Government and PSU - When will they learn? - Part 1

This is a serious of frustrating things that I have experienced in various Government and PSU interactions

1) Online Grievance redressal with Chennai Corporation - Was very happy that the Chennai Corporation has a facility to raise any issues online. I raised a concern about the newly constructed storm water drains one night. The next day morning the ticket was closed and I received an SMS for the same. I was very happy with the speed of the response. Went to see what actually they have done, to see that nothing has changed. I was confused and logged in online to see an update "Action will be taken" and the ticket closed. They have strict SLAs I believe not for fixing the issue but only to close the tickets.

2) Property Tax Payment with Chennai Corporation - I had paid the property tax regularly and they started tracking the payment data online. I was happy with the digitization. However, they missed one of my payments that I made few years back. Went to the zonal office and gave them a letter with a copy of the bill. They said we will send the letter to Rippon building office and not sure when it will be acted on. They said don't pay the property tax till the issue is resolved as the system will take any payments that I make for that period which they claim was missed out. I have an outstanding of 3 years and I have sent a reminder also still no response. Second issue is why are there charges for paying the property taxes online? Aren't we saving their effort by paying online? Shouldn't they be giving a discount, which actually BSNL does for online payments. They give a 1% discount on the bill if either you pay online or

3) Indian Bank - My mom still uses the services of Indian Bank. The bank opens at 10 am daily, so we cannot go before we get to work on weekdays. Saturday is the only day we can go. Every time I go there for getting entries in the pass book, the teller says don't come on Saturdays. If you send an statement in mail why will I come to the bank regularly? They also shout at us if we don't get the passbook updated frequently. I have a joint account with my mom and we finally decided to apply for a debit card for my mom. The debit card came in my name I went to the bank to complain. The teller say it is ok to use the debit card even if it's in my name. What security!!! Then I explained, what will happen if my mom uses a debit card in my name in a shop. Then they agreed to change the card and reissue one in my mother's name. After waiting for a couple of weeks got an SMS that the card is ready. Went to the bank to see that it's again in my name. Decided that there is no point in complaining again. Next decided to apply for internet banking so that I don't run into such issues. Applied in my name this time but this time the PINs came in my mother's name. Bottom line in case of joint accounts, if you apply one thing in one holders name you will get it for the other holder :)

Not all instances are bad, let me share some experiences where they have learnt

1) Ration card - Addition of my son's name - I just googled what has to be done and went to the zonal office and gave a form. They said it will take 1 month to get the addition done and asked us to come after a month. Exactly after a month's time went and got the ration card with the addition done. Even though 1 month is a long time, was happy that the work got done without multiple follow ups

2) Experiences at RTO - Went for a few things like change of address in DL, RC and cancellation of hypothecation in RC. Every time as long as we follow the process that is laid out, everything got done with just one visit. Also happy that the money spent was very low than what we will do when we go through the agents. 

Vanakkam Chennai - A Movie Review

Watched Vanakkam Chennai yesterday. The multi-plex which has 4 screens had other new releases like Nayyandi and Kayavan and this was the only movie which was house full. It is another story this screen was not even 1/4th in terms seating capacity to the other three screens.

Debut for Kiruthiga Udhayanidhi, daughter-in-law of the former first family of the state. It's the first time that a lady from their family is getting into movies/entertainment industry. She sticks to the tried and tested romantic genre.

Cast includes Siva, Priya Anand, Urvaasi, Santhanam, Nizhalgal Ravi, Nasser, Rahul Ravindran, Renuka.

The story is pretty simple, the lead pair are forced to share an apartment and in the process fall in love. Cut to flash back, the girl is already engaged. Finally the lovers unite. The handling is nothing new. Songs are loud. Comedy is pathetic. Too many characters who are wasted, Urvaasi(who comes as a cop and a neighbor to the lead pair) a class actress is hardly used. Nasser comes in one scene, Santhanam (who now a days comes from the first scene till the climax in all such movies) makes his presence only during the interval. Rosy aunty & uncle - irritating to the core. Nizhalgal ravi(heroines father), nothing much to do. America mapillai (sorry London mapillai) another character added for the sake of showing a possible villain to the love story. Renuka (Siva's mother) has something to do. Aarthi, Swaminathan, Mano Bala all come in single scenes.

