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.

Universalise Holidays

Wouldn't it be nice if the human society agreed to a common set of holidays but each group can give the holiday its own name and celebrate it in its own traditional way? 

The  following holidays would seem to be great for our current lifestyle:

1. One holiday each month.

2. Major holiday every quarter.

3. Each holiday will be on the 5th day of the week - may be the last one of the month.

4. Each major holiday will have  4th and 5th days off.

We will have the same working days - 1 to 5 with 6 and 7 being the weekend. However, some societies may call the weekend Sat/Sun, Thu/Fri or Mon/Tue or whatever their heritage demands.

No worries about which group gets how many holidays. Peace descends on Earth :)

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.

Smart Cities? Start with Smart Laws instead

Will Chandigarh be the first smart city or these three with US contributing something or other? Does it even matter to most people?

I wish the government would work on simple, smart laws first. By smart I mean, that it should be easy for a person to comply with the law. It can't be that hard :(

A simple example -  shifting a car from Chandigarh to Goa. (As one person in RTO of Goa wanted to confirm that I knew I will have to pay road tax again. I am ignoring double taxation in this case.)

If the car has to be in a different state, the registration needs to be changed. That is the law. The process:

• Get an NOC from Chandigarh 
• Nice that they have convenient booklets containing all the forms including multiple copies which need to be filled and pages with labels for pasting  documents which need to be supplied.
• Proof of residence is not a problem for me any more as over the last few years all my documents have the Chandigarh address.
• But I can't forget the pain of opening the first bank account in Chandigarh after moving there.
• Nor can I forget the problem registering the car I had bought and no acceptable proof of residence. Fortunately I got the voter id just then and survived.
• Need to get a report from NCRB that car is not stolen. The data is online and can be accessed but I need to get the certificate from central police station.
• Chandigarh is a compact town and I live in the heart of it. So, making 3 trips to get it was not a major hurdle especially if I can time my trips to avoid extreme traffic.
• Go the police station - requests taken in the morning only
• Submit request next day morning
• Pickup the signed printout in the evening.
• Comparatively painless process 
• Get a token - a long queue
• Wait turn to submit
• Pickup NOC's next day  

Now enjoy the leisurely drive from Chandigarh to Goa.

• Make a request for transferring the car in Goa
• Visit the RTO office
• Confusion about which forms I need to fill
• Buy more forms than needed, for example form to re-register car, form to change address, form for transferring car to another person, ...
• Fill the forms which seem appropriate
• Show and have to remove the re-registration form
• Need to add Form 28. 
• A copy of which had been returned along with NOC
• Why this form as it is an application for a NOC which contains the same information on the NOC? Why bother to understand?
• Proof of residence is a problem
• Own the place where I stay so sale deed will do
• Need to get it notarised
• Get the certificate that the car is not stolen once more.
• This time from Panaji 
• I am not in Panaji and a long drive or, more likely, two drives. Update - took 3 trips. I never expected them to want the Form 28 copy and not the NOC copy :) I had not taken the former with me :(
• What next? I don't know yet.
• Update: After submitting the file, I have to wait for 6 weeks for them to verify with the issuing authority that the NOC is genuine!

I wish what we get from the US is Reagan's signature quote: Trust but verify whereas all our interaction with the government is 'Don't trust and don't verify'. Those who need to circumvent the laws don't really have a problem. The rest of us run around in circles.

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 :(

Hoping for a humanist democracy

I like Python and, thus, liked this a lot:

Python would be Humanism: It's simple, unrestrictive, and all you need to follow it is common sense. Many of the followers claim to feel relieved from all the burden imposed by other languages, and that they have rediscovered the joy of programming. There are some who say that it is a form of pseudo-code.

I don't even want to link to newspaper news which reminded me of the above. I wish we could alter the election rules so that sectarian politics was self defeating  even in a 'homogeneous' society.  First past the post has not led to anything near a two party system in India as it should have.

