Check your prepaid mobile connections

A couple of days ago, I decided to migrate from prepaid mobile plan to post paid, plan, primarily to get a monthly bill so that I can keep track of my phone expenses and claim my official expenses. I visited the nearby Vodafone store in Chennai to get that done and I had a beautiful customer care executive and some shocks in waiting.

I have been using my vodafone prepaid connection since September 2007, which I acquired after carefully submitting a bunch of documents to a vendor (a general store in Kilpauk area in Chennai). I asked the customer care executive to migrate my existing number from prepaid to postpaid and she demanded the necessary details, to my surprise the number was not on my name. It was listed to someone Mohammad XYZ.. Shit.

Now where was the goof up. I thought I am going to lose my number ( I am not very fond of Vodafone but the number is circulated to some many personal and professional contacts that I do not want to lose it.). But the customer care executive was unmoved. She asked me the tentative date of registration of prepaid connection and last amount of recharge. Once I furnished the same, she happily told me no to worry. There was some goof up by vendor/retailer and I can migrate the same number to post paid plan. I produced the required details and got it done.

Now, in light of recent  events, where wi-fi connections are being hacked and used by some impotent cowards for showcasing their ugly debauched ideologies, this is a very serious concern. I enquired and came to know that some vendors do it as a normal practice. When you go to register for a prepaid connection and want it immediately activated, they give you a number and ask you to submit documents within a day or two, but your number gets activated immediately after a few hours. They provide false documents or some other customers document along with your number. So you have a number working for you, which is registered for somebody else. As a customer you have no problem, immediate service.

Now when you submit your set of documents, that is used to register number for somebody else, who is in need of immediate connection. Here is the real problem. You do not know who is using the number in your name. And you can easily figure out the complications arising out of this if something goes wrong.

It is surprising that this is going unnoticed, and lawmakers enforcing stricter norms for acquiring telephone/mobile/internet connections.

Technorati Tags: Chennai,mobile connections,concerns,security lapse

Bihar Flood – How to help ..

There are three ways you can support the flood relief activity.
1) By sending your donation to below account numbers. The funds collected will be used to purchase necessary items (Our team working at ground zero keep sending us list of items which they need for flood relief work). Items thus purchases are send to Chandan who is leading the efforts from Patna.

Online –Transfer your donations to ICICI bank
Name: Ashok Kumar Sharma,
A/C Number: 005301022273,
Branch: Jayanagar/Bangalore
Please mention flood relief and your name in remarks section while transferring funds
Also mention your name in the comments (will help us track).
After transfer send an email with the transfer details to ashok.1857@gmail. com
We will send you a confirmation for the same.
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Sending donations through NGO (Prayaas).
Institutional Donor and as well as individual can donate via our Sister NGO PRAYAAS
http://www.prayaas. org/
PRAYAAS Contact No: 91-80-28441463
Please mention flood relief and your name in remarks section while transferring fund.
Mention your name in the comments (will help us track)Send an email with details to:Amitesh.Bharti@ in.bosch. com
make a CC to: ashok.1857@gmail. com
Account in on the name of: M/S Prayaas
Current Account No. : 10447347087
Bank Address : State Bank of India, Indiranagar, Bangalore
Bank Code : 3301
Routing Number (Swift No.) : SBI NIN BB 147A
MICR number : 560002021
Prayaas Official Address:
Mr. Amitesh Bharti,Prayaas( r),
C1-201, GreenWood Regency,Doddakannah alli village,Carmelaram
PO, Adj. Wipro,Sarjapur Road,Bangalore – 560035, India.
If you want to send a cheque/DD:Please send the crossed A/c Payee cheque in favour of,”SBI, A/c Prayaas, Current A/c No. 10447347087“
Donar seeking Tax exemption under section 80G, please donate via PRAYAAS
The certificate & the receipt of your contribution will be dispatched by Prayaas. To get the certificate & the receipt of your contribution, Please email your name and address along with detail of your contribution to Amitesh at Amitesh.Bharti@ in.bosch. com
make a CC to: ashok.1857@gmail. com
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2) We keep updating our blog for the list of items which are required at ground zero. You can buy those items and send them directly to Chandan and his team.
You can find the contact details of our team in the blog. Feel free to ask them how you can send relief materials directly to Chandan and his team.
———— ——— ——— ——— ——— ——— ——— ——— ——— ——— —-
3) Sending money directly to CHIEF MINISTER RELIEF FUND.

