Tinted film ban, does it solve the intent

In the Avishek Goenka Vs. Union of India & Anr. case the SC came out with a judgement banning use of any kind of film or other material which reduces the visibility of the glass on which it has been put.

Also this judgement speciifes that this is applicable on any four wheeler. One of the main points taken up the petitioner was to prevent Kidnapping/Molestation etc, he suggested this method.

 Court seems to have agreed with him and has passed a judgement banning the use of tinted film on four wheelers. It is a moot point to say whether crimes happen only on four wheelers and not on vehicles that have more or less wheels, when these vehicles go unchecked.

Obiviously judges are clear on their intent that no vehicle can move around using any kind of material that can reduce the visibility of the people inside to the people outside. Interestingly we have seen public personalities calling on the cops to give them exemptions from this rule.

It is now seen in many a luxury car thereis a facility to have a screen inside the car which is provided to cut the intensity of light that goes into the car. There is a mechanically operated screen which will slide up or down to block the window glass, in the name of Sun protection package. 

It has been a tradition in the cars of certain communities to use sliding curtains inside to ensure the passengers are not seen by the people from outside, call it by any name, these also help the person indie the car from being seen.

Mute question is whether the removal of the film has helped the cops reduce crime or enforcing the rule has helped them make some quick bucks. No doubt Vinyl film industry must be hurt but, they will have to find innovative ways to come back i presume.

Now the cops are, where ever possible, trying to enforce the law as stipulated by the SC, but is this the best way to look at solving the problem of kidnapping in a four wheeler. With focus being more on passenger cars vans and other means of transport is escaping the attention of the cops n i believe those vehicles can be used for committing the said crime. 

I am not advocating use of films but India being a tropical country where heat and sun light are harsh, can a thinktank sit down and work out effective alternatives rather than a simple ban which is neither enforceable in full nor ensured compliance by goading.
(images used are the property of the respective owners and have been used only to depict the purpose) 

People selection for critical posts

In everyday life we encounter people working in certain noble professions like Nurses, Teachers etc. however it is often felt whether they belong in those professions.

Let us look at a nurse, she is expected to carry out tasks as part of her profession which we people despise to do even for our own kin. Now just imagine if the same person has short temper and starts shouting at the patient or his attendant causing tremendous bad blood, we start cursing the whole community of nurses though it is one person who is at fault.

A teacher is nurse the talent of a child who has been endowed to their custody by the parents. There are indeed many a noble teacher who feels it is a great privilege taking care of hundreds who come to learn from them. But like in any profession there will be certain black sheep who are ill tempered and they will cause disrepute to the entire community of teachers.

We can go on talking about Bus/Cab drivers, who are required to maintain their cool and avoid road rages, counselors who are expected to guide the info seekers, Customer service agents who receive customer complaints /feedback etc to ensure satisfaction.

I had an experience with the Israel security agency, as I was put through a series of questions when I was to visit that country to attend a Agro expo in the year 1996. The amount of patience the interrogator displays in repeating the same/similar set of questions to every traveler to their country. Some questions might sound too stupid and extrinsic for us but probably they have been recruited and trained to perform their duty. My point here is the patience that person shows in the entire process. Key is the process of recruitment, he has to qualify to be patient first only then he will be selected for that position.

Coming to our noble professions we have hoards of people who are vying to get a job, not tested for their patience levels and who will one day or the other burst out, not being able to contain their anger. We do come across news reports of teachers giving lashings, stringent punishments etc, which sometimes leading to the death/impairment of a child. While the news might go out of our mind soon, but the scar that leaves on the child or its family will take ages to get wiped out. Is it not necessary to first screen people on attributes/personality traits, based on the profession they wish to pursue, if they don’t qualify for essential attributes, they should never be allowed to pursue that particular profession.

In a country which claims to have huge unemployment talks with the same breath we do not have ‘Qualified’ people, so where are we going wrong, in making people employable or allowing wrong people to do the job. It is never too late to start a good thing, the HRD ministry can stipulate certain yardsticks/norms in the selection process of individuals for various posts. They should allow private players to come in to set up both training and testing centers. Like we have today various rating norms for businesses, these training and testing centers too should be made to undergo rating and display their ratings in a prominent way. They can always provide subsidized/free training & testing by covering the cost through various schemes they have for the deprived and down trodden. May be Aadhar can play a role here too.

Have the best doing a job which needs the best to deliver.

Animosity-up to when

In life we encounter people who will hurt us by their action or words. We do have a choice to talk to them or maintain a distance. An individual's action may or may not keep us away from other members of the family.
Now suppose the person who caused the hurt is dead, now should one keep away from the rest of the family or maintain relationship with other members of the family.

