Reducing Global Warming: India should take a noticeable step

The Paris accord is here, for what it is worth. However, it is when leading nations of the world take noticeable steps forward that something significant will take place. We live in a world re-enacting the tragedy of the commons repeatedly. Everyone takes from the world what he wants; together we all make the world a poorer place every year.

Countries aspiring to be in the front rank of nations have to show leadership by intelligent and timely action. We have seen the power of a thought – Swachh Bharat. Cleaning up India is not a one-day or even a one-decade job, but we have taken a step forward by declaring our intention and doing what is readily possible.

It appears logical that India should now discuss a few measures it can take to reduce global warming, weighing their costs and benefits; then the country should take some of these steps, making a visible change. Let me offer a few suggestions:

Painting roofs white is worth considering. This can be made mandatory for buildings with air-conditioned areas in excess of 200 Sq. Meters. Tax exemptions should be given for affordable paints demonstrated to increase reflection of heat and to give a degree of protection against rainwater. People living in houses with tiled roofs should be encouraged to paint their roofs with such paints. White roofs increase the loss of heat by radiation to space on clear days. More significantly, they reduce heating of the building by Sunlight. Tthis could lower costs in buildings spending money on air-conditioning.  

National Awards should be given to architects and owners of new buildings minimizing energy requirements, and otherwise slowing down global warming.

Supporting switch to electrical vehicles and hybrid vehicles Greater incentives should be given to R & D in battery technology relevant to transportation and to R & D in solar/wind energy.

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Search vs Hunt in Websites

I wasted forty minutes at a bank’s website last week. I needed to recharge a prepaid card. At login, there is a choice between the savings account login and prepaid card login. Which way do I go? The bank’s approach is to let the customer find out by trial and error. I tried the prepaid card login and discovered I could not do a recharge there. I found out the customer care number and called them. The support “executive” had no clue either. He told me that at login I should choose the prepaid card option. I told him that is exactly what I had tried, without any use. He told me to hold on and went off to get an answer. This business of consulting someone else took place three times and I had to hold on each time.

The first time he came back with borrowed wisdom, he asked me to log into my savings bank account. I did, and then had a question. Which tab do I select? He suggested that I go to “funds transfer” – a good guess, as I could perhaps transfer some money to my prepaid card as I transfer money to any other card. However, that did not work, so he went off to consult his colleague again. “There is a tab named Cards”, he said, “Click on that!” After bumbling around like this for quite some time, we finally discovered how to recharge the stupid card. He had been kind enough to stay on the line, suffering through all this with me. For the bank, this was not wasted employee time – it was probably free training provided by the customer!

This raises the question of the point and click model to tell a system what you want. It is very convenient, like a menu in some countries with photographs to guide the tourist who does not share a language with the staff. You find an item you recognize and point it out to the waiter; you get survive another day! This point and click model does not work when you have go through a hierarchical maze of tabs, making selection after selection without any clue till you get to see what you are looking for. In that situation, the “selection by search string” model works far better. For instance, Windows 10 has a slot at the bottom of the desktop labelled “Search the web and Windows”. If you type in “Hide rows in Excel sheet” and it takes you to your search engine, which gets you the answer – it may come from Microsoft websites or from someone else’s. You get a set of possible answers and can examine and select one. A great feature of this is that you are not restricted to a single word to say what you are looking for; many “help systems” force you to work under this restriction. It is like working with one hand strapped to the chair’s armrest! With a multi-word search string, you usually get the answer you are looking for in one shot.

How can a website, say a bank’s website, provide for access through a search string? Can the website let me click “Help” and type any of the search strings I list below as examples?

         Recharge prepaid card
         Register a new beneficiary for interbank funds transfer
         Form for requesting closure of account
         List of bank holidays in Delhi

I do not deny that the graphical user interface (GUI) involving icons, and point and click was a great invention; so is access to a webpage through the use of a multi-word search string. Like a screwdriver and a hammer, they are complementary. One does not replace the other.

HCI: Comment No. 4

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Railways and the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan

There has been considerable concern in India about the fact that train toilets spread solid waste and urine on railway lines all over India, creating a health hazard. News reports indicate that in 2015, we are just beginning the effort to reduce this menace, installing new types of toilets on selected trains. At this rate, it would take many years to reduce public health risks caused by rainwater carrying contaminating material to village wells and ponds, spreading a variety of diseases. No estimates seem to have been made of the number of deaths caused per year due to this. Medical colleges should carry out fieldwork and research about water-borne diseases spread by this contamination of drinking water.

Sushmi Dey writing in the Times of India, Nov 13, 2014
( India loses most kids to diarrhoea, pneumonia: Study )
reports that “India tops the global list with 318 deaths per 1,000 children under five years of age due to pneumonia and diarrhoea“.

