Meetings on Roads?.

 

Common people (excluding policemen, politicians, their supporters) are the ones who are tortured, chased around and deprived of basic rights. One of the basic rights would be to take your tax paid-insurance updated car on the NH and drive to your destination.

But the people in brackets make sure that this wont be an easy ride.

 

I have seen many times that National Highways being blocked for meetings, processions by political party. The police does their part in favor of everyone else other than the common man, may be because they are helpless too. The traffic is diverted to some smaller roads which get blocked in a few minutes.  Now my question is why the hell am I diverted because some Idio-ticians has to meet on the road. I think those idio-ticians should be held for jaywalking. I would be fuming in the car(not mine !) even though the ac is running, helpless just because some idio-tician want to save the country(read save his A$$pirations and fill up his pocket).

 

 

Strange Laws.

 

Does people go to any extent to get that 3 minutes of fame on TV?. Recently  a ‘not so popular’ Godman was arrested for fraud and rape in Kerala. This made another guy in the same profession working on God domain sad as he was not getting his share of airtime. So he went on to get a gun from the attic, called up the press and the cops, paid a woman to scream and staged a drama to get some attention. And he got it. Big time. The video of this guy trying to suicide was all over the news. I am not sure why he did that, most of channels airing the video did not even know this guy’s name and they referred to him as ‘Godman’.  But then it was entertaining.

 

My reason for writing this post is not to discuss on why he did it. He might be awfully insane. But on why he was left off, after wasting tax payers money (which pays off the police force)… police time on him. And on why he was left off on bail after endangering the lives of the people around him ? Strange.

 

This also reminds me of Harbhajan- Sreesanth issue, why was Harbhajan not charged for assault by the police? If I give Sreesanth a tight slap, will I be only banned from ‘watching’ a few IPL matches?

 

Strange..

 

DND Update !

Mobile subscribers have a reason to celebrate. This is an update to my post DND.Many commented saying that they are getting calls from telemarketers even after registering.  This is the latest information from today’s TOI Bangalore edition.

TRAI plans hefty fines for pesky calls

Shalini Singh | TNN

New Delhi: Mobile subscribers registered with the national donot-call (NDNC) registry have reason to rejoice. Giving in to the growing outrage over the menace of unsolicited calls and SMSs, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has announced stiff penalties on telecom service providers and telemarketers.
   The regulator said on Monday that for the first unsolicited communication, a service provider would have to pay a penalty of up to Rs 5,000, which could go up to Rs 20,000 for each subsequent communication. A telemarketer would have to pay a penalty of Rs 500 for the first unsolicited communication, and Rs 1,000 for every subsequent communication.
   The Times of India had reported on January 17 that TRAI was planning such a strict regulation.

So guys go ahead and complain to your service provider in case you receive an unwanted call.

Piracy. Is the industry Listening?

Piracy would be the No 1 competition for music and movie industry. Now why do the pirates survive and how come the police or the law not bringing them to justice? The answer would be simple. The public. There is a greater demand for pirated movie CDs, Audio CDs in India and the piracy business is booming like never before.

Although the law enforcers’ crack down (1 2) many piracy rackets all across India, we know places like National market In Bangalore, Bhima Palli in Trivandrum, Chor Bazaar in Mumbai still exists. We could see them often on the roads and street corners selling latest movie CDs. We can bargain with them on the price and watch new movies for as low as 20Rs.Now what is the police doing? Well it’s deplorable that the pirates sell this in public and right under their nose, so it doesn’t take rocket science to figure out that the police are paid off to keep away. 

Back in college, while I was doing my engineering there was one student who supplied pirated CDs. So where did he get all the CDs from? Interestingly his dad was a policeman who conducts raids at shops who sells pirated CDs. So the CDS were taken as evidence and it was all over our hostel!!!!! 

Now how can we stop piracy? What can the public do? What can the industry do?Answer to the Second question is simple, stop buying pirated CDS. Buy originals. However with the price tag on Hollywood movies reaching above 300Rs for a movie the common man would think otherwise. He would rather download it from torrent sites than shell out huge bucks.The answer to the third question would be the solution. The industry should wake up!. Sell movie CDs cheap, like what Moser Baer has already started doing. You would notice the crowd in front of Moser Baer CD counter at Land Mark Bangalore. Compare it with the crowd at other CD counters. That should explain the difference.Now it’s the turn of Hollywood movies to step up and sell cheap like Moser Baer.

I guess price under Rs 100 would be affordable to many who are looking forward to watch Hollywood movies. Next would be the music industry. Who cares about buying an Audio CD is you can download it for free? Well we could buy it if you sell it cheap. The public has spoken with the Moser Baer initiative, now is the industry listening?

Divorce through Video Conferencing

hmm, that sounds interesting. While there are thousands of divorces being filed in India stating reasons such as adultery, incompatibility or even that wife doesn’t cook, this was a landmark achievement for our courts. We know that Indian courts takes years to settle a case with more than fifteen hearings. However, in this case, the husband works abroad and had requested the court to allow him to appear for the hearings through VC or Video Conferencing, considering the expense of coming down to India every month. The court approved this request.