From Wikipedia:

Because voters have to predict in advance who the top two candidates will be, results can be significantly distorted:

• Substantial power is given to the media. Some voters will tend to believe the media's assertions as to who the leading contenders are likely to be in the election. Even voters who distrust the media will know that other voters do believe the media, and therefore that those candidates who receive the most media attention will probably be the most popular and thus most likely to be the top two.

fyup - What's the fuss other than the awkward abbreviation

My experiences with conventional higher education have been disillusioning. The Delhi University's Four Year program was at least an effort to be different even though it did not address the centralized examination system which, in my opinion, is the single most important cause of lack of learning and waste of time.

Education in US forced me to study various subjects across disciplines though I would have opted out of them at that age. I was definite that I would spend my life at a university teaching and researching physics and nothing else mattered! Fortunately, it wasn't to be.

However, there is little doubt in my mind that the most useful courses for me have been philosophy (ethics), psychology (especially behavioural) , social sciences (e.g having to read Nathaniel West's A Cool Million in a capitalist society).

Had I succeeded in the corporate world, I may have even found the Physical Education course I took(Golf) useful, which incidentally brought down my GPA.

The whole discussion seems to be entangled and procedural. I did not find it interesting except that there seems to be a feeling that foundation courses and exiting after 2 years are of no use at all.

Our society is accustomed to hiring over-qualified people just because they are available cheaply. However, what are the skills needed for most service sector job, e.g. retail, sales people, customer facing staff in any organization, general call centre employees, etc.

• Communication skills
• Ability to deal with people (psychology)
• Functional mathematics
• Ability to work with computers
• functional literacy  - keyboard usage, GUI interfaces, browsing skills, understand error messages, etc.
• NOT programming skills.

What else are the foundation courses?

However, can any university prepare us for the robotic future?

If the debate focused on education for the future in a world where software eats all jobs, that would be enlightening! Optimistic, Inequality, Plausible and likely, Pessimistic, and Bleak fiction by Marshall Brain.

Indian Elections and a Definition of Insanity

Can election results get rid of corruption?

The expenses on elections are visible. What is not visible is the amount, its source and the givers' expectations. So, what can zero tolerance for corruption mean?

But I still vote. Oh, well, the following quote helps :)

Insanity is doing the same thing in the same way & expecting a different outcome. Attributed as Chinese Proverb

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Albert Einstein

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/alberteins133991.html#zvOUo5Ds6Pquw5gh.99

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Albert Einstein

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/alberteins133991.html#zvOUo5Ds6Pquw5gh.99

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 :(

Indian Elections - Feeling cheated - time to add a negative vote as well

In the winner take all, I am reminded of the information asymmetry in Economics. While in economics, it can lead to market failures, in elections it can lead to failures in outcome of elections which can aggravate the differences in the social groups and lead to a worse environment for all people.

There are two ways I could use decide for whom to vote - for a specific candidate or against a specific candidate. This does not cause any conflict if there are just two candidates. But how to chose in a scenario with more than two candidates? There is no rational way for me to decide as there is no information. Polls may be useful, however, they may very well be unreliable and misleading.

The winner take all leads to obvious misuse of dummy candidates standing for election as seems fairly obvious in the case of Manpreet Singh Badal.

In a fragmented society like ours, it is extremely unlikely that we will ever evolve to a two party system. In fact, that may not even be desirable.

A simple option could be a rerun of the leading two candidates - so that in the first election I can vote for a candidate and in the second, I can vote against a candidate in case needed. I would not feel cheated of my vote.

We could avoid a rerun by having two votes in the beginning only - one for a candidate(positive) and one against a candidate(negative) and the winner is the one with the maximum net votes. This could create an environment in which cooperation is the preferred outcome.

The alternate way to avoid a rerun would be to use a proportional system similar to that of Germany.