Diarrhoea is the third most common cause of death in under-five children, responsible for 13% deaths in this age group, killing an estimated 300,000 children in India each year, according to
Causes of neonatal and child mortality in India: nationally representative mortality survey

Undoubtedly, there has been a reduction in under-five deaths during the last decade, but reports indicate that India will miss the millennial goal in this regard. Visit Business Standard, March 7, 2015:
Millenium Development Goals: India's progress so far

It is surely worth examining the causes of diarrhea deaths among Indian children. It would be very surprising if poor quality of drinking water is not a significant factor involved.

Science colleges, particularly those in rural areas, should acquire capabilities to test the quality of drinking water used in their neighbourhoods. It would be tragic if a degree in chemistry and biology does not equip a student to test if water is fit enough to drink! We must train students to carry out these tests, and then encourage and support them in doing relevant fieldwork to utilize their training for the benefit of people in the area. An interesting paper shows the results of testing drinking water in colleges in Kolhapur:

http://www.ijser.org/researchpaper%5CEvaluation-of-Water-Quality-Indices-for-the-Drinking-water-of-Engineering-Colleges-in-Kolhapur-city.pdf

We should compliment the researchers at an engineering college who carried out this research. 

The big risks are in bacterial and viral contamination of water sources. Chemical testing alone will not be sufficient. The following website provides some relevant information for those interested in testing water from this point of view. 

http://www.water-research.net/index.php/water-testing/bacteria-testing/coliform-bacteriaA web-search shows a number of vendors who sell water-quality-testing kits.

Railways have their own responsibility in this regard. They cannot magically transform all train toilets to safe toilets. However, they can consider interim measures to ameliorate the problem. They could use small bogies attached to trains to carry a few hundred litres of a solution to spray the space between rails whenever the train is traveling above a set speed. This will avoid spraying too close to railway stations. Experts would have to select cost-effective solutions for the purpose. There are many options to select from, to kill germs and parasites in solid waste before rainwater carries them into village water sources.

A significant initiative by railways in this direction would be a major contribution to the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.

 

Screen brightness problem with Microsoft Windows 10 and Intel HD Graphics Driver

I have a problem with Microsoft Windows 10 upgrade on a VAIO 64 bit Laptop. Everything went smoothly except that the screen brightness was uncomfortably low after the upgrade. The Fn F6 brightness control on the keyboard shows the display set to the maximum, but despite that, the brightness is low. We tried the default driver, which gave good brightness but limited the resolution to 1024 X something. At this resolution, parts of the screen are not visible to me and it is impossible to work with. Then we checked for updates to the default driver and it found an update for the Intel HD graphics driver and installed it. Now we are back in the same state as before, with a dim display, but full resolution.

Comments and suggestion would be highly appreciated. 

Teachers with Fake Degrees

3,000 Bihar teachers quit fearing action over fake degrees

We should thank the Bihar High Court for having taking action that has had this result. The teachers with fake degrees who have not resigned face the threat of punishment and recovery of salaries paid to them. Taking strict action and bringing guilty teachers to justice will raise the confidence the world has in the educational system of Bihar. The State has to do this with all possible speed.

The law in India prescribes a jail term for crimes such as adulterating milk with water. Visit

Milkman convicted of selling adulterated milk in 17-yrs-old case

Faking a degree certificate to land a teaching job is certainly a crime worth a punishment harsher than the one prescribed for adulterating milk. We should not allow shoddy prosecution to let thousands of forgers to get away with the harm they have done to thousands of students’ careers.

This post is a follow-up to a related post of mine http://obvioustruths.blogspot.com/2015/08/fake-degrees.html

Fake Degrees

An interesting news item had come out in March 2015, and I have been waiting to see suitable reactions from the educational world. To my surprise, there has been no significant reaction. The country has treated the shocking news as something routine! I refer to the story of an 8^th standard dropout who passed himself off as a Professor of Power Systems using forged documents and was teaching in an engineering college near Chennai during the last three years.  Visit

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/Class-8-dropout-becomes-engg-college-professor-lands-in-jail/articleshow/46489649.cms

When some Indians use fake degree certificates to get into positions they do not deserve, they are robbing every Indian graduate to some degree. One way of reducing such fraud is to have every educational institution run a service to verify degrees/diplomas online. The user should scan and upload relevant documents for verification and pay online something like Rs 250 per document, for the service. The verifying institution would send the document back with a stamp saying “verified on at if the document is authentic.  If the verification takes longer than 24 hours, the fee should be refunded. Automating the service for verifying future documents, introducing a unique Doc-ID, introducing safeguards to protect student privacy are all worth considering. Obviously, the Ministry of Human Resource Development needs to take responsibility to implement such measures to build-up the credibility of Indian degrees and diplomas.

However, it would be foolish to assume that such measures alone will rectify the rot that has set into our educational institutions. I assume that a selection committee probably chaired by the Principal of the college, the Head of the Dept., and a couple of professors must have “selected” the candidate for appointment as a professor! In some universities, the committee would include a representative of the Chancellor of the University. All these worthies in the committee have got away scot-free! Presumably, they all have “genuine” degree certificates! What about the management of the Institute that must have collected fees from the students, to have them them taught by illustrious teachers?

