So You Sowed, but He is Reaping!

As a child, all of us would have heard, "As you sow, so you will reap." That statement is so prone to misuse, especially, if you are a woken-up and aware citizen of India in the last one year or so. Also our recent habit of fast-food life, where we want things rendered at the click of a button, makes us believe what usually a man with a reasonable head wont.

To them, the proverb stands; but to those who had sown, it has become, 

 "So you sowed, but he is reaping!"

Let us start with democracy, which has been the legacy of Congress. Baring the mention of Janapada, (as far as I can pick up from my distant memory of my history books in school days) a democratic setup in some areas in ancient India, we had only kings, and sultans and more kings, till India started its journey to redeem the pledge of its "Tryst with its destiny". Democracy and scientific temper had to be ship of the voyage that India started in 1947. 

When a part time tea hawker and seasoned riot organizer, rose to occupy the post of Prime-minister of India, he was essentially reaping the benefit of what Congress has sown over the years. He acknowledged that by honoring the post of PM in his usual dishonorable way, when he repeatedly gave calls for "Congress Mukt Bharat."  

Since the day, he has risen to his much cherished political post, he is on a spree to inaugurate projects and heaping praise on himself and occasionally on Mr. Vajpayee; as if, you have to have a start date and end date of any project! 

Like the MOM of ISRO; a project conceptualized and successfully executed in just three years by ISRO; Modiji painted it, as if, the glorious episode in Indian space technology was started by Mr. Vajpayee between 1998 to 2004 and completed by he himself in just 100 days into power in Delhi. 

"Nothing Happened in Last 60 Years"

It would be unfair to accuse him for such day light robbery on his own; in pulling off such a HEIST his accomplice was as usual the media. The media was previously  found to be beating his drum, while he was impressing Japanese with his skills from his RSS sakha days. The media forgot the tremendous synergy brought into the Indo-Japanese relationship by previous Govt; many of the members of these media accompanied Dr. Singh to each such Japanese visits. In matter of fact, two such visits had happened in 2013 itself; this time though these media guys have to book their ticket and carry their bed-holders on their own. 

Then he was caught cleaning an already cleaned road on the occasion of "Swacha Bharat" photo-op in the capital. And boy, that was another name changing exercise; Nirmala Bharat mission, started in 2012, was renamed for no other reason than may be vastu sastra. 

"Delhi is so Dirty, Ahmadabad is so Clean"

Given a chance he would shout "Kuch nehin hua 60 saal main," but be very careful to dress for the inauguration events. He would inaugurate War ships and say that we have done nothing in the last 60 years, so he would rename National Manufacturing Policy initiatives, to Make in India. 

Today, as I write, many bhaktas are sounding "Mayyyyyyy" as Modiji is inaugurating Shrameva Jayatey; his media friends have started making "First Time Ever" headlines. 

But truth is that the event
"EPFO approves Rs 1,000 minimum monthly pension" happened, in Feb 2014. 


One media friend says, 

"Each of the six to seven lakh industrial units in the country will also get a unique Labour Identification Number, or LIN. 

A unified labour and industrial portal, where all data will be stored. The other will be the "Labour Inspection Scheme," which aims at ending arbitrariness in the inspection mechanism." 

This is Mithyameva Jayatey, the truth is here:
Oscar Fernandes Inaugurates Unified Single Portal for Ministry of Labour & Employment

This has already happened in 13-February-2014. 

"Mithyameva Jayatey"

Then there is this, Sansada Adarsh Grama Yojana; really is it the produce of the fertile mind of Modiji? In fact, it is the RURBAN program of UPA, with a twist. The twist is that now the center would take over Panchayatiraj and the clarion call of decentralization of Modiji will be shoved under the carpet. This is what this media report says: 
Modi's model village project to merge mutilple welfare schemes


While pointing at these concrete instances, I am also speculating about the fate of those in the green room. One of that is JNNURM, which is going to be masked through the much hyped smart city drama. What is a smart city and what are their parameters for smartness? Even the budget which allocates 7000 crore for 100 cities is criminally silent about it? I have just one simple request, please do not indulge in re-branding exercise before the friendly media.  

Bio-metric Attendance System for Bureaucrats: Did Modi Invent it?

For last few days, there has been a rush for reporting about a new website attendance.gov.in, simultaneously making a concerted attempt to prove that PM, Narendra Modi, is the brain and hand behind it. Definitely, we have to give it where it is due. It is a very good initiative to track the bureaucrats at work. 

All of us might not be able to keep an eye on the website, but it would serve as a stick for the lax bureaucrats and hopefully improve service delivery. 

For guaranteed service delivery to the citizen and ensuring accountability, I think Modi govt must quicken the process to push the UPA brain child, "Right of Citizens for Time Bound Delivery of Goods and Services and Redressal of their Grievances Bill, 2011" in parliament. Coupled with this, the bureaucrats would also be productive instead of finding ingenious ways to remain in office and play cards inside office. 

Let me pull myself back to the original idea behind the blog. The point, I essentially wanted to make was that, this bio-metric attendance system is nothing to do with the fertile mind of Modiji. In fact, this has been an old idea, implemented at several central govt departments as well as several state governments have also implemented it or in the process to implement it. 