Bihar Chief Minister Relief Fund
Write a cheque to
A/C Name: “Chief Minister Relief Fund, Bihar”
A/C No: 10839124928
Bank: State Bank of India, Secretariat Branch, Patna.
Put your Phone number, name and address on the back of the cheque.Deposit the cheque to the nearest State Bank of India cheque drop box
Disaster relief State Control Room Number:: 91-612-2217305/ 2215027/6452572
************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* *
NOTE: Kindly note that any left over money (In case we are not able to spend donated money) will be send to CM Relief fund. All donors will be updated accordingly when we decide to send money to CM Relief Fund.

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Please check the following blogs for more info..

http://biharflood.wordpress.com

http://biharfloodrelief2008.blogspot.com/

http://biharfloodrelief2008.blogspot.com/2008/09/for-those-who-want-to-donate-cloths.html

http://biharfloodrelief.blogspot.com/

Chennai 3.0

Chennai celebrates its 369th birthday. Though my professional commitments and other constraints  deprived me from participating in the celebrations, I did get a chance to attend ‘Chennai 3.0′ organized by Confederation of Indian Industries (CII). The theme of the conference was “Chennai – Evolution Today, Revolution Tomorrow”.  And, I have no doubts seeing the growth plans and the people behind the evolution, revolution is bound to happen.  CII did a great job to get industrialists, city planners, bureaucrats and politicians all on the same platform and talk different aspects of Chennai today and tomorrow.

While everybody presented their vision for Chennai and how ‘the Detroit of India’ should move forward to become the world class city, it was intriguing (and one of the speakers highlighted this) that none of the Chennai based industries/business houses came forward to sponsor the event. I was bemused seeing most of the speakers talking about inclusive growth and sustainable growth but they did not highlight any of concrete plans to give any indication how they are going to achieve that. Though we had detailed plans on how to solve problems of Car Parking, Shopping Space, satellite cities and how to make Chennai Airport a world class airport, but somehow problems of commoners living in Chennai took back seat like the commoners present in the TAJ Conference Hall. But probably this was not primarily intended to dwell upon that, it was more of a celebrations of achievements of this city and setting up the context for future growth and expansion.

My personal experience with Chennai has been really wonderful, earlier I was a bit hesitant to think Chennai as the preferred workplace, but after my fieldwork in Tamilnadu and now more than one year in Chennai I love the city.   

The roadblocks

We have been trying since March  to get a non-profit trust registered  in MP and to provide a formal platform for our efforts. Unfortunately, nothing is going as we had planned, I never realized that this can be so much pain. I wonder if registering a non-profit, which requires very little paperwork and no clearances, takes so much of time, I dare not to think of registering profit organizations which require a number of checks and clarifications. We are following the prescribed procedure for registration and still waiting.

While working on economic governance as part of my professional assignment, I realized how difficult it is to have objective measures of governance but these things do tell story about the quality of governance. Lack of grievance redressal systems and proper control /check points provide no fear of punitive measures or lure of incentives (official and legal incentives, the whole delay seems to for receiving under the table incentives)  to these government officials.

(In the meanwhile, I got some time to get older. And this year, my colleagues, friends and junior made it special. Thanks to you all dear. It really feels nice to have a dozen waiting calls in midnight, people singing happy birthday miles away, a mail box full of e-cards and cards and……)

I have been busy…

Not even a single post in more than a month is clear indication that I have been busy. I have been busy in traveling, doing shopping, reading, writing papers, making presentations, doing financial planning, shifting house, gaining weight.. and what not.

The long pending visit to Bihar happened during this period and it was really an experience. The bus journey from Patna to Muzaffarpur taught me many lessons and I want to sue Vodafone and kick their the ’son of b***’ which helps people in everything, right from finding forgotten ties to pasting ticket on envelopes, does not ensure connectivity on roaming even in big towns like Patna (I had the similar experience when I visited Pondicherry, Vodafone network not available there, though the town was painted red with Vodafone ads.). Bus drivers and conductors (probably the owners too) need some serious lessons on how to be more considerate and customer friendly, but I think this would never happen. First, the owners (the musclemen/politicians) do not give a damn about this and second, the victims are mostly the simple villagers who do not know whom to complain (most of them even do not know that they can complain against the ill treatment meted out by the bus conductors and staff) and there is no other options available. These bus conductors and their aides give a very differential treatment to passengers, the simple villagers and poor passengers are the constant victims of their aggression and bad language.