If even an educational institute cannot find a difference between a real teacher and a fake one, what does the industry do? Can you blame them when they write off the bulk of the colleges, ignoring all applications from their students? They need only to “short-list” 30 or 40 institutions for campus recruitment.

* * * * *

Machines can goof up too!

Kurt Gödel’s theorems 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del's_incompleteness_theorems
are widely understood to imply that there are serious limitations to computer programs. Some misled people seem to believe that human thought is free of these limitations. Nonsense!

As developers create “smarter and smarter programs”, we will undoubtedly get a big collection of reports how bad programs can be. One type of program-bugs cause grievous accidents. They crash planes, make financial services companies go broke, kill people with overdoses of radiation, etc.

I will focus in this article only on how “stupid” programs can look, and cause us to laugh! Here is one report. My wife, an avid user of Android apps on her smart phones, recently installed Google Fit. This app counts how many steps she walks in a day and helps her manage her exercise target. Yesterday, she was quite puzzled because this app reported that she had cycled for 17 minutes, covering a distance of 2.3 KM. She has not touched a bi-cycle for years. So, where did the 17 minutes of cycling come in? After some analysis she figured out that she had been in an auto-rickshaw for 17 minutes at the time reported. I admire the programmer who tried to make his App figure out when the user is cycling by using data from the cell-phones accelerometers! It probably reports correctly when the user really cycles; but it makes a false report when the user gets on an auto-rickshaw!

Apart from laughing at the App’s mistake, we can laugh at all the tragic characters who have chosen to live in a city in which auto-rickshaws take 17 minutes to cover 2.3 KM!

I would also make a request to the Google Fit designer/developer: please stay away from development of robotic surgery equipment!  

Death in taxi accidents and lack of seat belts in the back seat

A large number of deaths on road accidents every year have been a characteristic feature of India. We need to find the political will to enforce stringent laws. A fraction of these deaths are due to passengers in the back-seat not wearing seat belts even when they travel on the high way. Every major city has a high speed road going to the airport and tens of thousands of taxis ply on these roads every day in every metro. A majority of these taxis seem to have seat belts buried under the seats and inaccessible to the passengers. Many taxi operators do not consider them necessary. Most taxi drivers say they cannot help you in digging out seat belt. 

Information on deaths related to back seat passengers not wearing seat belts is widely available, for instance in the following news items:     

Not wearing seat belts in the back seat

Wearing a seat belt could have saved Mr. Munde

A simple action can quickly reduce the number of road deaths due to this cause. We need to enact a law that provides for taking a taxi off the road immediately, if it does not have readily accessible seat belts in the back seats. Innocent lives, including that of women and children, do not have to be lost because operators of a lucrative business deny them the protection they need.

I request readers to visit

https://www.change.org/p/transport-minister-govt-of-india-please-enact-a-law-that-provides-for-immediately-taking-taxis-off-the-road-if-they-do-not-have-readily-accessible-seat-belts-in-the-back-seats

and sign my petition in this regard.

Lead in Food and Water

Risk of lead absorbed from food and water: The recent controversy about lead levels in Maggie Noodles
India seeks damages from Nestle after Maggi noodle lead scare
should trigger a wider debate. It is not just packaged food that may contain lead. 
Lead in drinking water: You and your children can ingest lead from your drinking water. Visit
Lead Contamination of Drinking Water in India due to PVC Pipes 
Lead poisoning does not stop because lead levels are reduced: Lead can accumulate in your body even over a period of months or years. There is nothing called a “safe blood lead level in children”. It does its damage as long as it is there, however low its level might be. Visit the page on lead on the website of the US Govt’s Centers for Disease Control.
Lead poisoning is dangerous:  The US Govt site referred above says “Even low levels of lead in blood have been shown to affect IQ, ability to pay attention, and academic achievement. And effects of lead exposure cannot be corrected”. It goes on to say that lead-based paint and lead contaminated dust are dangerous sources of lead for U.S. children. This is despite the fact that lead-based paints were banned for use in houses in the US in 1978.  The science magazine The New Scientist carried an article (in 2013) written by Perry Gottesfeld. The full text of this editorial can be viewed at:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21829190.200-the-wests-toxichypocrisy-over-lead-paint.html#.Ub-ncJWPSS0Gottesfeld cites results from a study sponsored by the Gates Foundation, showing that more than 674,000 deaths around the world each year (2010 rates) are attributable to lead exposure (see http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(12)61766-8/abstract ). This Lancet article also mentions that lead exposure can cause intellectual disability, heart disease and stroke.
Immersing painted idols in lakes and tanks is dangerous: Immersing colourfully painted idols in tanks and lakes causes leaching of lead paint and can contaminate drinking water sources. India does not ban lead in paints; it only has a voluntary standard. It is said that 30% of the paints in the market, essentially from small time manufacturers have excessive lead content.  Visit
http://toxicslink.org/docs/Lead-in-Paint-Report-2015.pdf

Mangoes and Litchis of Office

I don’t have any other comment on the controversy in Patna over mangoes and litchis, at least for the present; but, I think we can usefully add a new phrase to Indian English: “the mangoes and litchis of office”. In course of time, this phrase will undoubtedly get into English dictionaries all over the world.