Some sample of such things are provided below:

Yes, in 2007, Gujarta Govt started bio-metric attendance pilot project in tribal schools and in 2009 HCL was awarded a project to implement it in 7000 schools. They have also implemented it for checking the availability of traffic police at traffic junctions. 

But, I did not come across any instance when the bio-metric system is used at secretariat or any other govt offices.

What the central govt has done today, one of the poorest state govt, Jharkhand has done several months back. 

http://attendance.jharkhand.gov.in/mis4.aspx

You can check the POLITICAL COLOR of the Jharkhand Govt. :) Yes, it is also AADHAAR linked. Do you know who is implementing it even if it can be an act of contempt of SC judgement not to recognize AADHAAR because of the lack of parliamentary nod to its proposed bill? It is none other than Mr. Ram Sewak Sharma the director general of UIDAI from 2009 to 20103. (He himself bio metrically profiled Mr. Modi on 1 May,2012.) 

One interesting thing comes up while I write this. Remember, BJP and the stance it had against AADHAAR. BJP called it a fraud and what not. You can enjoy more of such adjectives against AADHAAR during the election campaign in the following links:

Aadhaar a 'fraud', will review it if voted to power: BJP 

In nutshell:

• BJP opposed AADHAAR vehemently on all political forums
• Modiji is not the pioneer in implementing bio-metric attendance system at his office
• UPA initiated the move towards such a system in central govt offices
• Jharkhand govt (Supported by Congress) is first to come up with the portal for the AADHAAR linked bio-metric attendance system; not MODI govt. 

So, the myth has to be dispelled that Modi is the mind behind such a move. It is another instance of how Media is helping Modiji to take the credit for a UPA initiated program. 

Technology is the biggest social leveler, second only to Death!

I was listening to Sam Pitroda, the bundle of energy, and feeling how useless am I! The interviewer just put a question, and in reply, Sam talked for about 20 mins at a stretch with passion of a child. I talked like that when I talk about the need of "Idea of India."

But, this line, "Technology is the biggest social leveler, second only to Death!" just struck me so hard. I just repeated that sentence several times in my mind, and it only made me feel brighter. It was like a bright light of TRUTH.

Just few hours back, while commuting to office on my cycle, I saw the same scene repeated at one signal; a couple sitting on the footpath and enjoying their breakfast, with beautiful smile on their face. Everyday, I see them, and I feel happy that they are so happy. Imagine, great minds working out a solution where this couple do not have to stay on footpath without losing their smile. I guarantee that they do not smile because they are content, they smile because that they have nothing beyond that to lose or ponder about. While saying so, I am not saying that to be content, you need to be rich. What I am saying is that, somebody has to find a solution beyond designing a luxurious flat where the solution can assure a dignity of life under a shelter while ensuring a livelihood avenue nearby.

Look at the communication technology space in India's context. As I speak, we have 950 million people connected over the air at the press of a button; now a days we have gone smarter and we touch. :) Remember a land-line 20 years back, it used to be the symbol of LORDSHIP in society. Wireless technology has flattened the social disparity and made billionaires and daily laborers at the same level; at least as far as catching words from thin air is concerned.

Look at food security in India; till late 60s and early 70s our PM would go to developed countries and negotiate for food aid to feed India. What a Shame! Now, as I speak we export  $ 20 billion worth food to world after feeding our 1.2 billion people. Do you think it happened because PC Sorkar waved his magic wand! No, it happened because of the technology assimilation through the program called Green revolution. That revolution coupled with White revolution has made India self-sufficient in food production. Now, we desperately need a technological revolution in the field of mechanized agriculture, food storage, processing and distribution. The technology is there but the design needs to be affordable and sustainable in a price sensitive market like India or say Africa.

 Look at the figure above. This happened because of the intervention of technology! India leaders are no more required to feel low for pleading for food at the doorstep of the developed world.

There used to be a time when India was home to the largest population of polio infected citizens anywhere on the earth. Imagine, the feel of standing straight on ones own leg and looking eye to eye. A pair of healthy legs is certainly a great social leveler. India recognized that shame as late as Rajeev Gandhi's tenure, when world was looking at us with a sense of frustration. That shameful situation forced us to go for Vaccination and that required India to produce vaccines in house. Imagine the benefit of that today; we not only are the largest producer of vaccines in the world, but also are Polio free for the last several years. That push in vaccine production also have made India the largest producer of generic producer in the world. India is in the middle of a bloody battle for bringing some parity and sense into the blood sucking world of pharmaceutical industry.

While I write, our PM would have repeated the same analogy of Auto fare/km vice versa the cost of a ticket to Mars to the world audience elsewhere without understanding the years of effort behind the same. ISRO is a fertile incubator of technological leapfrogging. We started getting into the space by trying to build simple solutions through remote sensing technology. ISRO is not the product of insane race to space; it is a sensible voyage to make the space useful to us. Be it tele-medicine, oceanography, earth survey for mining purpose, weather forecasting, connecting a billion through communication satellites, content delivery across universities through V-sat. You count, ISRO has done it for the betterment of society as a whole; from space world looks flat. :)

It is not possible to write in a single blog how technology is a great leveler. Look at me, a simple Technical Writer could express his views on a concept as vast as this sitting at his desk and expect the world reads it. So, that is the beauty of Technology; it flattens the world.