Bharat Ratna Atal Bihari Vajpayee

Today we are celebrating 90th birthday of Shree Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He have been declared as Bharat Ratna yesterday for his contribution to the country as its prime minister and polity as a leader.

Atal as a character is as awesome as any politician can be. His personality and talents are multidimensional. He is a statesman, administrator, demagogue, orator above excellence, poet, writer, journalist and an occasional manipulator. He was a moderate face of BJP for over 2 decades when party was being created at grassroots by LK Advani. Among his all skills I especially admire his oratory. While speaking he rose above all. His grip over language and vocabulary left me mesmerised. He will use 10 different words while expressing same thought, still audience will not find it repetitive because his words will belong to whole of distribution of Hindi. He will switch between very sanskritized words, urdu words and modern anglicized words effortlessly. These switch between one end of Hindi to another are melodious in a way that left listeners hypnotised.

Another more famous and unique characteristic of his oratory were pauses which sometime lasted as long as 10 seconds. It is these pauses which are butt of jokes. One of the jokes said Doodle to celebrate Atal’s Birthday will be like

Sometime these pauses were required so that audience could decipher his complex words, his deep ideas, some time it was a gap for accolades to die down and some other times it was just his style. It is a known fact that pause is an integral part of public speaking but none used pauses as effectively as Atalji did.

But what I like about his oratory skills was his body language, especially his facial expression while speaking. He could ridicule people just by his facial expression. Don’t believe me watch this.

He was at his poetic best when he said “Andhera Chhatega, Suraj Niklega, Kamal Khilega” (watch here at the end of video). He was his feisty best when reciting legendary poem on Pakistan. He was articulate and statesman like when he was speaking in parliament before resigning at the end of 13 day Govt. But my favourite speech is when he was giving a speech on Savarkar in Pune.

A Bharat ratna just before his Birthday is fitting tribute to arguably the biggest leader of political right in independent India. It is him, with help of LK Advani who created a political right in India and laid base of hope that current Govt. will break shackles of leftist economics.

P.S. : I can’t help but right a joke on Bharat Ratna now. It is good that Atal ji and Malviya ji have been honoured with Bharat Ratna. Now it is time to Honour Bharat Ratna with Rajnikanth

Electricity Amendment Bill

Central cabinet have just approved Amendment to electricity Act, 2003 which aims to allow competition in power distribution. Right now power market for end consumer is a monopoly in which state Govt decides who will provide electricity in which areas. Everybody knows that such a monopolized market can not be efficient market. current amendment to the electricity act envisioned more than one power supplier competing against each others to provide better services. This is to be done by separating infrastructure owner from the power distributor. So Power lines and poles will be owned by a separate company which will charge the distributor for its infrastructure. I had proposed a similar arrangement earlier for water in Delhi. this kind of arrangement will allow 2-3 players targeting same set of consumers for supplying electricity. They will have differential services and prices. Customer will be free to choose the service provider and will probably make rational decision based on service quality and tariff.

This will be one of the bigger reform measure by Modi Govt. This will not only improve the services for customers but will go long way to improve condition of State discoms as they will now have to compete in market and competing in the market will not be possible unless they cut down power theft (euphemistically called as T&D losses) Probably state Govt. will shun the practice of providing power for free or at subsidy to politically powerful lobbies like farmers etc.

If everything goes according to plan this act will pay way for better electricity conditions in India and will act as strong foundation for “Make In India”.

Premchand

While doing random surfing on facebook today, I saw a picture remembering Premchand (Some people including me really have nothing to do). Premchand, probably biggest name in Hindi literature, is one of my favourite authors.There have been many great Hindi Urdu writers including Ramdhari Singh Dinkar, Mahadevi Verma, Jai Shankar Prasad and probably many more I don’t know or remember about but Premchand will always have a special place. His ability to depict emotions is what separated him from the rest. in class 10, as a part of coursework we were expected to remember life story of few authors, Premchand was one of them. In his life story I never forgot to mention this very special trait of his writing with an example from his story “Poos Ki Raat” where he used an analogy of seeing wolf to portray fear on the face of a character (I hope you will not mind me forgetting the name of that character)