If you haven’t heard of the controversy, visit

After Battle for Top Post, Its Nitish Kumar vs Jitan Manjhi on Mangoes and Litchis

Hemant Sonawala, Pioneering Entrepreneur in Computing

Hemant Sonawala had returned to India in the early sixties after doing a Master’s in the US. His first job here was that of a CSIR Fellow at the IIT, Bombay. So, it was no wonder that he started hi-tech business activities in India, dealing with Texas Instruments and with the Digital Equipment Corporation. His technical knowledge combined with business acumen took him to pioneering heights of the Indian computer industry. Hundreds of Indian professionals in the field got their experience by working in enterprises started by him, starting with Hinditron. Many of them are now leaders of the profession. Hemant’s contributions to creating the Digital Equipment (India) Ltd. were very important to the growth of the Indian software and services industry. His leadership has been very valuable to the Computer Society of India.

I had the great pleasure of working with him and Dr P P Gupta in planning and running India’s first international conference in the computer field – Networks 80. We recognized that computer networks is a technology with significant socio-economic value and felt that its potential had to be demonstrated – Mr Hemant Sonawala agreed to be Exhibitions Chair. Ambitious plans were made. In one of the brainstorming sessions held in this context, the three of us cooked up a proposal to have a multi-city demo of a futuristic railway passenger ticket reservation system. This was selected as an application which, over the years, could make a contribution to the quality of life of millions of people. Sonawala offered to lend a mini-computer from Digital Equipment Corporation, and the National Centre for Software Development and Computing Techniques (NCSDCT) offered to design and implement the demo. Mr P Sadanandan was then Head of the Database Group at NCSDCT. The team under his leadership took on this responsibility. Sonawala and I went off to meet the Railway Board Chairman to request Railway’s cooperation and participation in the conference. He agreed readily. The Posts and Telegraph Dept. agreed to provide data-connectivity over leased lines between Ahmedabad, Bombay and Delhi. The project went on well and we got more or less ready to demo the three-city system.

But unfortunately, the Railway Board Chairman who had been enthusiastic about the project reached his retirement date, and we got derailed! The new officers we met had their own priority – movement of something like 400 million tons a year of freight. One of them made a memorable comment which illustrated the value people placed on the customers’ convenience as a justification for computerization. “Have you seen a railway seat go empty?” he asked. “If A does not go, some B will go; we have been asked by the Govt to focus on freight capacity utilization”.  The demo was given at the conference anyway, though on a reduced scale. A number of Railway officers took interest in the subject and a paper was presented at the conference by Mr H. S. Srinivas Prasad. Hemant had, as usual, contributed to the important first step of a major project by his teamwork and by encouraging & supporting the other team members.

Dr Gupta’s enduring enthusiasm for this mass application was to make the Reservations System a reality through the energy of his CMC Colleagues a few years later. He made a presentation to the Railway Minister on the concept and CMC won an order to implement a reservation system for the Northern Railway as a first step. The good thing about our democracy is that it is enough if you do some good in one of the four regions. The representatives of the people will ensure that all four corners are soon given the same facilities soon! A CMC team, working out of their R & D Labs in Hyderabad, did an impressive job of designing and implementing the system and had covered all four regions of India within a few years.

The great success of the Railway Passenger Reservation System made everyone understand the benefits of computerization coupled with computer networking. Those who had been skeptical about banking applications changed their minds. You have seen what bank computerization and networking did for India in the decades that followed.

One of the results of Networks 80 was that we became confident conference organizers, ever willing to take on another big conference. I think it was the CSI Annual Convention in 1987 in Mumbai. Sonawala was the Organizing Chair and I was Program Chair. The two big hotels in Bombay at that time were not big enough to hold the Convention. Sonawala suggested that we put up a huge geodesic dome in the oval maidan! This temporary facility was in addition to renting space at the two big hotels, because everything could not be fitted under the dome! Sonawala cheerfully went ahead with his plan and delivered the goods!  The audience was well over 1,000 in several sessions.

In addition to being a very good professional and businessman, Hemant was a great human being. Despite his heavy workload, he always found time for professional and social service activities. His work through the Computer Society of India (CSI) and his social service activities through the Lions are well-known. His work, in collaboration with Prof PVS Rao and the CSI to train visually challenged youngsters in computing is legendary.

No article about Hemant can be complete without a reference to his jokes! He always came prepared for giving any talk; this included choosing a joke about some blond or brunette. Then he would pick on a friend in the first row, say Prof Mahabala or Prof PVS Rao, and modify the joke to fit him in! Everyone would have a good laugh!

Hemant's passing away is a great loss to every one of us who has worked with him. We have individually benefited a lot from the inspiration and encouragement he gave us in our endeavors. I will always remember him as a cheerful, enthusiastic and supportive colleague and friend. 

