Who is really harassing the pensioners?

It is really painful when I come across news like this:

Don't Harass Pensioners: Government Tells Bank

Even a moment's reflection makes it obvious that the only person who CAN be held accountable in this whole process is the bank officer who signs off. If the bank official is fearful and excessively cautious, it is hard to blame him/her.

We as a society are so absorbed by the process of submitting forms that we never think of them as being redundant, pointless, wasteful, etc. etc.

Obviously, far fewer pensioner die each year than not. So, efficiency would suggest that the government get certificates from the people who are dead. Unfortunately, the bureaucracy has not found a way to do that. So, the rest of us have to prove that we are alive.

Even searching for a pensioner's record on a supercomputer and entering a 'y' in one field takes time. However, in our process, it is far worse as the bank has to collect the papers. Very likely the bank catalogs them to make sure that they have proof of having sent them. Recipient clerk will need to make an entry for having received them and forwarded them to the correct department, which in turn, ... (I have to find out where did my life certificate disappear or just give another and hope that it doesn't get lost again.)

Trust the pensioners and their families instead. I can't imagine any person(other than brain-dead) waking up enthusiastically every morning to work on life certificates! Focus the effort and energies of the bank officials and government staff freed from this dumb work to detect frauds. As this example illustrates, such frauds can only exist only because the staff is too busy doing dumb work to notice. If it is corruption and collusion, how on earth do life certificates help?

Getting Lost on the Highway

After a 2400 Km drive spread over 8 days, I can say that the road travel in India has become far simpler and safer with divided highways.

On the highways (NOT in the towns we passed through), driving shows greater discipline and courtesy than I would have expected. But one has to accept that it is perfectly safe, or even safer, to overtake from the wrong side:) The driver should just accept it and not feel any guilt for violating the road laws - no policeman in India is likely to give a ticket for it.

I got lost once but it was my own stupidity. After Jaipur, the next convenient halt was Bhilwara. I got on the road to Ajmer. I was pretty sure I was on the right route - it was going to Udaipur and the route I had selected, thanks to Google maps, was the shortest/best route to Udaipur from Jaipur. After a while, I noticed signs indicating the distance to Beawar - it seemed a little nearer than I had expected Bhilwara to be.

My mind had made a discovery - given the fondness of our politicians to change names, Bhilwara's name must have been changed to Beawar. I was so convinced about this discovery that I did not think it worthwhile to stop and confirm it. I had not noticed any major turning, so this route had to be right.

On reaching Beawar, I tried to find the hotel, only to discover to my embarrassment that I was a 100Km from where I was supposed to be. A state highway connected the two - it was narrow, often very rough road, occupied frequently by goats.

I had missed a turning - there was a sign for going to Shrinager. But how was I to know that it was not an exit to a small town but a exit to a highway?

A lesson learnt!

More EPS fine provided the employees can opt out into NPS

News items like EPS-95: Rs 1,000 monthly pension, 28 lakh to benefit really upset me. I realised the scope of this scheme only on retirement! This is a scheme which sought to give private sector similar benefits as central government pension (discontinued for new employees as it is a financial burden for the government -  actually, the current tax payers). The scheme is subject to some arbitrary constraints which make it viable at the expense of the better off. Charge higher taxes but don't cross-subsidize in a non-transparent manner.

I had assumed that I was not a member of EPS because I had not opted for it when it came out. I did not realise that my option was not valid or relevant after I had changed my job and moved from the company managed fund to the government managed one.

From the same news item(emphasis mine):

At present, workers whose basic wage at the time of joining is up to Rs 6,500 per month, including basic pay and dearness allowance, can be subscribers of the EPFO schemes.

This is news to me. The companies always me the impression that membership to EPFO was mandatory. Given a choice, even PPF would have been preferable. And these days, NPS would most likely be the preferred option for anyone earning more than the EPFO limits.

I suspect the limit has been increased to make the operation of EPFO/EPS temporarily solvent and postpone the actual financial problems of the organisation to the next generation.

Confusing retirement policies of government - well meaning but ???

"EPFO caps pension contribution of firms" but why?

What puzzles me is that when I had retired, I had wondered about what my pension should be and I was informed that there was a cap of Rs. 6500. So, the fact that I took a job with much lower salary to teach had no impact on the pensionable amount.