Santhanam even though comes only half of the movie, does the same thing that he has done in many other movies. Trying to help the lovers. Some scenes are good - How the heroine handles a driver on landing in Chennai(by acting as if calling her dad and giving full details of the car and the driver to ensure the driver behaves),  Siva mentioning about ring removal gel(when he actually uses saliva to remove the ring from the heroine) . Why do we need a holi scene in a tamil movie?

Siva is his usual self. Same poker faced look. Cannot dance. Priya Anand is good with her expressions.

Songs are ok but the RR is bad. The last song which comes when the credits roll is good.

Overall the movie has nothing new, comedy is also not good. Overall a very average movie. 

Maldives' tryst with democracy

Maldives had it's first multi party elections in 2008 after 30 years of rule by Maumoom Abdul Gayoom. Gayoom ruled Maldives from 1978 to 2008. Finally in 2008 he decided to allow multiparty elections. Mohamed Nasheed won the election in the second round. Maldives allows a run off between the top two candidates if no one secures more than 50%. In the first round Nasheed was placed behind Gayoom. However, he formed alliances with other losing first round candidates and won the second round.

Maldives had it first elected President and Nasheed assumed office in November 2008. In what was a short lived tenure, he was sacked in February 2012. This was in culmination of opposition protests which started against serving of pork and liquor in Maldives, which is a predominantly Muslim state. He initially said he resigned as he didn't want the people to suffer and later said he was forced to resign at gun point. Gayoom was said to be behind the whole thing. The army and police also joined hands with the opposition in forcing Nasheed out. His deputy Mohammed Waheed Hassan became the President. Waheed went onto induct Gayoom's party members in his cabinet which only strengthened the argument that Gayoom was behind the coup.

Nasheed kept protesting and in April 2012 Waheed announced that the elections will be held by June 2013. Nasheed in the interim took refuge in the Indian High Commission to avoid arrest. India tried to mediate between Nasheed and Waheed. Nasheed was arrested for misuse of power. (He had a judge arrested during his presidency).

The June 2013 date was pushed to September 2013. Finally on 7th September Maldives had its second elections. Four participants contested and Nasheed was placed first with 45% votes. As no one got more than 50% the run off was scheduled for 28th September. Waheed was placed a lowly 4th in the elections. Gayoom's brother Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom was placed second in the elections with 25% votes. The run off which was scheduled for 28th was to have been between Abdulla Yameen and Nasheed.

The election was overseen my many external observers including former Chief Election Commissioner from India. 3rd placed Qasim Ibrahim filed a complaint with the Supreme Court, which asked the Election commission to delay the run off till it decides on the complaint. The Supreme court on 7th October annulled the elections based on some "secret" police report which claimed the elections were rigged. Even though none of the external observers had anything but praise for the way elections were conducted. The people also did not raise any complaints.

The elections are now scheduled for 20th of October. Not really sure if the Supreme Court is taking revenge for Nasheed arresting a judge or Gayoom has well entrenched people in all parts of governance who won't allow Nasheed to win the elections. The people of Maldives should also give a decisive mandate to in the 20th October election to ensure there is no need for a run off.

India, which wields lot of power in the region, should ensure democracy is upheld in Maldives. India during the 2012 crisis pushed back US from direct involvement and all US actions were routed through India. Now is the time for India to really stand up for the people of Maldives and not allow the courts to derail the democracy. 

Section 8(4) of the Representation of People's Act - Ordinance and The Nonsense

Section 8 of the RP act lists down the conditions when the people's representative can be disqualified. Sub section 1 & 2 the representative can be disqualified for a period of 6 years even if the punishment is fine for certain offences like rape, sati, untouchability, etc. Sub section 3 talks about conviction for other crimes and when the representative is punished for 2 years at least. The sub section 4 talks about the exceptions to the above three sub sections. Basically all that the representative has to do is appeal against the judgement within a period of 3 months. This applies only for a sitting MP/MLA. The section 8(4) clearly distinguishes between a sitting MP/MLA and a contesting MP/MLA.