Hundreds of Hemant's colleagues like me share the grief of the family - Hemant’s wife Rekha, son Saurabh and daughter Paula.

Srinivasan Ramani

P. S.

1) Mr Sonawala passed away on Saturday, May 30, 2015.

2) I have included in this article a few paragraphs that I have published earlier, because they are relevant here in the context of Hemant’s work.

Preventing deaths during the heat wave

Over 1000 Indians seem to have died as a result of the current heat wave

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/heat-wave-death-toll-telangana-andhra-pradesh/1/440597.html

Medical advice includes wearing a hat:

http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Heat-exhaustion-and-heatstroke/Pages/Introduction.aspx

My recent reaction was to suggest through these blogs that political parties could distribute inexpensive caps possibly imprinted with their party logos. Of course, cotton caps with visors may be superior, because they shade the face as well. Individuals can also help, carrying two or three caps extra when they go out, to donate them to people who get sun exposure during their work. People who get such sun exposure develop premature cataract as the practice of dark glasses is not common among them.  Caps with visors can reduce that risk as well.

It is tragic to see school children walking to school and back wearing ties; even girls are made to wear uniforms with ties by some schools. This is ridiculous in hot areas. Instead the school uniform should include caps in such areas.

Another cruelty is making doormen and waiters in hotels and restaurants wear heavy tunics in hot weather.  Ties for waiters in crowded restaurants having no air conditioning or poor air conditioning is yet another stupid practice.

Let me attempt a little plagiarism, making a variation in Tagore’s prayer:

Into ever-increasing common sense
Into that heaven of Freedom from ignorance, my Father, let my country awake! 

Why some social networking sites and apps grab your data

Some social networks and apps get their hands on contacts stored on your cell phone  even if you do not wish to hand them over. Many of us put into contacts every person who sent you email or gave us a business card. Ten years later, you have thousands of contacts and you have no time to look through your contacts and delete those that are irrelevant. The grabby social network may invite most of these contacts, if not all, to join you on the network! By getting some poor bloke into the network, they probably increase their presumed market value by a few cents! Don’t be surprised if your dry cleaning shop joins you on a social network soon!

G. Sampath has written a very good article related to this topic "The Hindu": 

THE BIG DATA CONUNDRUM

Missing the big picture on Big Data by G. SAMPATH

I think a lot of what is called big data is mere garbage.

Internet and education in the developing world - hype and reality

I had written an article

http://obvioustruths.blogspot.in/2012/09/the-reality-of-mobile-value-added.html in 2012 on the reality of Internet access over the cellular network in India. Hundreds of readers who have read it might be interested in some updates.  My recent publication on the Internet and education in India offers more recent data and deals with a number of questions.  

In particular, is it true that the mobile Internet is likely to cause a revolution in India in rural education? Do we really have net neutrality? Is Internet access fairly priced, or does it discriminate against novice users, poorer users, students and rural users? Will the smartphone act as a window to the whole of human knowledge and, in the hands of the Indian student dramatically transform him/her into a highly educated person?  Or, will the bulk of Indian students find little of value in it? What is the reality about Web content in Indian languages? How much is there and what is its quality? Have low cost tablets made a significant impact on Indian education?

I have attempted to answer many of these questions. You may wish to read my recent paper (May 2015) which is freely accessible over the Web:

The internet and education in the developing world -
hopes and reality

Srinivasan Ramani

Full text at:  http://www.slejournal.com/content/2/1/8

I welcome comments and suggestions.

Will our cell phones work during a disaster?

Kathmandu Post had carried on Feb 4, 2014 an article named 

Call for sturdy telecom infrastructure
Following the earth quake in Nepal this year, it would be valuable if a study is carried out to find how the cellular telephony infrastructure of Nepal performed during the disaster.

Scientific American noted in January 2013 that India had over 400,000 base stations in its cellular telephony infrastructure. It had an admiring word for these stations coping with a massive power blackout that affected 700 million people in the country in July 2012, because they had diesel backup power.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/cellular-towers-moving-to-solar-power/

However, the Scientific American article mentioned above reported that 3.2 billion litres of diesel fuel were consumed by the Indian telecom industry in 2011. We do not know what fraction of this goes into backup power for base stations. The biggest concern is that in the event of a major disaster such as the flooding in Uttarakhand in 2013, towers could run out of diesel fuel and that the area could be left inaccessible by phone for many days.

A Wikipedia article mentions that in the aftermath of hurricane Sandy that hit New York and New Jersey in 2012, up to 25% of mobile phone towers were powerless.

http://solarenergy.net/News/another-way-solar-can-change-the-world-solar-powered-cell-phone-towers/   gives us hope that cell phone towers can be converted to run on solar energy and save us money and reduce pollution. However, this does not seem to be happening too fast in India. See the following report from the Economic Times of September 2013:

Less than 1% of India’s 4.4 lakh telecom towers powered by clean fuel

In view of the importance of cell phone towers, authorities concerned should have an audit carried out regarding India’s disaster-preparedness in this regard.

