The need for and benefit of owning a Car - depends on where

For over 5 years, I have not had a car for my visits to Chandigarh and I have rarely missed it. Even after the age of  70, I can easily walk and do most of  my  work. On occasions when  I did need a vehicle, Uber/Ola have been very useful. Usually, I get a taxi in a short period of time. It is the advantage of living in the center of the city and my trips are to places from where taxi driver will have no problem getting a new customer.

I wish I had the option of a taxi on demand in Goa, whenever I needed it. But I don't. So, I continue with owning a car which I will need to replace as it will be reaching retirement age of 20 even though it is not driven much and runs well. In stead of  using a taxi, when my children were also here, it was simpler to rent a car for 2 weeks!

It is obvious that a taxi will not be economical from the perspective of the consumer in Goa for either the short distances that I need or even an evening trip to a nearby beach. There just isn't enough volume of traffic throughout the day for a driver to make enough money.

In Delhi, I used Uber more this time than I usually do. I normally use metro only and walk and this time, an auto driving over my wife's foot had made the option of  walking impossible. 

Stuck in traffic, I would wonder how  much the driver could possibly be making. It couldn't be much. The condition of the taxis in Delhi reflected that. 

Uber is a terrible model. The society needs something better. Uber represents a need; however, the people who profit from it are NOT the ones providing the service.

The difference in the cost of using a car and taxi has the following parts:

• Operational cost. In this case, it makes little difference whether it is  a personal car or a taxi.
• Capital cost. In all likelihood, a taxi is used a lot more than a personal car. So, the effective cost per km should be lower for a taxi.
• Driver's earnings. We don't pay ourselves for driving, so this is indeed the big challenge.

If we want the ownership of personal cars to reduce, the  society must agree to guarantee a minimum income to the drivers - at least until self-driving vehicles replace them. 

Something like MANREGA for the urban areas?

 

 The 'rise and fall are the “Andhrapreneurs” ' reminded me of my first account with a private sector bank. I had always felt uncomfortable with private sector banks. A couple of interactions with their representatives had left me uncomfortable, similar to my comfort level in 5 star hotels, that is, I don't belong there.

On an impulse, I walked into the branch of Global Trust Bank in Panaji. I needed a demat account and they were on the list given me by the share broker. I was very surprised. 

• It was clean and pleasant. 
• It was tech savvy.
• The person was genuinely helpful.
• I felt at ease.

My relationship with the bank increased. There was once some financial interaction my parents had to do. They visited the GTB branch in Chandigarh and were very impressed as well. They too opened an account there :) Had it been nearer, that would have become their primary branch.

Even after the bank was taken over by Oriental Bank, these branches continued nearly as before. I believe part of the reason must be that the working environment in these branches was much better than in one of the original Oriental Bank branches I visited. 

I miss the absence of GTB and wonder 

• what if election funding was far more transparent in India?
• what if we got rid of the 'First Past the Post' elections given the multiplicity of parties and interests they represent?

I am sure the fate of entities like GTB would have been very different and India would be a far richer and better country.

The lockdown will have to continue. There is no choice anymore.

Thinking about the inevitability of the lockdown being extended, I vaguely remembered a line from Kafka's Investigations of a Dog - Dogdom went down a path, feeling that they could always turn back.

Searched on archive.org and the part I recalled :

I can understand the hesitation of my generation, indeed it is no longer mere hesitation; it is the thousandth forgetting of a dream dreamt a thousand times and forgotten a thousand times; and who can damn us merely for forgetting for the thousandth time? But I fancy I understand the hesitation of our forefathers too, we would probably have acted just as they did; indeed I could almost say: well for us that it was not we who had to take the guilt upon us, that instead we can hasten in almost guiltless silence toward death in a world darkened by others. When our first fathers strayed they had doubtless scarcely any notion that their aberration was to be an endless one, they could still literally see the crossroads, it seemed an easy matter to turn back whenever they pleased, and if they hesitated to turn back it was merely because they wanted to enjoy a dog's life for a little while longer; it was not yet a genuine dog's life, and already it seemed intoxicatingly beautiful to them, so what must it become in a little while, a very little while, and so they strayed farther. They did not know what we can now guess at, contemplating the course of history: that change begins in the soul before it appears in ordinary existence,

What risks scare or terrify us?

Since I am also a believer that natural is not necessarily better, this article was nothing new. However, the point about how different people rate different risks made me wonder, what do I regard as risky?

