Dr FC Kohli was born on March 19, 1924. This Tuesday (March 24) will be his Centenary Birthday. He was a Founder of our software and services sector, and his leadership created one of the significant developments in high-quality employment for many Indians using a sustainable economic model. We must remember him gratefully on this occasion.
Srinivasan Ramani
I wrote a short article,
https://obvioustruths.blogspot.com/2024/02/banks-going-downhill.html, on
February 20th. A month has yet to pass, but I found another bank doing as badly
as the first one.
Remember, we get warnings frequently asking us not to
click on links in strange messages. So, I was nervous when I received a message
from this bank asking me to click on a strange link to do my re-kyc. I called
the customer service center and asked if this was a genuine message from the bank.
I would not have hesitated if I had been asked to log in to the bank’s portal,
which I regularly use.
The person handling the call asked for all kinds of
identification and told me to go to the bank branch to solve the problem. I
gave her a blessing, and with some trepidation, I clicked on the strange link
and filled in the form displayed. Essentially, I declared that the details shown,
such as my address and PAN number, were correct. But when I hit the submit
button, it said, " Currently unable to handle this request." I
was happy to bless the portal designer as well!
As the next step, I emailed the bank address that
used to handle e-banking complaints. The response was very prompt. Within
minutes, my email bounced, saying that the address did not exist.
Another blessing, this time to the whole bank! I hope the
owner will sell it while someone is still willing to pay something for it!
Srinivasan Ramani
15-03-2024
I gave a talk at the Sixth Annual Convention of the Bureau of IT Education Standards in Mysore on 1-03-2024. The convention theme was Intelligent Systems. In this context, as a joke, I asked Microsoft Copilot to make me an image of Prof. Sadagopan (Chair, BITES) sitting in a small plane as a trainee pilot. The reply I received was the following story:
QUOTE
I
apologize, but I am unable to create images directly. However, I
can undoubtedly describe an imaginative scene for you:
Title:
“Professor Sowmyanarayan Sadagopan's First Solo Flight”
In
a quaint little airfield nestled amidst rolling hills, the sun painted the sky
with hues of orange and pink. The air smelled of aviation fuel and
anticipation. Professor Sowmnarayan Sadagopan, renowned computer scientist and
academician, stood by a small Cessna 172, his heart racing.
Dressed
in a crisp pilot uniform, Professor Sadagopan adjusted his aviator sunglasses
and ran his fingers over the plane’s smooth metal surface. His instructor,
Captain Amelia, a seasoned pilot with twinkling eyes, stood beside him.
“Ready
for your first solo flight, Professor?” Captain Amelia asked, her voice both
encouraging and mischievous.
Professor
Sadagopan nodded, his palms slightly sweaty. He had spent countless hours
studying aerodynamics, navigation, and flight procedures. But nothing could
prepare him for the exhilaration of being in the pilot’s seat alone.
He
climbed into the cockpit, the leather seat hugging him snugly. The engine
roared to life, and the propeller spun, creating a whirlwind of excitement. The
control yoke felt solid in his hands, and he glanced at the instrument panel—a
symphony of dials, switches, and blinking lights.
“Remember
your training,” Captain Amelia reminded him. “Keep your eyes on the horizon,
and don’t forget to breathe.”
With
a deep breath, Professor Sadagopan taxied the plane to the runway. The wind
whispered secrets as he lined up, heart pounding. The tower’s voice crackled
through the headset: “Cessna 172, cleared for takeoff.”
He
pushed the throttle forward, feeling the surge of power. The wheels left the
ground, and suddenly, he was airborne. The world fell away, and it was just
him, the plane, and the boundless sky.
As
he circled the airfield, Professor Sadagopan marveled at the patchwork of
fields below. The sun dipped lower, casting long shadows. He remembered his
childhood dream of flying—an aspiration that had led him from algorithms to
altitudes.
Captain
Amelia’s voice echoed in his mind: “You’re doing great, Professor. Trust
yourself.”
And
so, with determination, he executed gentle turns, climbed higher, and dipped
lower. The wind tousled his hair, and he grinned like a child with a secret.
The small plane danced under his command, and for those precious minutes, he
was more than a professor—he was a trainee pilot, soaring toward the horizon.
As
the sun touched the distant hills, Professor Sadagopan lined up for his final
approach. The runway stretched out before him, a welcoming ribbon of asphalt.
With precision, he touched down, the wheels kissing the ground. The engine’s
hum faded, and he taxied back to the hangar.
Captain
Amelia clapped him on the back. “Congratulations, Pilot Sadagopan. You’ve
officially joined the aviators’ club.”
And
there, in the fading light, Professor Sowmnarayan Sadagopan stepped out of the
cockpit, his heart soaring higher than the plane ever could.
Note:
This scene is purely fictional and created for your enjoyment. Professor
Sowmnarayan Sadagopan is a respected academic, and I hope he continues to
inspire others both in the world of computer science and beyond.
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This is a period of development in Indian banking activity. The positive side includes growth in the number of branches, significant increases in the number of users, growth in volume of business, and the use of information technology.