I have been on reading spree this year and have managed to read almost four books a month so far. Though last couple of weeks I have not been able to read much (but bought some good books so my anti-library is growing). Started this year with some non-fiction books and then went on to read four-five suspense thrillers and then again settled to some non-fiction/productive reading.

Technorati Tags: Bihar, Vodafone, Travelling

‘English’ Patients and Quality of Education

I read two contrasting articles revealing two different aspects of Indian education system, though most of us are quite aware of the indian education sceanrio, yet these articles made me ponder over them. The first article was a news clipping “36% of scientists at NASA are Indians: Govt survey” and the second one a cover story in  Outlook ” English Speaking Curse“.

As an Indian, I feel really proud looking at the figures quoted by D Purandeshwari, minister of state for HRD, in defence of the country’s higher education system and the state of research.

..as many as 12% scientists and 38% doctors in the US are Indians, and in NASA, 36% or almost 4 out of 10 scientists are Indians.
If that’s not proof enough of Indian scientific and corporate prowess, digest this: 34% employees at Microsoft, 28% at IBM, 17% at Intel and 13% at Xerox are Indians..

..number of PhD holders had gone up from 17,898 two years back to 18,730 last year. ..

If these number indicate the quality of ‘educational system’ in India (I am referring to quality of overall system not a few institutes like IITs and IIMs), we have all the reasons to be proud of, sadly this is not the case. These figures do tell story of Indians’ drive to excel, hardwork and dedication. It would be interesting to see how many of these scientists, engineers, researchers in these institutions are product of ‘only’ Indian education system and have not gone to pursue Masters and Ph.Ds at Ivy League institutions to make themselves more equipped and more ’saleable’.  Nobody doubts quality of Indian manpower and IIT/IIM entrance examinations act as screening procedure to get the best of the best talents from ‘the talented Indian manpower pool’.

A glance at the orginal quality research work published by faculty of Indian universities and instiutions will give you the real picture. We are way behind. Hmm.. I am dreaming of the day when an Indian institute will produce a noble laureate in science or economics. 

The Outlook Cover Story ” The Torment of English” depicts the plight of a major section of students striving to be proficient in Engish and the poor quality of faculty and course curricula to teach English as Second Language. ‘Benchmarking’ and ‘Standardization’ are two key aspects of quality. And the following excerpts from an email sent to Outlook magazine from a student who got 100 per cent marks in English in CBSE Examination tells the real story.

It all depends on how one pen down the ideas.. the flow in the language helped me fetched marks…

… Don’t use harsh words, keep the language simple, short and yet so crispy.. do not get deviate from the topic…

And have a look at the job application submitted by an M.A.

“With profound veneration, I implore to ejaculate before you the following few lines for favour of your kind consideration. I am MA and having 12  years experience in concerning field.”

Here is another one .. a PhD Student in an English communication class at an IIT –

“Although the freedom of thought is most- important but it is not or easy as it sound…When express different opinion. If we refused -to other people to hold there opinion on religion or politics. The process is impossible.”

Mrs. D Purandeshwari, do you see something here? You have got a herculean task cut out for you.

UPDATE

The figures quoted by Mrs. D Purandeshwari are absolute bulls*** and taken from chain-spam mails. Now, I think I need not  write about the quality of our bureaucracy and lethargy/stupidity of our minister for quoting such baseless figures in parliament.

(Picture and excerpts.. coursey Outlook)

Education, Schools, Teachers, Grades and Life

After a long time, got an opportunity to read a Hindi novella ‘Bigade Bachche, Sabse Achhe’ (Spoilt Kids, The best Kids) written by V R Jogi and P G Vaidya. A very simple story (it seems that you are reading a book written for 5th graders), yet a thought provoking story.