The Constitution bench of the Supreme court in a case in January 2005 clearly said section 8(4) is an exception and was held that the provision was not unreasonable. The division bench of the Supreme court in its ruling in July this year held that the section 8(4) is unconstitutional. Not sure if it is right for a division bench to override the constitution bench's verdict.

The government moved a bill in the parliament to change the section 8(4) and the changes were convicted MP/MLA can continue to be a representative as long he appeals and gets a stay on the verdict. However, they cannot vote on any legislature or draw any salary. This is contradiction to the constitution as the constitution gives the right to the MP/MLA to draw salary and vote on legislatures. The Rajya sabha has sent this bill to the standing commission where it is supposed to be discussed in detail before reintroduced.

In the interim the government moved a review petition in the Supreme court to reconsider the decision but the same has been rejected. The government moved an ordinance (basically an interim law which will hold good for 90 days till it is either approved/rejected in the parliament). The ordinance had the same language as the bill which is in the standing commission now.

Many parties reached out to the President asking him not to sign the ordinance (every law has to be signed by the President before it gets into effect, even after they are passed by the Parliament). President has asked for clarifications wanting to know what is the urgency for moving an ordinance.

Last Friday Rahul Gandhi came to a congress press conference and said that what the government is doing is wrong and the ordinance is utter nonsense and has to be thrown away. The cabinet is likely to discuss the ordinance and the fall out of Rahul Gandhi's outburst.

Questions

1) Can the division bench override what was already approved by the constitution bench?
2) What is the urgency to move the ordinance?
3) Even if government wants to negate the ruling of the Supreme court, it has to amend the constitution. There is no way the government could have passed the constitution amendment with their current number of MPs. That being the case couldn't the opposition, which is claiming that it is not right for the government to try and override the Supreme Court, defeated the constitution amendment? What is the necessity to send this to standing commission?
4) Going by the SC verdict, when a lower court convicts a representative they will be disqualified. What will happen if the conviction is overturned in the higher court?
5) Agreed that the courts in this country are independent. When the government can change the Public prosecutor isn't the government circumventing the independence?

There is a sub-plot, on the July 11th the Supreme court also ruled that the people who are in jail(not necessarily convicted)  cannot contest polls. The reasoning was that only people who can vote, can be elected. People in jail cannot vote and hence cannot contest elections. The government filed a review petition in the Supreme court. Without waiting for the review petition to be heard government moved an amendment to allow people in jails to contest polls. This has been passed in the parliament and approved by the President also. The amendment was the right thing to do, as there are many instances where cases are filed against opposition party  members and arrest are made. 

NOTA - None of the Above

Supreme court in the ruling on 27th of September has asked Election commission to introduce a button in the EVM for None of the Above option. Earlier the voters have to chose to use 49-O and they have fill in a paper form and express their view that they don't want to vote for any of the candidates.

This is a good move by the Supreme court for the following reasons

1) The Booth officers are known to discourage people from exercising the option of 49-O, that will no longer happen
2) The voters can exercise their preference in complete confidentiality and they don't have to answer unnecessary questions

Points to ponder

1) There will be a question on legitimacy of the election process if there are considerable number of NOTA votes.
2) The number of votes that the independents will receive will go down. Many votes that the independents receive is because the voters don't like the party candidates and they just vote for someone. In the long term, this will be a positive as only serious candidates will contest elections.
3) Many people feel that this might increase the voting percentage, but I personally don't agree to this. Voters don't vote because they don't want to go and stand line and exercise their franchise. NOTA button is not going to change that

Likewise, when a voter goes to the polling booth to exercise his/her franchise if they find that their vote has already been exercised by someone else they have to use a paper ballot to vote. This paper ballot is just folded and kept in a cover. Where is the confidentiality of such votes?

