The Futility Of The Anna Hazare Movement

The Economy Of Corruption


Ever wondered what the undoubtedly well meaning Mr Anna Hazare's attempts to force the Government of India to pass a new law to curb corruption will achieve?


I asked myself if anything would change.  While I am generally a positive person who thinks that it is better to achieve something on your way to greater things and that the all or nothing approach is not practical, in this particular case, I am very sceptical.


I am afraid very little will change for us in our daily lives. I have two recent examples that support my claim that precious little will change any time soon.


Tenant Verification


A friend of mine rented a house. As per police guidelines, it ix necessary for every tenant has to get his bonafides, antecedants, address and whatever else verified by the police station the house falls under jurisdiction of.


He went to the police station and was asked to return with photographs.  He got photographs and returned to the police station and went through the formalities.  


All was in order and my friend should have walked out.  But the policeman calmly asked for Rs 500 as standard charges for the service.  The charge is not standard.  My friend did not get a receipt for it.  The demand was made in plain day light, in plain sight of everyone around and it is considered normal. My friend said to me later that he felt very squeamish handing over the money as he had never done anything like that.  The money was accepted with no sense of shame or remorse by the policeman inside the police station.


House Registration


In another case, another friend of mine bought a house and went to get the house registered with the local municipality.  We all went together and were told to go a lawyer's office a little distance from the registration office.


There, we were asked to pay 1% of the value of house.  In the case of my friend, it came to about Rs 70,000.  The lawyer was not intimidated by the presence of people with press identification.  He said that the money goes all the way - I don't know what he meant by "all the way".  He was clear that if we did not pay the 1%, my friend's house had no hope of getting registered as it was impossible that my friend would be able to meet all the set conditions for approval.


This is when house registration has been "computerised" with great fanfare.  


Address Verification For Passport


In another instance, a local policeman went to a friend's house for address verification for his passport application.   The verification process completed, the policeman happily asks for money for services rendered.  My friend responds by saying that he does not have to and is not used to paying where he does not have to.  The policeman simply says "You have to pay, there is no option".  And my friend paid Rs 500.


Driving Licences


It is said that there is no way anyone can get a driving license anywhere in India without paying a bribe.  There is just no way.  Having said that, my mother recently renewed hers without paying any bribe.  But then, she is an exceptional woman. She would have taken the officials apart, had they dared to ask her for a bribe.


It's everywhere


On M G Road in Delhi-Gurgaon, I have seen on numerous occasions, policemen accepting money from truck drivers - all in the open.  I am sure the truck driver did not have all his papers in order. I am also sure that there are legal fines that are supposed to reach the exchequer instead of the people.  But the Goverment is for the people, right?  What is wrong in the money going to the people directly?


There are all kinds of illegal vehicles plying on Delhi's roads - Gramin Seva, for example.  There is no way they can operate in the open without the connivance of the local authorities and the personnel on the ground.


There are shops opened everywhere in our cities.  Places that start off as pure residential areas, turn into shopping centres  by virtue of people selling or renting ground floor houses to aspiring shopkeepers.


I asked one such shopkeeper many years ago how he managed to open a shop in a residential building and if the municipality and police did not stop him.  He said shopkeepers like him are encouraged to open shops in such areas - so that the officials concerned can get their monthly stipend and the occasional sackful of goods for home.  It is that simple.  It is all about back scratching.



Well oiled machine

The system of corruption and sharing of loot is so well established, that it seems almost impossible to break it.


Every rule and regulation is another opportunity for people in the right positions to benefit from.  


How will it help?


Will the Lokpal or Jan Lokpal or any other Pal help us on the ground? Whatever shape the Lokpal is constituted in, how will be different from our already functioning courts?


The Lokpal will swing into swift (envisaged) action only if a complaint is filed. None of the above affected people are going to complain.  It is just not worth their while.  It is a practical, everyday reality.  There is no reason for anyone to get on their high horse and start making speeches about how everyone has to fight corruption.


Shortage Of Legal Eagles


It is reported that we are already short of judges and courts.  Why don't we increase those instead of adding more authorities and confusing people?  Why can't we, instead of letting judges retiring at a set age and then looking for retired judges to head all kinds of commissions and other investigative and interrogative panels, simply extend the retirement age for judges and have more judges in active service?  It is quite silly to increase the number of institutions requiring lawyers and judges when existing institutions are short of people and have huge backlog of cases.