The first was obvious, the highest perceived risk for Nuclear Power by most people, has very low risk for me. I would be happy to live next to a nuclear power plant as I expect that the quality of life around it will not deteriorate. The likelihood of an accident is negligible. Furthermore, and this is just a hope, that should there be an accident, it would be fast and furious :)

Then there is the risk of driving or even walking down the road. I do both but always wishing for a safer option. I would love to see auto-driven vehicles take over. I would love to see only electric carts within towns and no private vehicles. This is a hope that it will happen one day, though not likely in my lifetime.

Now the risk which terrifies me. Manipulating the human brain using technology. The only personal experiences of the damage people can do to each other are related to property disputes between brothers and sisters. The passion, viciousness and self-destructiveness defies logic. Hence, it makes it easy to extrapolate to events like riots and even genocide.

I can easily imagine bots learning to create and spreading ever more effective messages which will be spread using messengers like Whatsapp. The utility of messengers is so great that they will be around like cars and roads. I don't see how the messages can be stopped except, of course, by an even worse solution like 1984.

Postscript: Saw this about the spectacle of Chidambarm's arrest just after writing about my fears

Voting Option: Not This One or Anyone But

I keep wondering if the outcome of elections in first-past-the-post would be any different if we had the option to vote against a candidate instead of just for someone.

There are times when one would find it hard to vote for a candidate though the idea of another candidate winning may be even more worrying.

Even in a binary election, the result may not change but the message to the winning party and the moral strength of victory can be very different.

I hope some psephologist would take that up and we can have a better understanding of people's voting intentions.

The goal, of course, would be that can it succeed in politicians avoiding polarising voters and creating a more just society for all.

Can inexpensive services and decent earnings co-exist?

A friend posted a link to Why Uber is a scam: maths explains. I had seen it before but I now have an additional perspective. I do not keep a car in Chandigarh and use Ola/Uber reasonably frequently. I would have liked to use the same option in Goa.

I can easily believe that in the long run, given the fares, the drivers cannot be making a comfortable living. I also realize that if the fares reflect my desire that drivers make what I believe to be a comfortable wages, I would wind up owning a car.

There is a conflict and no easy way around it. As a society, it is in our collective interest that there aren't too many cars - both to save on parking spaces and prevent congestion and pollution on roads.

Long term solution is obvious and inevitable. The Ola/Uber vehicles will be driver-less.

Meanwhile, what if we had a minimum income provided to all citizens. Then a driver's earnings are over and above the minimum needs. Hence, the needs of society, the consumer and the service provider can coincide.

This model would be useful for all services from helping patients/old people who are bedridden or need assistance to inexpensive coffee/tea shops not exploiting the workers.




 

Why I look forward to robots as waiters

I am somewhat guilt ridden. Should I have tipped more? It has been quite some time since a person seemed to be so desperate and pleading for more tip. It wouldn't have mattered to me but may have made a difference to him. But it brings up the same dilemma of giving to a beggar. I may help a person and feel good about it; but I may actually be contributing to the preservation of a bad and unjust social setup.

It was the last leg of our trip to Kerala. We took the Trivandrum Rajdhani from Ernakulam to Margao. It was painful to watch 3 attendants sleeping in the corridor outside the compartment - one on the proper berth and the remaining two on the floor.

I wondered why was there a need for three attendants and whether they were actually employed by the contractors.

• Was it just the easy option of hiring extra people at a very low cost in order to 'improve' service? 
• Could it be that railways insist on the extra staff to make sure that one person is not overworked for the long journey? 
• Wouldn't it be desirable and better to have the staff change midway?
• Or does the actual employee outsource his job to desperate youngsters for no wage but tips?

Since I can do little about it, I would rather not have to think about whether to tip and how much to tip. That would be easy if the server were a robot.

Moral hazard of going to a Goan Wedding

It was in 1964 at the wise age of 14 influenced by the flower generation, I became a vegetarian and have remained so for half a century. I had found solace in G B Shaw's statement

  “I do not want to make my stomach a graveyard of dead animals.”    George Bernard Shaw

Yesterday, I became aware of having eaten a tiny chicken sandwich soon after eating it. I drowned my sorrow with another glass of beer.

I can't help but wonder would it have been so hard for the wedding organizers to have an option of a vegetarian snacks plate? Or am I being unduly difficult?

Anyway, I was mentally prepared to leave before dinner knowing that the buffet won't open till well after my bedtime and I did :)

However, this is the wedding I am not likely to forget because I ate a chicken sandwich!

Helplessness about events like the Bhopal Tragedy

The article by Indira Jaising was a grim reminder of the past. I think I became conscious of the scale and implications of the Bhopal tragedy only after I had seen the Yes Men Fix the World a few years ago.