Had it not been so, the pension amount would not have been so embarrassingly small! It makes me wonder if the information given me was correct but not enough to make me want to make the effort to verify it.

However, it does make me envy the generosity of government towards its own officials. This was illustrated recently by a couple. Both retired about 15 years ago. The husband was in a public sector employee and had a pension twice that of his wife's, who was in government service. Today his wife's pension is double his.

In the long term in our inflationary society, the lesson is that it is not the pension(unless one is a government employee or is married to one) but income from other investments which can ensure a comfortable life after retirement!

Food security bill, pensions increased for bureaucrats and share the pain fo the retired rest

I had a disturbed night's sleep, quite possibly affected by "Markets give UPA's Food Security Bill a thumbs down, fear its impact on economy". However, that was not the first news which struck me.

The news I noticed was the bureaucrats taking care of their retired bureaucrat parents! No wonder, it is hard to believe the finance minister, Chidambaram, no matter how much one wants to do so. His worst enemies could not have chosen a more symbolic time. My mother's pension will improve but my comfort depends on the economy and if the current trends continue, I will have to be dependent on others or search for a job whether I want to or not :(

It seems petty to question the benefit given to the bureaucrats who have spent their life serving the nation. I recall an episode of the Twilight Zone, where the aliens have come to earth which each one committed to the book "How to serve man". It was a cook book :)

Public sector pensions - Generous world wide!

I was somewhat surprised by The Unsteady State of America which I read in the Indian Express. The surprise was that the generous pension which various Indian governments had been offering their employees was not all that unique. (Realistically, it is the government employees who are taking care of themselves.) Even US public sector had been offering pension based on the number of years of service and the last drawn salary!

Governments seem to have been remarkably ignorant of the life expectancy of their people or the financial implications of the long life span.

Government of India tried to offer the same pension option for even private sector employees(mandatory). I wonder what led them to implement it with an absurd limit of Rs. 6500 per month (less than US $ 110 per month) rather than scrap it. My unhappiness with the pension scheme is because all it seems to do is increase the size of bureaucracy while hurting the interests of the "organized sector" employees and doing nothing at all for the informal sector employees.

Pointless differences makes an unhappy tax payer

I discovered yesterday that the salary for government jobs is computed from March to Feb instead of the financial year - April to March.

It doesn't seem like a big deal, except that I had included the March salary in my tax return last year. I had ignored examining the Form 16 as no tax had been deducted for the few months I had taught.

This year's Form 16 included the March salary as well and tax deducted. So, I will have declared one month's salary twice and paid tax on it twice!

I don't think it is the extra tax I am paying  which bothers me. Rather, it is the inconsistent rules which make it easy to violate rules and, thus, creating the fear of bureaucratic hassles. Effectively adding needless anxiety and tension.

Rediscovering Asimov's Foundation Series

I had planned on gifting Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy and was surprised to find that it was now a larger series! It was embarrassing to have been so ignorant :(

I had 'lost' interest in science fiction novels after reading the trilogy in my college days. I suspect that no other science fiction novel I came across matched the expectations created by Asimov's novels.

I ordered the additional books from the series for me. It was great fun to read the Foundation's Edge as I felt I was back in my college days - my mind lost in outer space oblivious to the 'reality' around me :)

First Day of the Rest of my Life - Retiring

I handed over the key and completed various formalities. I will no longer be working(teaching) even part time. It is a relief though with a little disappointment of ending on failure.

The primary reason for quitting was the risk of driving 50KM each way to IIT Ropar from Chandigarh and I do not think one can regard fear of driving on Indian roads as irrational - unlike the fear of radiation making Japanese children fat.

The risk has to commensurate to the reward and the reward was not sufficient. For my courses, very few students gave feedback which was quite positive and said that they learnt a lot. However, my perception was that these students would have learnt anyway and I am not sure I made any impact on the rest. They remained indifferent.

On the other hand, at an IIT, I could experiment. Each semester I tried something different which by the end of the semester left me dissatisfied. However, each disappointment gave rise to ideas which I could try in the next semester. Hence, had Ropar been closer to Chandigarh, I would have continued the experiments even if the results continued to disappoint. May be one day I would have found the right combination by which the students would have learnt instead of me.

Who knows, I may get bored with retired life and then what next?