Public Service


Mr Hazare would be doing us a service if he could find a way of ridding us of this daily terror.  We have enough laws.  We do not need another law, another institution.  We need people with rock solid, old fashioned principles and the spine to stand up for their principles.


Which is more that we can ask for.


Cheers!

The Gurgaon Toll Plaza

If you commute between Gurgaon and Delhi on the NH-8, you would know what it feels like to be stuck at the toll gates.  During peak hours, the heat index of the toll plaza on the Delhi-Gurgaon border is at its peak.  Waiting times go up to intolerable levels.  Even patient men (and women) turn rude and intolerant.  There is no respect for tag only lanes.  

For the uninitiated, tags are prepaid passes that you can purchase in advance and drive through the toll gate by scanning the card or using the “Smart Tag” that get affixed to your vehicle and is read wirelessly by sensors on the gate.  Every time you use the toll plaza, the pre-paid amount on your card gets deducted.  No more giving the attendant 500 Rupee notes and fretting and fuming while he counts out the change.

There have been many suggestions that the concessionaire - Delhi Gurgaon Super Connectivity Limited (DGSCL) is the culprit for all that that ails the toll plaza.   Though there are a few things that the company could improve that come to my mind, I don’t believe the company is completely at fault for all that ails this stretch of road.  The fault lies with DGSCL, the concerned governmental bodies and organisations and users of the expressway.

The Company’s Fault

I have one question for DGSCL.  First you take the money in advance from and then want it to be spent in a fixed amount of time.  That is completely unacceptable.  It is not surprising that most users of the expressway have not opted for tags.  

If like the Delhi Metro, DGSCL would also make their cards never expire, people would have a greater incentive to purchase these and pay for them in advance.  They would have the flexibility to use the cards as and when they pass through the toll gates without counting every day and rueing the wastage of money because they took a couple of days off that month.  

There are options where the tag’s validity is one year - but why have any limit on the usage at all?  You have been paid the money in advance.  Let the money be used over any period of time.

Have pre-paid cards but add post-paid options as well.  Make the tariff structure simpler.  One flat rate for every pass at each of the toll plazas.  Push the Government to make it happen. Your customers will appreciate it.

Penalty and enforcement

Our Governments are spineless.  They cannot enforce a fine on people who insist on paying cash on the tag only gates.

Enforce a fine for people entering tag only lanes without tags.  The penalty should be equal to two trips for 30 days for that class of vehicle.  The violator should get a tag in return for the fine.  Make the tags readily available at all the tag only toll gates.  No delays.  No running from window to window.  Make it really simple and quick.  Take help from the local police to implement and enforce this rule.  Advertise the penalty prominently. This step will slowly increase the number of people with tags and over a small period of time, people will stay away from the tag lanes.  This will make the tag lanes quicker to navigate.  People in cash lanes will see the shorter lanes and the quicker clearance times and will be incentivised to purchase tags.  

Worst Offenders

The worst offenders are users of the highway.  I have already written about how users do not respect the tag only lanes.  There should be strict penalties for getting into tag lanes without tags.  Penalise by making tag purchase compulsory every time someone gets into tag lanes without tags.

State transport buses and taxi cabs should not be allowed without tags.  All radio taxis are run by some form of corporate entity.  They should all be forced as part of their contracts to purchase tags for the vehicles and use the tag lanes.

There are some who cannot wait for their turn to get past the toll.  They prefer to force their way into existing queues.  This behaviour should be heavily penalised.  Marshalls must be equipped with technology and be empowered and supported with security to stop such elements.

The bottom line is that if users were to cultivate a little bit of common sense, navigating this and other toll plazas will be an easier and less stressful task.

Cheers

Retrieve Dell Warranty Information From VB.Net

Hi

At work, we have been wanting to populate an internal IT asset database with warranty information from our major vendors Dell and HP.

I decided to write a VB.Net application that would use the Dell web service found at http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx.

This web service has one operation GetAssetInformation.

Here is the code.  Note that this sample is a synchronous call.

The iData.Entitlements has one element in the array for each year warranty was renewed post purchase.  For my purpose, I only require the current information.  That is the reason I have exited the "For Each item" loop.