I saw their prank on BBC  again. The sadness is about the drop in the stock price of Dow after the prank was broadcast. By a coincidence, I watched Chabrol's The Story Women yesterday and was struck by the statement of one of the characters - "Once you have a little money, you want more".

Increase in the value of my investments makes me happy though with little awareness about the reason for their growth. Investing via mutual funds makes the distance between my 'wealth' and corporate actions even more far removed :(

An unstable society thanks to risk aversion?

This was the first news I read and it depressed me. Why should they have felt:

Everyday a new man would come and chase us. They would pass lewd remarks and offer us phone numbers.
The people around us would stare as if we had done something wrong.

 I have not done anything wrong to bring shame to my family.

Both shared a dream: a life in America, a world removed from Rohtak.

Why couldn't they just shrug off the idiots? Why should their dreams and hopes be migration and escape to the US?

Here are some memories triggered in my mind:

• Years ago, a friend said that after returning from US, he decided that he was not going to get married in a traditional way. He said that if he told of his efforts, we would be rolling on the floor with laughter while he is still licking his wounds. (He finally asked his parents to find him a wife.)
• I tried to convince our principal that we should have a formal welcome and introduction of new students. He did not agree. Ragging had to be avoided. The college had no ragging; however, there was minimal interaction between the students across years. (To be fair, if I had to take the decision, I too may have opted for the safe option as the press and publicity with any ragging incident, real or presumed, would have been intolerable)
• A colleague who looked and dressed like a student, sat on a bus with a new student. She was terrified! He relaxed her by telling her that he was faculty member. But is such a fear reasonable at all in any society?
• A school principal mentioned about his efforts to convert a boys only school to coed. He told us that the behaviour of some students from the school when they went to 11th class was uncivilized. He felt that it was the first time many of the teen boys were interacting with girls and just did not know how! (I expect that the behavioural problems of teen boys  would be considerably worse outside Goa.) He failed to get the school converted.

We cannot protect our children from all danger or harm. They need to learn to handle and cope with life. As the following talk by Jeremy Rifkin mentions empathy would not exist in Utopia! Or we can learn from the biography of Gautama Buddha:

Despite his father's efforts to hide from him the sick, aged and suffering, Siddhartha was said to have seen an old man. When his charioteer Channa explained to him that all people grew old, the prince went on further trips beyond the palace. On these he encountered a diseased man, a decaying corpse, and an ascetic. These depressed him, and he initially strove to overcome aging, sickness, and death by living the life of an ascetic.
 

Juvenile crime and A Clockwork Orange

Juvenile Justice (should one say revenge and retribution?) reminded me of, possibly the most disturbing film I have ever seen - Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange. I had seen it when it came out.  The ideas it had raised remain fresh in my mind.

Recently, when my son saw it at retrospective, I decided to read Anthony Bugess's original book, especially 21st, the last, chapter left out of the American edition and not a part of the film.

Kubrick called Chapter 21 "an extra chapter" and claimed^[7] that he had not read the original version until he had virtually finished the screenplay, and that he had never given serious consideration to using it. In Kubrick's opinion, the final chapter was unconvincing and inconsistent with the book.

However, the final chapter makes it even harder to think of retribution as a part of juvenile justice. It makes the whole juvenile period seem like a biological imperative through which many human males pass and outgrow. All this makes the plight of dealing with victims even harder.

Value for Society versus Economic Value

As I read about the smallest banking trojan in circulation, I was pleased that I will soon be converting one of our neighbours to Linux. I managed to fix her Windows problem. I also installed the open source Clam anti-virus after removing a commercial product which kept scaring and nagging her to pay for renewal.

However, she said that she wanted me to install Linux on her free partition as I had mentioned that I have never needed to use an anti-virus software!

The entire anti-virus industry would not have appeared had it not been for Windows. Obviously a loss to the economy, but would it have been a loss to the society?

Since I do not have to make effort to make money, I can spend my time learning. Thanks to open source, I can, without having to spend anything over and above my internet connection, learn OpenStack, Hadoop, Zotonic(an Erlang based Web framework), and whatever my mind decides is exciting or useful to know this week or month! My experimentation does not add any value to the economy. I like to think that the open source universe does add value to the society as it makes it possible for anyone to learn.

There is little doubt that windows has created a lot of economic wealth. I am not so sure it would be even a fraction of the social wealth created by Linux and open source software. That is, if we could find a way to measure social wealth! E.g. see or read "The Clothesline Paradox" though I would like to think that we can find a way to measure wealth without resorting to money.