Interestingly, a divorce case was handled through VC by a Chennai court last year.

Although the news about people getting divorce due to many reasons (some of them strange) is sad, this measure by the court should be welcomed. Its good to know that courts are living up to the technology around !.

80 Shut Downs in 18 Months

Cross posted at mutiny.

80 shutdowns in 18 months, on an average 4 every month. This figure is haunting as this is after the courts have banned bandh and ‘forceful hartals’. While the political parties have given assurances that the hartals will be peaceful and there wouldn’t be any ‘forceful’ closure of shops or disruptions in traffic, it’s seldom followed.

Kerala witnessed yet another hartal yesterday with all major institutions, offices closed down. There were stray incidents caught on camera where the activists forced shopkeepers to close down and abused people who took their vehicles on the road. In one incident a cab with foreign tourists were stopped and the driver was manhandled. The terror in the tourists’ eyes was clearly visible. No wonder these warnings are part of standard country specific documents in foreign government sites.As the two parties try their hand at blaming each other, the people are left tormented. While students enjoy their holiday, there are thousands of travelers left with no other choice but to ruin their day at bus stations.I see no end to this unless the politicians themselves come with a new form of protest and give people the ‘choice’ to take part if they want to.

Dry days in God’s own Country

Cross posted at mutiny.

(This post is not to debate on the health issues as a result of alcohol consumption but yes, alcohol consumption is injurious to your health.)A long queue, thick crowd and a traffic block. Yes that’s a state owned liquor shop. Wish I had a photograph to prove it.On my visit to my home town in Kerala during Christmas I found this sight pretty amusing. Not that I am seeing it for the first time, but because of the anguish in the eyes of the people waiting in the queue.Ever since AK Antony (now Defence Minister) banned Arrack in 1996 and closed down all private owned liquor shops in the state, the ‘dry days’ for the people of Kerala had begun. At one end the move was to protect the interest of the families whose lives were ruined due to domestic violence. Looking at the other end of the story, we find more illegal arrack being smuggled into the state (or manufactured within the state) and heavy pricing on alcohol.The burden is on the lower middle class or the laborers who drink, has to shell out twice as what they had to earlier. Thanks to the 100% tax on alcohol. But did the consumption come down? No. Lesson learned? Increasing the prices do not reduce the consumption.Now if it’s any festival, you find people waiting in long queues to get themselves a bottle. Why can’t the government (any one of them, during their term) just give away with the regulations? Reason? Revenue. (Tax collected through the liquor sales was Rs. 15 billion in 2006; it is Rs.18 billion in 2007)

All government controlled liquor shops and bars are closed on 1^st of every month. Reason? That’s the government’s way to control its citizen from spending all his salary on alcohol. If he needs to get himself a drink he is at the mercy of a watchman at the nearest Bar. (Bars sell liquor with their back door policy on dry days at extra charge.) End result? He would shell out more money on a dry day.All the regulations in place, Kerala still tops as the most liquor consuming state in India. Liquor sales in the state have gone up from Rs.20 billion in 2006 to Rs.23.11 billion in 2007. Kerala has the highest per capita liquor consumption in the country.

I can’t find any reason why the government shouldn’t take away the regulations. Well it’s not in interest of public health or welfare of families that the regulations are in place (then the government should regulate cigarettes as well). While people in other states enjoy the benefits of buying liquor from supermarkets, Kerala is still far behind, with government controlled liquor shops. The regulations if any should be uniform in all the states.While how consumption can be controlled is a different story all together, the government (s) have learned their lessons that these regulations just won’t help in reducing the number of consumers.

They won

They won.

Read this to know more.

I would welcome this, but then, would the law enforcers assure me that there won’t be any more malpractices? 

DND Do Not Disturb

How irritating it is at time when you are in a meeting or at the hospital when you get a call offering you a credit that you already have? Or asking you to take an insurance policy that you don’t need?

National Do No Disturb/Call Registry for your rescue !

I am not sure if you guys know about this. It takes 4 weeks to be registered. I got my confirmation the other day.

Register your number with the national Do Not call/ Disturb Directory of India.

Now TRAI is planning to introduce fines for the unsolicited caller up to Rs 20,000 !

My Daddy Strongest! Part II

This time it was him against State Bank of Travancore.

He had loan with the bank and the manager has promised him that he would have the flexibility of withdrawing from the loan account any time he wanted. 

 He withdraw-ed money only as and when he wanted. After two weeks the manger quit and the new person refused to dispense anymore cash from the account. He said that this is not allowed and all the blah blahs.My dad being a Manager in finance with a reputed tyre manufacturing company in India knew all the dos and don’ts in banking (My Daddy strongest!). He decided to write a complaint to the SBT head office. He didn’t get any reply. This forced him to sue SBT !!.

In a chain of events, the manager of SBT came to our house with a union leader to negotiate. There were calls from the head office to take matters out of the court. He was not ready for any negotiation.

He won the case. The court asked to pay Rs  4000/- as compensation.

You can find Part I here.