Hope this helps

Cheers

Iyer



Dim myGuid As Guid = Guid.NewGuid()  'create a new GUID
Dim applicationName As String = "AssetService" 'anything will work here
Dim oAssetServiceProxy As New DellServiceReference.AssetServiceSoapClient 'instantiate the proxy
Dim oData = oAssetServiceProxy.GetAssetInformation(myGuid, applicationName, "xxxxx") 'call the service



 For Each iData In oData
            ListBox1.Items.Add("System Mode : " + iData.AssetHeaderData.SystemModel)
            ListBox1.Items.Add("System Ship Date : " + iData.AssetHeaderData.SystemShipDate)
            ListBox1.Items.Add("System ID: " + iData.AssetHeaderData.SystemID)
            For Each item In iData.Entitlements
                ListBox1.Items.Add("Warranty Start Date: " + item.StartDate.ToLongDateString)
                ListBox1.Items.Add("Warranty End Date: " + item.EndDate.ToLongDateString)
                ListBox1.Items.Add("# of days Left : " + item.DaysLeft.ToString)
                Exit For
            Next
            'ListBox1.Items.Add(iData.
 Next

Interoperable Volumes - Apple, Windows, Linux

Hi

At our organisation, we use Apples, Windows and Linux based systems for a variety of high-end work.  Moving material within them was always a challenge - but we managed to with a combination of FTP, SMB and WebDAV access.  It was rather slow and painful but it worked.

Finally, when our XSAN reached end of life and we had to replace it, we replaced it with a Quantum StorNext system running on top of a Fiber Channel SAN from a leading vendor.  Any FC SAN will work - just check with Quantum for compatibility - though I do not expect any problems with any FC SAN that follows standards.

It works like a dream - Windows, Linux and Apple users can all mount and share the same volume - not just transfer files - they can seamlessly read/write to the same volume from multiple platforms - no more FTP / WebDAV access to shared folders.

The whole user experience of sharing files has become seamless and transparent.  Help desk calls from those departments have disappeared.

Quantum StorNext is a good solution for organisations with a variety of platforms that need to share data with each other.

Cheers

Iyer

Cheap Storage - Reliable, too

Hi

At the place I work, we generate a lot of video content that is huge in size and numbers.  We have been on the lookout for a cost-effective NAS solution for a while and finally decided to take the jump by buying storage boxes from Super Micro.

In addition to the HDD storage with a lot of RAID level options, we also got two Flash drives in RAID-1 for the operating system.

We chose http://www.openfiler.com/ as our NAS operating system.  This is a very mature product now with tons of features to make your NAS and its data accessible from a variety of platforms.

Active Directory Integration
One of our most important requirements was the ability to allow folder access using Windows Active Directory groups.  It took a while for us to get this configured but we managed to in the end and it is working seamlessly.

FTP Server
We are also using the same OpenFiler storage box as our FTP server for the hundreds of video files we receive daily over the Internet using FTP.

SMB Access
As OpenFiler exposes all volumes as CIFS/SMB as well, our internal Windows and Apple clients can easily share and access videos and images from this NAS from around the organisation.

NIC Bonding
The storage box supports teaming of upto 6 1Gbps network interfaces for  performance that exceeds our needs for this application.

Openfiler supports many other features that allow for high availability and data protection.

Check it out.

Good combination - Super Micro storage and OpenFiler.

Cheers

Iyer

Mobile Web Development

Hi

It's been a while since I posted.  For the past month or so, I have been dabbling with developing mobile web applications.  As I always want something useful to try out anything new, I decided to take my organisation's internal processes - approvals of various requests by heads of departments and team leaders - mobile by writing a mobile friendly web application.

I tried out a couple of mobile frameworks but finally settled on jQuery Mobile.  You can check this out at http://jquerymobile.com/.

I find this an excellent work in progress library that is built on top of the super jQuery JavaScript library.

There are some who say that jQuery Mobile is not suited to development of dynamic sites - but I have found that to be not completely true.

The application I have built is completely dynamic, talks to a bunch of .ashx pages that run on our internal IIS web server and reads and updates our internal, production database in real time.

The jQuery Mobile application uses jQuery AJAX calls to ASHX (Generic Handlers) that return JSON data to display and process user actions.

Here is a screenshot of the home screen

And here is a screenshot of the page where leave applications can be approved.

While processes like leave applications may not be time critical and not really required to be available at all times but there are other time critical processes that benefit from being mobile and accessible to employees around the clock and from a device of their choice.

Try out jQuery Mobile.  It's good fun.

Cheers!

Iyer