END 

Salman Khan’s Caste

I had written some time ago about Amitabh Bhachan’s caste. http://obvioustruths.blogspot.in/2013/05/amitabh-bachan-oncaste-karnataka-state.html

Now, the focus is on Salman Khan.
http://indianexpress.com/article/entertainment/bollywood/im-both-hindu-and-muslim-salman-khan-in-court/

Following a legal practice that was probably introduced by the British over a century ago, arms of Govt identify a person by name, religion, and caste. Why can’t India legislate out this practice? If it is only for identifying me, I believe that size of shoe I wear would be a more useful bit of information!

My hats off to Salman for answering “Indian” when he was asked his caste!

I got reminded of a time long ago when we were trying to get admission for our daughter in a well-known school in Mumbai. As I filled up the application form, I ignored the item that asked for my religion, and put in a dash there. The admission sought was for the KG class and there was an interview. From the way our daughter reeled off the questions she had been asked and the answers she said she had given, we thought that the school would appoint her as a teacher! But, alas, her name was not on the selection list. My wife and I asked for an appointment with the Head of the School, a highly respected missionary. On hearing our complaint, the Principal showed us the application form I had filled up and explained that she was concerned about the future of children who are brought up without a good world view. She said it did not matter what the family’s religion was, as long as there was a religion. She explained how engrossed in the material pursuits of life, parents often forget to instill good ideas in the minds of their children. She said that brings all kinds of problems as the children grow up.

I have no quarrel with the world view argument. I shudder to think of children who are brought up without ethical and moral values.  I do believe that they should learn about life and death, good and bad, humanity and inhumanity. They should learn to respect the bit of altruism that makes humans what they are, and be proud that they have it in them. But how do I tell a missionary who has spent most of her life educating students that I consider that traditional religious beliefs are not the only way to create a human world view?

I asked for the form and wrote the name of a religion where it was asked for. My daughter got admitted into that school. I felt I had been a coward. 

Hand crushed, and in need of surgery? CMC, Vellore offers hope.

Hand crushed, and in need of surgery? CMC, Vellore is one place that offers hope to people in that situation. See this announcement:

For Rs 5430 (roughly equivalent to US $ 90), they offer two days of hospitalisation and full treatment. What if it takes four days of hospitalization? Then you pay a total of Rs 9020 (about US $ 150).

Healthcare is affordable if those who offer it do it as a service! Of course, part of the cost could be coming from donors all over the world.

Is India ready for an eighth-magnitude earthquake near a metro?

The tragic earth quake that has hit Nepal is a warning for all of us in India. It has been said that earth quakes don’t kill, but falling buildings do. Ours is a country notorious for its inability to enforce building codes. Politicians and bureaucrats have made a mockery of building codes. Irregularities are there in the majority of buildings. Laws are enacted to “regularize” malpractices by paying some money. 

Malls are allowed to come up in the middle of cities without adequate parking. The roads are overloaded. The sewage system gets overloaded making most malls “the stinking malls” of India.

In the midst of all this, some cities are planning to encourage very tall buildings, allowing a floor space (FSI) index as high as 6 or more! What will happen if a major earthquake hits a metropolitan city, killing several hundred thousand people? 

Whose responsibility is it to mitigate such a disaster by tightening up on the inspection of buildings and eliminating corruption? Who will review the accountability of traffic management authorities and fire services? Who will ensure that they are allowed to operate without interference from corrupt politicians? Who will ensure that architects, builders and authorities who give occupancy certificates are held accountable long after the buildings are complete?

Narayana Murthy hosts Prof J G Krishnayya’s 80th birthday

It was a great event on Sunday the 12^th April 2015, focusing on the sustainability of India; it was held at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmadabad (IIMA). I was delighted to hear Jayaram Ramesh speak on the subject with knowledge and passion, and to hear the veteran, Ashok Khosla. It was a pleasure to see Prof Jaswant Krishnayya as intellectually active as ever.  

You can read more about the event at

http://www.ahmedabadmirror.com/ahmedabad/others/at-iim-murthy-hosts-first-employers-80th-birthday/articleshow/46912625.cms

Shashi Sharma had done excellent organization of the event. 

Net Neutrality – my replies to the TRAI questions

Please refer to

Consultation Paper on Regulatory Framework for Over-the-top (OTT) services, Consultation Paper No: 2/2015, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), 27th March, 2015  http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReaddata/ConsultationPaper/Document/OTT-CP-27032015.pdf

I have responded only to some of those questions; the ones that are important to me. My answer to Question 9: “What are your views on net neutrality in the Indian context?” deals with an issue that has not got public attention. There is a lot of hype about the number of cell phones in India exceeding 900 million and the fact that a significant fraction of them are potentially capable of accessing the mobile Internet. My answer deals with unfair charging that holds back progress in taking the Internet to the bulk of India.