I don’t remember most of my textbook learning apart from generic things like Grammar (Only English, Thanks to CAT and corporate communications), Science and Maths which I have to repeat every now and then. But Premchand stories are different. In my Hindi course I read only 2 of them  (as far as I remember) in my textbooks “Do Bailo Ki Katha and “Poos Ki Raat”. I distinctly remember the bulls ‘Heera’ and ‘Moti’, main protagonist of the first story and their journey which started when they were separated from their original master (Due to who else, his wife) and hardship they faced during the journey back home. Second one was a story of poor farmer who let go his standing crop because it was too difficult to get out of comfort of his bed, kambal and campfire during a chilly North indian winter.

His Stories and Novels are probably best Hindi literature we have (of course apart from translated Ramayan and Mahabharat). It is sad that most of us (self proclaimed readers who know Hindi) ignore quality Hindi literature and focus solely on substandard English crap. Probably because of our brains are hardwired to demean our culture and idolise everything English.

I make a promise to myself that i will start reading Hindi literature and may be someday write something as well.

For those who are interested can find collection of Premchand here

Letter to Arvind Kejriwal

Dear Mr. Kejriwal,

Sorry I will not refer to you as Sir today because you are losing my respect fast. I had respected you as an activist and a person with conviction. You stood up and tried to change the world. People showed their faith in you to provide solution to their problem. You Mr. CM have been failing big time in providing the solutions and have thought of spreading anarchy as a substitute to the solutions.

I will take current case of Dharna against central Govt. to get control of Delhi Police to show what a good solution should have been which would have ensured accountability as well as saved Delhi from the chaos you and your fellow activists are causing. First let me show how your argument for suspending few policemen is fallacious

1. Will things change just for suspension of 5 policemen??

2. I want you to think from the perspective of policemen(Individual person not the system, who also happen to be a citizen of Delhi). They have been working in similar conditions and doing their job similarly form last several years. Now you want them to be suspended just because Delhi people have elected a person as CM who want a Bali ka Bakra for every crime committed.

3. If policemen can affect probe and should be suspended, though the argument have merit, you yourself have several FIR's against you and believe me a CM can affect the probe much more easily than a SHO can. Mr. CM leave you, High Court just ordered an FIR in which Law Minister could be an accused if victim identify him. Again a law minister yield much more power to influence probe than an SHO. why not remove your law minister first?

Mr CM by putting these arguments I am in no way trying to say that accountability of Delhi Police should not be fixed. Yes it should be and is very essential. So here is my conceptual solution for fixing accountability in Delhi Police. Ask public to file complaints against DP in state Govt. complaint boxes and create an agency in Delhi Govt for collating all those complaints and help these complaints reach appropriate forum. I know DP presently have some mechanism for complaint redressal but according to you it is dysfunctional and do not perform properly. Delhi Govt. can do much better than individual in following up and pressuring the higher officials of DP than an individual because of better resources at its disposal. I am assuming that Delhi Govt is much better in managing complaints because that is what you are assuming while asking for control over DP.

Mr. CM I know I am wasting my time in suggesting you the solution because this will not help you get brownie points while a Dharna may get, Still I am suggesting you with this as a patriot.

Thanks

An Indian

Letter to Arvind Kejriwal

Dear Mr. Kejriwal,

Sorry I will not refer to you as Sir today because you are losing my respect fast. I had respected you as an activist and a person with conviction. You stood up and tried to change the world. People showed their faith in you to provide solution to their problem. You Mr. CM have been failing big time in providing the solutions and have thought of spreading anarchy as a substitute to the solutions.

I will take current case of Dharna against central Govt. to get control of Delhi Police to show what a good solution should have been which would have ensured accountability as well as saved Delhi from the chaos you and your fellow activists are causing. First let me show how your argument for suspending few policemen is fallacious

1. Will things change just for suspension of 5 policemen??

2. I want you to think from the perspective of policemen(Individual person not the system, who also happen to be a citizen of Delhi). They have been working in similar conditions and doing their job similarly form last several years. Now you want them to be suspended just because Delhi people have elected a person as CM who want a Bali ka Bakra for every crime committed.