What is surprising is that some of the changes in the election process are coming from the Supreme court and not the parliament.  

Views about the Indian Team selected for the series against Australia

The Indian team for the T20 and first 3 ODIs of the series against Australia has been announced today and the team is

MS Dhoni (capt & wk), Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina, Ravindra Jadeja, R Ashwin, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Ishant Sharma, Vinay Kumar, Amit Mishra, Ambati Rayudu, Mohammed Shami, Jaydev Unadkat

 

Out of the above the following are a definite selection

 

1) MS Dhoni

2) Shikhar Dhawan

3) Virat Kohli

4) Suresh raina

5) Ravichandran Ashwin

6) Bhuvaneshwar Kumar

 

From the last tour of Zimbabwe the following miss out

 

1) Parvez Rasool - He didn't even get a game against Zimbabwe, so there was no way he could have got selected

2) Cheteshwar Pujara - Pujara is a definite in the play XI of the test team. One of the best talents that we have, however he is not being seen as a One day player. He scored 13 runs in the 2 matches that he played against Zimbabwe

3) Ajinkya Rahane - Jinx has been great player in the domestic and IPL. However, he has not done much in the ODI chances he has got. He got only 1 match against Zimbabwe which is unfortunate and he score a 50 in that match. He will probably have to continue to score well in the up coming domestic season and try to stake a claim again.

4) Dinesh karthik - Karthik has been doing reasonably well in the last few series. So he must feel really unfortunate to have missed out. He scored couple of 50's in the last 3 series he played.

5) Mohit Sharma - He picked up 3 wickets in the 2 matches that he got. It is not right to make a judgment purely based on the series against Zimbabwe.

 

This team was more of a second string team so let us look at who all missed out from the tournament before that the West Indies Tri Series & Champions trophy, both of which India won

 

1) Murali Vijay - He was dropped for the Zimbabwe tour itself. So there was not much hope for him in ODIs at least for now.

2) Umesh Yadav - This is just plain crazy to drop him. He is one of the genuine quick bowlers we have, if we cannot get to use him it is the fault of the head coach and bowling coach.

3) Irfan Pathan - He is injured so not considered

4) Dinesh Karthik - Detailed my views above on him

 

On the other 9 people in the team

 

1) Rohit Sharma - He has played 102 ODIs and scored 2558 runs at an average of 32. Nothing great for a top order batsman. After moving to the top of the order in the England series in India, he has scored 6 fifties in the 16 matches. He has somewhat playing to his potential after moving to the top. I would still hold my judgment for a while as Rohit is known to throw things away.  

2) Yuvraj Singh - A fit Yuvi is a definite in ODI team. He has played well in the A games against WI and the Challenger series. Good to see him back.

3) Ravindra Jadeja - With Yuvi back and Ashwin being the #1. Not sure what he will do? He has also not played well in the champions league so far.

4) Ishant Sharma - I don't know what is keeping him in the team. Don't think he has ever been effective in India.

5) Vinay Kumar - Vinay has not done anything of significance. He has picked up 30 wickets in the 26 matches that he has played at an average of around 36.

6) Amit Mishra - Mishra was selected purely for his 18 wickets in Zimbabwe. Do we have a place for him in the playing XI is a big question.

7) Ambati Rayadu - Got 3 matches in the Zimbabwe series and scored a 50. Good to see that they want to give more opportunity, we cannot say the same about Mohit Sharma.

8) Mohammed Shami - Shami has picked 9 wickets in the 11 matches that he has played at an average of 42. I would have preferred to go with Umesh Yadav any day to Mohammed Shami.

9) Jaydev Unadkat - He got to play all 5 matches against Zimbabwe and picked up a 4for in one of the matches against Zimbabwe. It is always nice to have a left hand seamer. Still early days to make a judgment on him.  