Using IT for Real Estate Registration and making the use of Black money risky

The following comment in an Indian Express column by Pratik Kanjilal reminded me of my own feelings that we talk of money in Swiss banks and ignore the elephant in the room which affects almost anyone needing to buy or sell property:

But gentle reader, do put yourself in the shoes of the black money-wallah, who has allegedly salted away $1.5 trillion. Would you stash it in a European bank where a return of 3 per cent looks fantastic, or in an Indian real estate project where 25 per cent is boring? When shall we see a programme on black money which asks why it must be recovered dramatically from foreign shores, when most of it is obviously here in India?

And I wonder what if the property registration process was modified as follows:

1. Register a sale on a web site.
2. An auction is initiated for, say, 10 days.
3. Anyone can bid over the registration price.
4. At the end of the auction, if a successful bid is present:
1. The seller received the extra amount
2. The buyer is refunded his purchase price
3. The government gets extra stamp/registration duty.
5. Property is registered in the name of the buyer of the successful bidder as the case may be.

 Wouldn't everyone benefit :)

Bureaucracy and rules versus reasonableness and operational constraints

My mother gets a family pension. The pension amount, as it was two years ago, is transferred to a joint account by standing instructions. So far so good.

The pension has increased as per per the defined pension policies (ridiculously generous for the officials by the officials). I wanted to get the standing instructions for the amount transferred increased. I tried to convince the bank to apply reasonableness as I am the nominee of the pension account anyway. However, the bank officials do not know what to do as there is no way for them to communicate with my mother and get a confirmation that she wants the standing instructions to be modified in her present state of health.

The additional monthly income hardly matters to me but I decided to pursue as there will be people for whom this would make a major difference.

In the process, I found that to contact RBI, I needed to use IE! Submitting the form on Linux/Firefox failed. I have a vm of windows xp for such exigencies.

I have also communicated with Central Pension Accounting Office. Let me see if I get any response of any use.

While I sympathize with the bank officials' constraints, I also see news like  Wilful bank loan default crosses Rs.70,000 cr. Oh, well. I suppose rules were followed in those cases. I also wonder what is the source of the money for elections, no matter who out-funds whom :(

The men who made us fat - What can we do in India

While watching The Men who Made us Fat on BBC World , I was happy to realise that we still have options for small helpings in India. However, there is a growing trend towards bundling and offers in fast food restaurants to encourage us to consume more calories.

Even while shopping, we do look at various sizes to see if we get "a better value" for buying larger packages. Among the middle and upper classes, we cannot avoid noticing excessive weight on many.

So, it is imperative that we encourage some regulation now on packaged food industry to prevent these trends from becoming epidemic.

The simplest fairness rule could be that the cost of food should be the same per unit regardless of the packaging size and mandate a minimum size based on calorie count. Eliminate the 'value for money' syndrome with an option to buy small.

The second option of a Fat tax is as in Europe is well worth emulating for ensuring that the heavy snacks are consumed moderately.

Leaving it up to market forces is to hope for a miracle.

Compensation for Medical Negligence - Does it solve the problem?

My first reaction to the following news was discomfort - 

The Supreme Court on Thursday awarded a whopping Rs 5.96 crore as compensation to be paid by Kolkata-based AMRI Hospital and three doctors to a US-based Indian-origin doctor for medical negligence ...

It did not feel right. In  fact, it reminded me of Michael Sandel's concerns about becoming a market society where money dominates even moral and ethical issues. 

It feels terribly wrong that the difference is compensation can be so large based on a person's status in life. I wonder how courts will value a child. Will it based on the expected earnings as determined by his or her family background - an obvious reality but hardly the one we should be condoning and encouraging.

The US health care system is not exactly an inspiring example of a system which provides excellent care, without negligence, for all.

The chances are that even in India :

• the hospital will have an insurance cover
• insurance company will pay
• insurance company will raise insurance rates
• hospitals and doctors will raise their rates
• we will pay more
• the doctor will make no fewer errors as it is highly unlikely that the doctor wanted to make a sloppy diagnosis or provide wrong care
• high costs result in perverse incentive for delaying/avoiding treatment

The same logic is true for motor vehicle accidents. I have not heard of a single person who is a more careful driver because of the compensation he may have to pay in case of an accident.

What may be more effective?

• A person who makes the error should be accountable and punished.
• Revocation of a license quickly (not 15 years later) in case it is malpractice or an error which should(not could) have been avoided
• Limit compensation to a socially valuable amount. A poor victim's family needs financial help a lot more than a rich victim's.
• Impact of a victim's lost income should be covered by the individual's own insurance policy and not the insurance company covering the doctor (or the driver in case of motor vehicles).

I may even be inclined to favour an insurance cover by the doctors and hospitals where all care costs of the patient are returned in case treatment does not succeed regardless of whether a medical error was involved.