I hope the system is changed no matter what the outcome of the election this year. The trouble is that how to get the elected majority to change rules which may be against them :(

xkcd radiation chart putting fear of nuclear power in perspective

I came across the xkcd radiation chart again and was reminded of the irrational fear many people have of nuclear power. Fortunately, Supreme Court finally cleared Kudankulam nuclear power plant. Good news now that the summer season of power cuts has started. At least it gives hope that cuts may be fewer in future.

I was surprised to find that the nuclear agreement Dr. Manmohan Singh had fought for has had an impact - Nuclear power the one bright spot in year of core slowdown.

I wouldn't be surprised if the fear of anti-nuclear lobby discourages the government from highlighting the achievements in power generated from nuclear power plant.

Someone(on Lok Sabha TV?) had suggested that government should give subsidized and 24 hour power supply to all people in the area surrounding the power plant.  This may be a great motivator if the Rajya Sabha tv report was correct - villages and towns in the region surrounding some of the largest and oldest thermal power plants in UP get power only for 4 hours!

Elections, News Channels and Allergies

John Oliver's satire on Indian elections is remarkably funny, especially his description of our commercial news channels.

I appear to have developed an allergy to a number of people caused by overexposure even though I hit these channels only while channel surfing. I begin to feel physically sick if I pause on one of our commercial news channels for any length of time.

And I feel tempted to blame Rajya Sabha TV and Lok Sabha TV because if they did not interrupt their shows with advertisements, I would not be channel surfing. Why do they have the interruptions when the interruptions are announcements for other shows and public interest messages is beyond me. Why can't they follow the continental Europeans if they are looking for role models :(

While DD News channel is rather boring as it wants to play it very safe, the discussions on RS TV  & LS TV are often enlightening aside from being calm. This, sadly, is not the case if the guests include representatives of political parties. The participants on their shows are more varied as well, only a few guests are repeated occasionally.

One tragedy is that both these channels are trying to absorb the gimmicks of the commercial channels, like multiple windows, distracting graphics and more guests than appropriate. The worst shows are when there are four guests and the silent guests are staring into space waiting for their chance. The guest speaking at times does not get a chance to complete his thought because the other guests need to be accommodated. And some hosts insist on have their own say and dominate the discussion time with elaborate questions.

Robots will take jobs, Inequality will grow & Rich will inherit more

I read A billion shades of grey in the Indian Express a couple of days ago and the next day came read Today In Dystopian War Robots That Will Harvest Us For Our Organs.


Reading the two makes it obvious that the Economist article is wishful in thinking that

But governments should focus not on redistributing income but on generating more of it by reforming retirement and education.

Seems odd given that their analysis also states:

Wealthy old people will accumulate more savings, which will weaken demand. Inequality will increase and a growing share of wealth will eventually be transferred to the next generation via inheritance, entrenching the division between winners and losers still further.

One would expect that some way of fairly increasing inheritance tax seems to be obvious option.

If more people are educated better, it is far more likely that even programmers will earn minimum wage and a smaller proportion of them will be employed. 

It is interesting that discussions around what the kind of an economic system we will have - After Technology Destroys Capitalism is becoming common.

Create Sovereign Wealth using an Inheritance Transfer law

Income inequality is growing and is now considered as the most serious risk to global stability. Sovereign wealth may be a way to fund and manage the growing economic inequality especially in view of  jobless growth.

While countries with natural resources or surplus income may be able to create sovereign weath, how can a country like India create one?

One of the valuable taxation tool to reduce the obvious advantages of being born rich is the inheritance tax. India stopped the inheritance tax in 1985. It is easy to understand the implementation problems. Aside from estimating the value of the assets, how will the inheritors convert assets into cash so as to pay the government?

Current capabilities of technology and software make new options possible which would have been unthinkable using manual systems.

One way would be that a proportion of the assets as per the inheritance tax rate is transferred to the sovereign fund of Govt of India. Operational control of the assets may continue to remain with the legal heirs. However, the appropriate proportion of any income derived from the assets would belong to the sovereign fund.