Joys of Crime Fiction

Now that I have time, I am rediscovering joys of reading crime fiction. It started with Stieg Larsson. I read the trilogy virtually non-stop.

Now, as I am about to finish Jo Nesbo's Harry Hole series of books in English, I wonder why is crime fiction fun. Why do I read them?

The first couple of crime fiction books I read were by Raymond Chandler early in my college days. It was more fun to watch the movies or TV serials.

Then in the mid-seventies, I found The Man who Went Up in Smoke and The Locked Room on the sidewalks of Mumbai. While searching for what next to read, I found that novels by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö are available today even in Indian online book stores like Indiaplaza and Flipkart. They should keep me occupied for the next few months.

I suppose the reason I like these books is that one can fantasize and hope that there exists somewhere someone like Lisabeth Salander who will take revenge on those beyond the law!

But when it comes to the desire for justice, the finest book I have read is Michael Kohlhaas by Heinrich Kleist which is now available on Gutenberg. The  very first line had hooked me:

Toward the middle of the sixteenth century there lived on the banks of
the river Havel a horse-dealer by the name of Michael Kohlhaas, the
son of a school-master, one of the most upright and, at the same time,
one of the most terrible men of his day.

Teaching another sem - why?

I know the education system is broken. I know my efforts are pointless. I was reminded of it again by Peter Norvig.

I rationalize that experimenting with teaching Software Engineering in the reverse order may help me learn. There is the slight hope that a couple of students will be interesting enough in the class to make the effort worthwhile.

The traditional classroom forces one to think about the whole class. I can't ignore the group which does not seem to be making the effort. I have to spend more time and effort on that group of students rather than the ones who are interested. It is painful to correct their papers or assignments. This is really an absurd situation.

I know most people feel that it is the teacher who can make a difference and a great teacher inspires. I recall even Richard Feynman saying about how to teach - "I don't know how to do it."  and that the best one can do is to somehow not bore anyone all the time.

To me, the wonderful thing about the future as seen by people like Sebastian Thrun - which is implicit and isn't explicitly highlighted - is that a teacher can focus only on those who are interested!

We, the aged, are the Achilles heel!

I saw China's Achilles heel in the print edition of Indian Express today. It disturbed me and I have been trying to understand why.

The first factor was the demographic dividend has seemed like a  joke to me. I can easily rationalize that belief based on my efforts to find competent people to recruit in India.

But that wasn't it. What troubles me are statements like

But rapid ageing also means China faces what is called the “4-2-1 phenomenon”: each only child is responsible for two parents and four grandparents. Even with high savings rates, it seems unlikely that the younger generation will be able or willing to afford such a burden.

And

The number of those just setting out (those in their early 20s, who are usually the best educated and most productive members of society) will have halved.

These statements reflect the implicit assumption that we, the aging, are unproductive liabilities. What they may lead to in a period of crisis is frightening especially in societies where money is becoming the only way to decide.

Ian McEwan's protagonists are aging as time progresses. I look forward to a book written by him where the protagonist is now an aging unproductive member of the society.

Entering The Third Stage...

I saw Ian McEwan's Innocents on a book shop. I was about to buy it but I thought I may have bought it. I was going to Goa anyway so I would check my unread books there.

I was in for a surprise. The book was very much there. The paper had turned slightly brown. There were even noticeable dog-ears. So, I had read the book and not remembered it at all! This was troubling - till I was a student, I read a lot more and remembered the books I read. Here was one of the few books I read in my working life and by my favourite author and I had no recollection of it. McEwan's books invariably have a twist which I always believed made them unforgettable. Come to think of it, the only books I clearly remember from my working life are Vikram Seth's Golden Gate and A Suitable Boy.

I was even more shocked to find Ian McEwan's A Child in Time, which I read a year or so ago and found mind-boggling. I presume that I had not read that book. I bought it, the pages turned brown and, presumably, I forgot about it. It would be even more disturbing to know that I had read that book decades ago.

I was struck by the 4 stages of life as per Hindu philosophy. After starting work and raising a family, that is entering the second phase, the mind seems to have been so absorbed in the existential issues that books, movies were forgotten.

As the children grew older and independent, I had to make the effort to minimize interfering in their life. May be offer advice but accept that it may be ignored. Hopefully I have succeeded to some extent. But on the positive side,  now I find that I can make time to read and enjoy it.