Question 1: Is it too early to establish a regulatory framework for Over The Top (OTT) services? 

A clear recognition has to exist that providing communication capacity is a different business from creating and distributing content and providing services using communications. If we recognize the difference, we could establish a regulatory framework for OTT services as well. The fundamental point is that giving Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) any control over charging users of communication capacity differently, or otherwise treating them differently, is wrong. These are different industries and each should be protected from the other.

Question 3:  Is the growth of OTT impacting the traditional revenue stream of TSPs?

Yes; the growth has impacted on them very positively! A TRAI publication     Telecom Sector in India: A Decadal Profile, 2012, Telecom Regulatory    Authority of India, 2012, 

http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/Publication/Document/201304121052403536675NCAER--Report08june12.pdf

has pointed out that "Internet users in India expanded at a significantly high CAGR of 32.27 percent during the period 2000–10". The Telecom Service Providers have not been losing money due to all this growth! The telecom sector has received on average 8.2 per cent of total inward FDI between 2000–01 and 2010–11, indicating that the sector has been very attractive to investors. The telecom sector pays handsomely every year in telecom spectrum auctions to buy capacity to dish out mobile Internet services.  

The telecom sector cannot complain that the OTT sector makes profits. That would be like the taxi trade complaining that the restaurants make a bigger profit on feeding customers than they themselves make in carrying them to the restaurants. 

The OTTs have not been free of regulation. For instance, voice over IP is explicitly provided for under the telecom rules, under certain restrictions. Clearly, authorities all over the world have recognized that new technologies may be very competitive in relation to older technologies. So, what we do? Should we handicap new technologies till they cannot compete? If video over IP is less expensive than video over circuit switching, should we kill it before it takes off?  

No monopoly in OTT services is supported by regulation. On the other hand the number of TSPs in a given circle seems to be fairly tightly controlled by regulation. I cannot find a third TSP who can give me Internet connectivity over a landline to my place in the heart of Bangalore.

Question 4: Should the OTT players pay for use of the TSPs network over and above data charges paid by consumers?

Can a taxi operator demand that restaurants be required to pay them over and above what the customers pay to be taken to restaurants?

Question 7: How should the OTT players offering app services ensure security, safety and privacy of the consumer?

Yes. In particular, they should not compel users to share the details of their contacts (colleagues, friends and relatives) stored on phones/computers. They should ask for no more information than is strictly required to provide them the service their app is designed for. If they support taxi/auto services, they should take responsibility in ensuring that only licensed and identity-verified drivers are sent to customer premises. They cannot merely depend upon conduct certificates given by police!

They should innovate to use technology to improve security. They should ensure that all communication to the driver takes place only through a cell phone number which has been registered with the app service provider. At present I have seen the service provider send me one cell number as the driver’s number and some driver calls up using another cell phone! He explains that he carries two phones and that the other phone has run out of charge!

Question 9: What are your views on net-neutrality in the Indian context?

The most glaring violation of net neutrality in the Indian context is the punitive pricing of Internet access by cell phone service providers to beginning users and other small volume users. I pay roughly Rs 250 per month for 1 GB capacity per month over the cellular network, through a data plan. A student had asked me to get her an article on rice from the Internet for her. The article which met the needs was 6 MB in size as it had some photographs. I downloaded it (using my landline connection) and printed it for her. What about other articles she might need? Should I demonstrate to her how she could use her cell phone and access small articles which she could at least read on the screen? What would this cost her? I found that it would cost her (at that time) 3 paise per 10 KB over a 3G connection as she has no data plan; she just cannot afford a data plan. A bit of arithmetic told me that the rate for was twelve times the rate I was paying. I do not know what argument about Internet technology would justify this overcharging by a factor of 12! Is this neutrality between poor users and middle class users?

There could be a 50% or even 100% charge extra for those who do not have a data plan, but 1100% extra?

I would suggest it should be mandatory for any cellular wireless service provider to offer a 100 MB per month data plan at a price that is not exploitative. I would consider Rs 25 per month a fair charge for this service. At least the Government’s own cellular service provider should offer such a pack.

Question 12: Who should bear the network upgradation costs?

Should restaurants pay the taxi operators to replace vehicles when they become too old to run?

end

Government buildings in Chennai to have ramps

Good news for those on a wheelchair! The Chennai Corporation has decided that government buildings should have ramps to help visitors on wheelchairs.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/Many-miles-to-go-on-the-wheelchair/articleshow/46902136.cms

I had a posting on this blog

http://obvioustruths.blogspot.in/2014/04/why-are-indian-buildings-unfriendly-to.html

on this subject.

I would appeal to readers to launch and/or support a change.org petition to the Central Govt. Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment to enforce this rule all over India. This Ministry is the one responsible for dealing with the problems of the disabled.

Ensuring that a vaccine you depend on is not a dud

Dr Giridhara Babu has done us a service pointing out that a valuable indicator which should be on vaccine packs is often not there.

Visit

Visiting private clinic for immunization?