3. If policemen can affect probe and should be suspended, though the argument have merit, you yourself have several FIR's against you and believe me a CM can affect the probe much more easily than a SHO can. Mr. CM leave you, High Court just ordered an FIR in which Law Minister could be an accused if victim identify him. Again a law minister yield much more power to influence probe than an SHO. why not remove your law minister first?

Mr CM by putting these arguments I am in no way trying to say that accountability of Delhi Police should not be fixed. Yes it should be and is very essential. So here is my conceptual solution for fixing accountability in Delhi Police. Ask public to file complaints against DP in state Govt. complaint boxes and create an agency in Delhi Govt for collating all those complaints and help these complaints reach appropriate forum. I know DP presently have some mechanism for complaint redressal but according to you it is dysfunctional and do not perform properly. Delhi Govt. can do much better than individual in following up and pressuring the higher officials of DP than an individual because of better resources at its disposal. I am assuming that Delhi Govt is much better in managing complaints because that is what you are assuming while asking for control over DP.

Mr. CM I know I am wasting my time in suggesting you the solution because this will not help you get brownie points while a Dharna may get, Still I am suggesting you with this as a patriot.

Thanks

An Indian

An open letter to Yogendra Yadav

Respected Sir,

I watched your interview on CNN IBN with Sagarika Ghose and I must confess my respect for you increased many fold after watching it. You were as honest as any politician can afford to be with being at analytical best about most of the situations. You were humble which is contrary to many of your colleagues in your party and were ready to accept it.

I liked everything in that interview apart from your attack on Narendra Modi and your view on model for delivery of services to the last mile. While view on Modi is more personal opinion and any discussion on it will not yield anything, I will certainly like to point out some points you may want to consider for a change in your opinion about delivery of services. Most of the sane minds will agree with you when you said that governance is about delivery of essential services to the poorest which actually mean equitable distribution of all services to whole of population using the resources available to the Govt. You were first person I heard who was ready to change his opinion if somebody gave an proof of private sector being better at delivery of services like water, education etc. Sir, you are right that there is no empirical evidence of efficacy of private sector at a scale in these sectors as we have never tried using private sector as a channel to deliver essential services. We have relied and continue to rely on public agencies to do this even when there are enough evidence of inefficacy of public sector to do this in our country. Also, Private sector have done a tremendous job in telecom in reaching out to the poorest of poor and delivering effective and affordable services. So I have thought of a model to use private enterprise for delivering water to Delhi residents and I am presenting it here.

We can introduce 2-3 players(vendors) in the market (Delhi Water supply) who all will share the infrastructure i.e pipelines. We can install electronic meter with telecom chips at each and every connection (Private capital will come into play). All the vendors will be given time slots(may be through bidding) when they will be able to feed water through shared pipelines. Vendors will be able to control who draw water through telecom chips enabled water meters and can decide water tariff independently under control of a regulator (like TRAI does for telecom companies). This way consumers will have an option to choose between competing vendors which will usher efficiency and quality of services. Govt/ Regulator can make sure that switching cost among vendors is as low as possible to keep all of them on their toes. Infrastructure management can be outsourced to another player who will charge equally to all the vendors and it will be left on these vendors(with moderation form Govt./Regulator) to decide who will manage infrastructure for them. Still Govt can pitch in with subsidies to make water supply financially viable in all areas

Such system will have multiple benefits including but not limited to

1. Competition will ensure better services at cheapest of prices.

2. Onus of maintaining Infra will be on private party which will be paid by other private parties. Such kind of system works very efficiently hence quality of pipeline will improve or in other words clean water will be available to people of Delhi.

3. Water Availability will be limited  to 2-3 hours a day. Most of the houses already have water tanks, rest of them will have to install it. It will probably result in more judicious utilization of scarce resource.

Sir this idea is as radical as it can get in the form of delivery of essential Govt. service. In a way it is as radical as AAP as a political party was just about 1 year ago. In your words people have given a chance to alternate kind of politics and now it is your duty to take a risk and give a chance to alternate kind of delivery mechanism which is efficient and is driven by market not by Inefficiency preserved by Govt.

Thanks

A right thinking Indian