtual nation.
e) An individual can be a citizen of several virtual nations at once and can derive his/her identity from an interrelationship of each of these nationalities. I am at once a software engineer working in a large MNC, a member of the great Indian Middle Class, a practicing worshipper of the deity of consumerism, a reader of Marathi books, a failed blogger and writer of terrible prose, etc. Some of these identities clash with each other and some reinforce each other: the point is, there are tens of more identities available to me than to my father.
f) The 1648 Treat of Westphalia, which "establishe[s] the important principle of sovereignty that remains the foundation of contemporary international politics…” can be thought to apply to these virtual nations as well. This means the virtual nations are pretty much on their own when it comes to managing their own affairs, with minimum interference from the physical/geo-political world. Two examples would suffice: consider the virtual nation comprising of the super-rich, some citizens of which inflected great misery on the world economy by creating and trading toxic financial instruments. Till date, none of these citizens have been penalized for their actions, rather, most developed nations have bailed out the institutions inhabited and managed by these citizens, because ‘they are too big to fail’. The virtual deeply impacts the physical.
As another example, consider the virtual nation of Marathi fascists, spanning from Mumbai to New York. A citizen of such a nation, originally belonging to suburban Mumbai but now settled in Brisbane, has no qualms supporting Raj Thakre (the President-for-Life of this nation) and his MNS goons (an instance of virtual nations having an army) bash poor migrants in Mumbai from UP (these inhabit the great virtual nation, the Other/Real India, as our news TV anchors like to say). And yet it is this very migrant to Brisbane who will feel threatened when Aussie racists (nothing virtual about them!) thrash Indians. Again, the virtual contradicts the physical.
If this trend about the emergence of these virtual nations is true, then it raises some philosophical questions:
- Are ‘old’ moral values, the foundation of our civilization, valid?
- Does the notion of justice hold any good?
- Does national loyalty mean anything anymore? Do we need it?
- What are the boundaries of humanity and empathy? Are these values dispensable? What economic purpose do they serve?
In short: how does globalization impact ethics? Are there any immutable values left?
Any thoughts?
Possed by Bhushan Y. Nigale
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Inviting your submissions
Dear Readers,
I would like to announce that this blog invites your submissions on topics of your interest. We invite you to share your ideas, observations, your perceptions of state policy in the respective fields you work in.
If you need to submit a post, please do so by sending an e-mail to searchforsolutionsindia[at]gmail.com. Your e-mail should contain the post, your name and e-mail address.
Happy posting!
I would like to announce that this blog invites your submissions on topics of your interest. We invite you to share your ideas, observations, your perceptions of state policy in the respective fields you work in.
If you need to submit a post, please do so by sending an e-mail to searchforsolutionsindia[at]gmail.com. Your e-mail should contain the post, your name and e-mail address.
Happy posting!
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