Dr Giridhara R Babu, April 08, 2015, DHNS

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/470363/visiting-private-clinic-immunisation.html

He points out that you may be worse off if you get a vaccine shot at a private hospital. Government hospitals usually use vaccine that are guarded by a printed image named the Vaccine Vial Monitor. If the vial is not kept at specified low temperatures all the way from the factory to the place of use, the image changes its shape/color and warns you that the contents cannot be relied upon. Vaccines at private clinics do not necessarily use the VVM device.

I have myself taken expensive “flu shots” in private hospitals and I can assure you that there was no VVM on those packages. Why not? What prevents the government from banning the sale/use of vaccines not protected by VVM?

More information can be found on VVMs, including a very descriptive image, at

http://www.path.org/blog/2014/07/5-billion-strong/

Dr Babu's article goes beyond protecting vaccines through cold chains. There is another point he makes about an unethical medical practice that is unrelated to vaccines. However, that is also worth thinking about and protesting against. 

The role of the World Wide Web in promoting transparency

I found a Times of India item on the Web today about medical colleges which show to the regulatory agencies fake lists of professors they claim to have on their faculty. The professors appear on campus miraculously on the day any inspecting committee turns up. Visit

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/On-the-trail-of-ghost-faculty-in-private-medical-colleges/articleshow/46810529.cms

Incidentally, it is unfair to focus only on “private medical colleges” here. There have been reports in the press of government medical colleges using “short-term transfers” to make up for non-existent faculty too! Visit

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-kerala/kerala-loses-350-mbbs-seats/article7009287.ece

I have a simple suggestion. The regulatory agencies should ask the colleges to have permanently on the websites a list of faculty, giving the dates indicating the period they served the institution and details such as qualifications, department and designation. There should be enough information for anyone to figure out if the professor named is a real one or a ghost!

Prof R Narasimhan Memorial Lectures - International Conferences in India can get grants for inviting speakers

Tata Institute of Fundamental Research has designed a poster for 2015 to publicize Prof R Narasimhan Memorial Lectures. Visit
http://www.tifr.res.in/~endowment/prof-r-narasimhan-lecture-award.htm
This endowment offers a grant annually to a selected international conference in India in the area of computer science and technology to cover travel costs of an invited speaker.

You can ask the TIFR
Public Relations Officer <pro@tifr.res.in>
to send you a copy of the colorful poster for display at your institution. 

Untangle India

I took this picture recently on the streets of Coimbatore. You can take such pictures anywhere in the country. The practice of putting up with shoddy wiring exemplifies the “chalta hai” (it will do!) attitude to construction and maintenance. Our engineers may be great in publishing new algorithms, but when it comes to wiring by technicians, they will put up with anything that works for the moment. The worst mess in India is made by cable TV service providers. There is no regulation of their wiring, which jumps across streets, spans distances no engineer would dream of, and even invades tree branches in parks.

The phone and Internet connection of a resident in our building was cut last week by mistake when somebody was reconnecting wires in the junction box in the electrical room. He was there with the phone company’s technician when wires were re-connected. The junction box was a complete rat’s nest of wires, tangled and intertwined with one another. It's easy to see how someone could make a mistake and cut the wrong wires since nothing is labelled or cleanly visible. It is not uncommon to hear your phone ring and hear a technician asking you your flat number! That is often the only way he can figure out which wire goes where. No one seems to have heard of any wiring standards.

India is proud to have over 18 million wired Internet connections and 28 million wireline telephones. You are lucky when they are working. Any day a small change has to be made to accommodate new connections near your residence, there is a good chance that your connection will stop working!

Swachh Bharat (a clean India), yes! Let us also have an untangled India, in which wiring follows some discipline and can be maintained without messing around.

Appeal to architects – Design buildings to be smart phone friendly

I was visiting a relative in a hospital today. My tablet could not pick up 3G signals in the waiting room and in the patient’s room. Why? They have metal grills covering the glass windows even on the fifth floor! The grills are large and cover a lot of the external wall area. They will surely keep burglars from breaking and entering! But, I don’t think burglars want to steal intravenous feeding stands by coming in through the 5^th floor window! Not in a hospital which is bustling with hundreds of people all the time.

I believe that professors of architecture should emphasize the importance of cell phones and smart phones in peoples’ lives today. These devices have to be used in the busiest of places – hospitals, airports, railway stations, and company as well as government buildings open to the public. Students of architecture should learn about the permeability of building materials to electromagnetic waves. They must know how Wi-Fi systems work and learn to design buildings which will allow Wi-Fi and cell phone networks to most of the built-up area.

Know-how about electromagnetic signal propagation will also help architects to prohibit cell phone usage where necessary, in a natural way. Places of worship, courts, and some government offices are best served by walls with embedded wire mesh! Such walls will automatically disable cell phone usage!

A friend who reviewed this note said “Perhaps the grill is to prevent people from jumping out of the windows”. I think that can be prevented by hospital sending the patients' bills through burly security guards and having them keep watch till the bills are paid!