 

My 11 would have been

 

1) MS Dhoni - captain

2) Virat Kohli - vice captain

3) Shikhar Dhawan

4) Rohit Sharma

5) Suresh Raina

6) Yuvraj Singh

7) Ambati Rayadu

8) Ravichandran Ashwin

9) Jaydev Unadkat

10) Umesh Yadav

11) Bhuvaneshwar Kumar

 

Other 4 in the team

 

1) Ravindra Jadeja

2) Amit Mishra

3) Mohammed Shami

4) Dinesh Karthik

 

However the actual playing XI will be

 

 1) MS Dhoni

2) Virat Kohli

3) Shikhar Dhawan

4) Rohit Sharma

5) Suresh Raina

6) Yuvraj Singh

7) Ravindra Jadeja

8) Ravichandran Ashwin

9) Jaydev Unadkat/Shami

10) Ishant Sharma

11) Bhuvaneshwar Kumar

 

Of the 15 selected only change would have are Umesh Yadav instead of Ishant Sharma and Dinesh Karthik instead of Vinay Kumar.

Technical Services division

Allegations

1) Technical Services division was set up to illegally by Former chief of army General VK Singh
2) He had spied on Defence ministry officials using interceptors
3) He had bribed J&K Minister Ghulam Hassan Mir
4) He had tried to over throw the Omar Abdullah Government
5) Misuse of funds
6) A report submitted by the DGMO in March lists the above and also that he tried to change the line of succession

General's Response

1) There was a Technical Services division but it was not a technical but only a Human Intelligence organization
2) Army has paid not just Ghulam Hassan Mir but many ministers and NGOs who are working for maintaining peace in the state
3) Army has also carried out 8 covert operations outside the country
4) He has denied that interceptors were used to spy on defence ministry officials. Even though he has accepted that 2 of them were sold to a Singapore firm after they were found not worthy(there are reports that 2 interceptors were actually thrown in a river and typically army destroys everything and not sell to others to avoid security issues)
5) He has nothing to do with politics of throwing out the Omar Abdullah Government
6) The 2010 summer stone throwing was stopped purely by the Army
7) The whole controversy has erupted because of him sharing the platform with Modi

Political Parties Response

1) BJP claims that General Singh is targeted because of him sharing platform with Modi and questions why the Government has not acted on the DGMO report which was submitted in March
2) J&K Government has asked Congress to ask the Minister Mir to step down and there has been no response after Singh's interview that almost all ministers are paid and CM knows about it
3) Farooq Abdullah has asked for a CBI enquiry
4) Home Minister has asked General Singh to name the ministers who were bribed

Questions

1) Who gave the authority for General Singh to create such a division? Did he get the approval from Defence Minister/Prime Minister/Cabinet? Isn't the government responsible for approving such new divisions?
2) When RAW has been asking for the covert operations division to be re-started (this was shut down by IK Gujaral) who gave permission to the army to set up a covert operations division?
3) Does it make sense for the army to directly get involved in covert operations in other countries or shouldn't it be left to the RAW ?
4) Shouldn't IB be in-charge of working on internal intelligence and also working with NGOs etc. to ensure peace is maintained? Why was the army directly involved?
5) Why is there no clear demarcation of responsibilities?
6) Is it right for the army to bribe ministers to ensure peace is maintained? Don't the ministers take oath to stand by the constitution of this country? Do they have to be bribed to do that?
7) Understand that there are security implications, shouldn't the Government have acted swiftly and at least released officially what actions were taken? If the report is still being studied, shouldn't the government have reached out to the opposition and appraised them of the situation?
8) When General VK Singh is accused to have done some mischief is it right on the part of BJP to entertain him? Isn't national security of paramount importance to all parties?
9) As usual the Defence minister, is silent... Where is he? I think after the Augusta Westland bribery scandal, he is too shocked to even react to anything (how can a ministry under Mr Clean be accused of corruption? - that's why he is probably thinking)
10) Interceptors - What exactly happened, should come out.
11) Government leaks - Crazy timing.. everyone leaks information, but can't you be a bit more strategic and not leak information just when General Singh shares platform with Modi?
12) What was the armies counter intelligence division doing when all these were happening?