I write about the negative side, involving poor management and poor customer care. I hope
that managers in banking, as well as other sectors, will read the comments here
and introduce improvements wherever they can.
1) The integrity of a bank needs to be
recovered. If you go with a problem to the bank, they may contact other
resources, but should solve your problems. Instead, they now tell you to call
their customer care number. Many activities have been outsourced. The branch
staff are there mainly to point you to some phone number to call or to use some
website to solve your problems.
2) The bank itself needs to adequately
understand technology, let alone the tiny companies that handle outsourced
tasks. A branch of one big bank has
removed PCs from staff members' desks. Staff who used to provide good customer
care have been posted out, presumably to handle new branches. Untrained staff
or interns try to handle customer care using their cell phones. They usually try
to call their customer service centers.
3) Cellphone signals are poor inside
the branch office, and hence Internet connectivity is poor. So the staff often go
out the office door to use their cell phones. The PCs would have given them LAN
connectivity.
4) It is common for customer care
numbers shown on websites to be wrong. Customer
care centers sometimes give me the wrong phone numbers to get something done.
5) I have had customer care numbers
tell me I am 51 on the waiting list. Voice response systems are not meant to
keep callers hanging for 30 minutes or more! Such systems should have adequate
capacity to respond to customers in five minutes or less.
6) No one seems to audit how many
customers who try to carry out tasks on the bank’s websites drop out in
desperation because the site is not user-friendly.
B Many bank websites do not work correctly. If you complain, the bank asks you to use their cell phone apps based on more up-to-date technology. Why don't the banks have their websites tell you to use a cell phone app instead of asking you to log in and suffer the confusion caused by obsolete technology?
Srinivasan Ramani
I saw a simple BP monitor on a conveniently accessible wall-mounted tray in an office corridor. The quiet corridor gave users some privacy. It was a valuable contribution to the health of staff members. The risk of a stroke for the average adult male is between 2 to 3% per year. The prevalence of stroke has increased by 50 percent over the last 17 years, and at present, 1 in 4 people are at risk of getting a stroke in their lifetime (Visit https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(10)61894-6/fulltext ).
A quote in the
lobby of a well-known hospital says, “What you took a lifetime to learn, you
can lose in minutes. " The reference is to the speed required to deal with
the signs of a stroke. Brain cells start dying, and the faster one acts, the
more one saves.
Undetected high
blood pressure is a silent killer. It hits suddenly.
How can you
reduce the risk of a stroke? Visit https://www.cdc.gov/stroke/risk_factors.htm#:~:text=The%20chance%20of%20having%20a,65%20years%20also%20have%20strokes.
Srinivasan
Ramani
Many Indians face problems when they meet the local police
for verification of residential address for a passport renewal or to complain
about an accident, etc. The police often tell them to sign a document in the regional language. Many countries in the world have their documents in two
languages. The US, which has English as its majority language, has its
documents in English and Spanish. Should the higher courts not rule that every
form used in law and order in India should be in the regional language as well as in the
national language?
States of India should recognize that inconveniencing
Indians who do not know their regional language is not improving their ease of doing
business index. They are cutting their nose to spite their own face! Wooing global
investors to invest in their states and acting jingoistically is
counterproductive.
Srinivasan Ramani
Let us assume that a new Dedicated Freight Corridor was created by Indian Railways, connecting the Kochi port with Madurai and then Thondi on the east coast of India. It should skirt thickly populated areas. The distance is approximately 378 km. It should be at least a double line with a few stops en route, including one near Madurai. The line may require some tunneling. Some parts of it might have to be elevated above the ground. While Kochi has significant infrastructure, Thondi would need an entirely new port built with a large container handling capability. Thoothukudi has some infrastructure but expanding that port will pose problems because ships there need to navigate the relatively shallow Gulf of Mannar.
This
project would serve many countries including ASEAN and African countries.
It will speed up traffic between the west and the east and reduce costs and
energy consumption. China would benefit from this project too because of faster
transportation of goods to the Middle East, EU, and Africa.
The
domestic significance of this project should not be underestimated as we will plan
to connect Thondi with all major ports on the East Coast by ships carrying
containerized freight. Cargo from the west going to cities on the east coast
would then be significantly speeded up. Cargo from the east going to cities on
the west coast would be similarly speeded up. Some loads on the existing inter-city
freight corridors would be reduced. By creating new routes for freight
movement, the corridor would ruggedize India’s transport infrastructure.
Given state-of-the-art
technology, the corridor could be all-electric and primarily carry
containerized freight. It will use high-speed trains and will be highly
automated. If the corridor has a capacity of about 100 million tons/year in
each direction, it will find no shortage of demand. Multilateral and bilateral
funding would be easily available for investing. Job creation would be a major
contribution. Another significant contribution would be in reducing fossil fuel
usage, thereby contributing to climate change control efforts.
Hopefully,
the corridor’s freight-carrying capacity can be increased in the future,
through incremental investment. 200 million tons each way would be an ideal
goal.
Srinivasan
Ramani
The future will need people with a high-quality education. AI is reducing opportunities for those with a mediocre education. Further, techno...