This story seriously questions our education system which puts too much emphasis on mugging up facts and figures and obtaining good grades in examination instead of acquiring real knowledge Those kids who could not perform well on these parameters are thrown out of the schools, no one bothers to look into the problem and find out why they are not able to do it. Aren’t we supposed to provide more attention and care to these students rather than labeling them as ‘failure’ in early impressionable years which stunts the proper growth of their personality and make them suffer from inferiority complex. These kids are forced to follow a system which is designed more for the convenience of operations/executions rather than for identification of the existing talents in an individual and providing it platform to nurture that talent and excel there.

Its a story of a teachers who runs a school for those who have been thrown out by formal education systems or those who cannot attend those schools for any other reasons. A teacher, who transforms the life of many and shows us an alternative to existing system.

Recently there has been a significant increase in incidents of teachers crossing all the limits when it comes to punishing students and inflicting inhuman corporal punishments. Frequency of these incidence is raising at alarming level and it shows that our teachers need comprehensive change in their attitude and way of teaching. I think this book should be included in B.Ed/M.Ed or teacher training programs just to show that how a teacher affects its student and to make them think.

Though this book is not that you will enjoy reading it on train/plane or if you have been raised on staple diet of Cook, Archer or Rowling, it raises a serious issues, addresses a grave problem and also put you on the track which can lead you to solution.

Technorati Tags: Education, Concern, Rural Education

Educating India???

Look at the picture below. No these are  not ruins of some neglected heritage site, this is a school (situated just 20-30 kms away from Lucknow) in Uttar Pradesh . So where are the students are teachers. They all were very well there, I could not muster the strength to take the picture of the school when teachers were there. They opposed it (Of course they were busy in stuff other than teaching and not appreciative of someone clicking them.).   

It was pleasure to listen our Prime Minister talking about educational reforms and setting up thousands of high quality schools and institutes of higher/professional education. But where these schools are going to be? And for whom? How many of the students coming out this school or of many similar schools would be able to get into these new institutions? I do not think many, or probably none. We need to think about revamping the whole primary education system we have. The journey towards better future starts from that place. The quality of education we get in our initial years, decides where we are going to be.

For millions of Indian, Education is the only hope to take them out of vicious cycle of poverty, only vehicle tool available to build better future, but it seems even this is not available properly to these people.

Technorati Tags: Education, Concern

Hamara Bihar

A girl who made to IIT, could not join as she was not financially capable of paying the admission fee, and none of the banks offered admission loan to her. Read the Story Here.

Nothing new in this considering the banking system and bureaucracy in Bihar. I faced the same problem four years ago, after making it to one of the better known B-Schools, I tried to fund it through Education Loan, and after running to almost all the options, I could not get. I emailed Finance Minister and got a reply from FM office that the issue would be looked into. Nothing happened.

This recent issue made me ponder once again (Earlier, when I tried I knew that I have a very bleak chance to get that, nonetheless I wanted try it.) over my state, My Bihar. I really felt bad. The state government has ordered enquiry into that. The most predictable response from an Indian Governance Body with predictable outcome. A report which will gather dust for eons and the issue will die and slip into oblivion, the person/people in question witnessing their dreams turning into perpetual unfulfilled dreams.

I want to do something, probably start an organization which can at least take the voice to the right people, ensure that talent does not suffer. I know there are many who would like to help these people. But in most cases, you do not know whom to approach. How to proceed ahead?. At least we can mobilize resources, guide these people. I want to do a lot. But lets take the first step.

Technorati Tags: bihar, education, concern

Take care of mother.. Mother Earth

If you have kept yourself abreast of recent development on Climate and Global Warming, this is one issue which need to be taken seriously by people at large and not only by environment enthusiasts and activists.
Here is what we can do to make a small contribution individually to this big issue.
1. When going for shopping, make sure to carry bags/basket, so that you need not take paper or plastic bags.
2. Switch off all the electrical appliances when not in use. Save electricity, save environment.
3. Instead of using chemical pesticides and fertilizers, go for natural/herbal pesticides, Neem leaves are a good options for insectisides and pesticides and compost you can use instead of chemical fertilizers.
4. Save water. There are millions who are deprived of drinking water.
5. Restrict yourself from using plastic/things which cannot be recycled.
Spread the word, do it yourself and aks others to do it too..

Update: Read Aditi’s Post Here , She has posted a beautiful poem, one of my favorite.

 

Technorati tags: environment, earth, concern