Till death do us apart, can this adage apply in this case, I believe animosity with an individual should not be carried on with his family who are no way connected with the hurt caused by the deceased, after the death of that individual.

If this condition is kept in mind, probably many a revenge killing might not happen.

Are airlines no longer worried about customer service

jet-airways which operates the #Jetkonnect airline gave its passengers an experience which they would like to grudgingly forget.
9W 2735 flight on 9th November 2012 was scheduled to depart by 6AM, unusually they started boarding the passengers by 5-15AM and all of us were in the flight by almost 5-40AM. Then about 6AM an announcement comes from the first officer that the visibility at Bengaluru airport was poor and they will get their next weather update at 6.30 and asked us to bear with it.
at 6.30 the commander himself made an announcement that whether has not improved and next announcement at 7AM. again at 7 AM we were told thre is slight improvement and not enough for flight to takeoff.
In the meanwhile crew started selling breakfast to those hungry passengers, since most or all of us reached the airport by 5AM (meaning a wake up of about 3 or 3.30 AM depending where you live), suddenly by about 7.10 the main steward came and informed the cr

ew which were selling breakfast that we are rolling as weather has improved and the crew stopped selling and were getting ready for the takeoff.
An announcement was made over the PA that we are set to takeoff, that is when the drama started. Suddenly instead of closing the doors, we see passengers walking in, this drama continued till all the vacant seats got filled up.
What it meant was a flight was to leave at 8.45 and Jet decided to fill this aircraft empty seats with those who came in early. from what we understand there was no prior info that 8.45 flight was cancelled but those who came early were told that flight was cancelled and made to fly in this aircraft.
In the process our flight was delayed till about 8AM, naturally provoking angry protests form the passengers who were seated since about 5.30AM for a 40 minute flight in the aircraft.
Interesting thing was only the junior stewards were apologetic and helpless, neither the Chief steward nor the commander had any apologies to offer for those who have been patiently waiting for their flight to take off n reach them to their destination.
Jetairways probably was either reducing their loss by packing in as many passengers in to the earlier flight flight which was anyway delayed or they had over bookings for the next flight and wanted to make best of the situation.
But not even considering apologising to the passengers for this herding of next flight passengers into a already delayed flight which was scheduled for a 6AM depaprture.

This only goes to show what happens when there is not enough competition to any business to put it on its toes

Address for rent

Thanks to the digging by the media post AK allegations on Nitin Gadkari, now lot of filth is coming out as to how the investments were routed into Gadkari companies.

One prominent factor that has come to light is the fake addresses for various companies that have invested
In Gadkari companies.

As per the admission of one of the house owners, he was lured by the rent that was promised to lend his address for registering a fake company, a fact obviously not known to the house owner.

As it now transpires, this practice seems to be quite prevalent across the financial capital n Kolkata.
Kolkata generally known for round tripping of investments, seems to be yielding space to Mumbai as the next round tripping capital.

It is irony that only few days before Kirit Somiya the BJP MP took the media to a particular building to bring out Chagan Bujbals fake investment companies, now it was the turn of the media to go to the same building to dig out filth on Gadkari.

What is ROC doing in this regard. Is it so difficult for them to keep periodically checking duplicate addresses n verify them in specific.

While they have a DIN for directors, they obviously seem to be missing one for addresses.

May be it can be a good move for the new minister for company affairs to look into, or will he do something which is obviously going to hurt his ilk.

Garbage Segregation at home - only way to go forward

It is obvious that the city planners are not only having their hands full but also their dumps full in regards to the handling of Garbage. Bengaluru had recently witnessed a huge problem of finding places to dump its garbage.

We keep reading that 60% of the garbage generated by households could be re-cycled but is getting added to the food waste and is being dumped as a whole for collection by the garbage compactors. While civic bodies can bring in rules to ask commercial establishments to follow some norms and punish them, if they don’t, when it comes to domestic it is unlikely to work and no Corporator/Councillor worth his salt would like to face the wrath of his voters.

Under these circumstances what is that could be done at domestic level where by convenience we would like to dump everything into our dustbins and dump it all in the garbage bins placed outside our buildings or in our locality. I believe there needs to be a two pronged strategy to make segregation successful.

Step 1: Get a 3pc garbage bin developed which is detachable (three bins can be simply clipped together with a removable clip like the one in the picture). These bins naturally will be colour coded as per the universally agreed colour codes for segregation. Larger bin will be used for Re-cycleble material, brown can be used for food waste and other bin for material like glass n metals, batteries n electronic waste which need a different kind of disposal. Food waste from the ‘Brown’ bin alone needs to go to the garbage bins. India being a major re-cycle nation other waste can be even sold to the ‘Raddhiwala’ or dumped appropriately as designated by the civic authorities.