For example, any residential property would continue to be in the possession of the heirs with no liabilities except when they sell it. Keeping all such records on the computers is trivial.

Such a mechanism would make it possible to have a law which is not riddled with exceptions to minimize unfairness.  Furthermore, as an asset it will provide long term income to the government rather than additional income which is likely to be wasted especially around elections.

Any  issues related to improper reporting of income are no worse than the current experiences and practices in collection of taxes.

If such steps are not taken, it seems inevitable that more and more wealth will be in the hands of increasingly fewer people.
 

Elections and Farce

It is both amusing and sad to read about dummy namesake candidates standing for elections and getting a kite as a symbol which may mislead voters.

Since India does not have a two party system, we should switch from the first past the post system.

I am impressed by the Grand Coalitions in Germany. The proportional system with a cutoff in Germany appears to compel parties to work together if the need arises. I cannot imagine such a scenario in India, US or UK. 

This is in remarkable contrast to the US gridlocks seen in Obama's terms. 

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.

Future - A Very Convenient Society but without Jobs

I can't imagine a security guard who can hope to match the skills of even current robots, e.g. Knightscope's K5 beta. Such devices will replace security guards in, at least, high risk areas and soon.

Drones will deliver pizzas and our packages in case the delivery person is unreliable or expensive. The obvious implication is that such jobs cannot be anything other than low paying.

Robotic telemarketers may be a joke at present but reduction in the growth of call centers is inevitable. Call centers were probably the most important transformation in job market for the educated in India.

Who wouldn't like to see, at least, bad drivers replaced by driverless vehicles? 

Statistics as in "Unemployment in the Era of Jobless Growth" show that unemployment rate in India increases sharply as the level of education rises and is over 25% for graduates and above. It is not going to be cured by improvements in education. For example, I would expect that there is a far greater chance of some smart programmers replacing the need for programmers than most of the software engineering graduates being productive enough to be employable.

So, is any political party anywhere in the world talking about the needs of the society once a fair proportion of the society will be unemployable and a fair amount will work for low wages with little hope of improvement? We will need more government intervention and not less. Europe is probably better prepared for the future and India should emulate European welfare states rather than the US.

The bus protests in San Francisco may be just the beginning as the implications of a very convenient, tech driven society sink in.

We shop using computer programs, pay using computer programs. A computer program and a robot communicate and pack what we have ordered. A drone is informed of the delivery address and the package arrives at our doorstep!

Much ado about nothing - the fuss over an ordinance.

It is hard go get excited with various news items about the ordinance to not disqualify MP's and MLA's immediately after conviction by lower courts.

After all it gives the convicted leaders an additional time to file an appeal and get a stay. What is another three months after it takes over 20 years to get the conviction or just 17 years in a very high profile case of missing fodder.

As in programming, we emphasize - GIGO. Why worry about when a person gets disqualified. Worry about how such a person gets into the system.

I wish I had statistics to justify my perception.

What is likelihood of the spouse or a child of such a person being elected once the seat is vacated?

Perhaps, the better way to phrase it would be that what is the likelihood of the spouse or child of the convict NOT being elected in his/her place from the same constituency?

Nothing to do with Shakespeare's Much about nothing except that all the drama around the ordinance feels like a farce.

Headline I'd prefer - Ban Marriage to Curb Dowry Deaths

The following headline in the Tribune made me want to throw-up - Ban same-gotra marriages to curb honour killings: Khaps.

What can one say about the following sub-headline in the same article -  Ban on wearing jeans - because it is the

 'root cause' of rising incidents of eve teasing

I would like to see the Khaps being made to take a course in biology followed by watching at least the first episode of Richard Dawkin's documentary series "Sex, Death And The Meaning Of Life" - http://www.youtube.com/user/BBUK0001 WITH their family.

It is depressing that a newspaper exposes the Khaps' ignorance (ancient wisdom?) on front page without it being a satire.