Step 2: Children who are most likely to play a very important role in this entire program should be extensively taught at schools about the colour coding of the waste and why it needs to be followed. Primarily in the interest of their own future, slowly children can be encouraged to even campaign among their neighbourhood about the importance of segregation. Children are likely to play a very vital role when it comes to the segregation of waste at home as per the colour coding. Once the codes get in to their mind we can even expect the children guiding the adults about the right ways of waste disposal.

Step 3: City planners can come up with a compulsory segregation plan like the Rain water harvesting work done in Chennai to set up waste segregators at every house hold/ apartment complex in addition to the commercial establishments. All new buildings and complexes could be asked to incorporate food waste conversion/gasification plants, there are enough bio-digesters available for domestic needs in the international market. Existing homes can be incentivised to incorporate the same or penalised for not installing the same. Gas thus produced from the digesters can be used for producing energy at that location.

Step 4: Civic authorities should ensure there are colour coded bins available at every locality for extensive segregation. Food waste drums should not be part of these. All food waste bins have to be populated closer homes and should be emptied every 48 hours at the least. Now that the other waste is separated people should be encouraged to come and dump the same at designated bins only. If any violators are there punitive measures can be thought of. Sold waste which has been separated at source can either be disposed of to the re-cyclers or in such a way it need not go to the dump yards.

Step 5: NGO’s which are engaged in educating the public at large about the waste disposal system, will have to start playing a major role in ensuring the colour coding is understood by all including the maids of the households. This is possible when people living in the slums too are educated on the colour codes. In this regard corporate could be roped in to establishing /providing the ‘colour coded domestic bins’ free of cost to the people living in slums.

Since theft of bins is a common complaint, a law could be passed to prevent the bins from being purchased from the stealers that any of these colour coded bins are found with un authorised persons they will be sent to prison.

Once the Step 3 is implemented in right earnest the problem of disposing the food waste will be taken care of. Nothing can be achieved at one go, efforts should be taken to start the program at selected locations and then spread to the rest of the city/town. Involving public education can be suitably done through Radio and TV by roping in the celebrities too when required.

Play Grounds, Lung spaces where are they

We keep reading about 70’s & 80’s where children could play in the open and how world has changed since then. Yes technology might have made it difficult to move a child out of the home, but most importantly our own will to demand things is the main cause for the present state of affairs.

Other than roads, where are the open spaces for the children to paly, today’s schools do not have play grounds but we are so keen to admit our children ina particular school because of its academics but never demand to ask if they have a play area for the kids which is a requirement at that age for a proper growth.

Except for some noted schools which have not succumbed to the commercial interests, some play area is still available, but most of the new gen schools don’t even have space for parking of vehicles of the staff, leave alone play areas.

When it comes to public spaces where children can go and play we have very minimal availability, except in the old planned development areas like Anna Nagar, CIT colony, Ghandinagar etc we could find some parks but otherwise nothing much. In the name of development even that space is usurped and we are only silent spectators for these whole tamasha. In Bengaluru in addition to the two major lung spaces in the heart of the city Cubbon Park & lal Bagh most of the new layouts have got parks and also have enough space in the land earmarked for setting up schools for play areas.

Today we are planning Greater Chennai, we have innumerable legal illegal layouts all around the city with 20’ roads and no public spaces and these are going to be part of the future of Chennai. Even the regulated OSR space can be purchased by the developer by paying a premium, so where is that we are going to see some green space in future.

Our city is reported to have about 4000 public & private schools and I can wager a bet that not even 10% will have play areas. When will the planners of the city have the forethought to plan ahead. Some of the present day developers are actually showing the way. To market their properties they are asking city schools to set up branches in their project land. While this could ensure some play areas in those schools, it is time city planners take some drastic steps.

·         There should be minimum guidelines for starting a school with stipulation for play areas.

·         Existing schools to be made to comply with the rules

·         If schools have to go to suburbs to comply with rules, so be it.

·         There is anyway RTE act to ensure admission for all classes of children in such schools which are in city and are complying with rules.

No doubt it will hurt us because we have to either shift our homes to the suburbs or send our children on a long commute every day, if it is all for, our own family members health why not, we have to make these sacrifices.

This will actually help de-congest the city and ensure healthy growth of the suburbs, even the city planners can plan for infra keeping the commuting requirement of the population of the city and people living in suburbs.

Disclaimer: All the pictures used in this blog are  properties of the respective copy right owners and have been used only to depict the plight of the Indian child