Fail

Welcome to the dreaded word in Indian education system "FAIL". It means you have no right to further study. It means that you have no right to live a life less mediocre. It is a weapon in the hands to teachers to decide the fate of the students.

Latest suicide by an IIT girl reinforces the same fact. She had been selected for MBA course in IIM and MS in US. Other institutes had found her eligible for further study but two professors disagreed. They 'failed' her and so her chances of further study and also any kind of employment were wiped-out. She chose death over a life of a 'failure'.

Who the hell gave someone right to officially declare that the other person is a 'failure'. Power corrupts and abolute power corrupts absolutely. Indian education system has given too much power to the teachers. They are regarded as experts in their field and their word is considered final in their subject. What they say, others follow. They start thinking that they are GOD. All teachers develop a big ego.

It has never made sense to me. Why does education system have such a thing. The teacher can decide that the student cannot proceed to next level. Why not just give whatever marks he has received and let him proceed in his life. Let the student have an option to give the exam (by paying examination or course fee again) and let him prove that he deserved more than what he received. If he feels what he received is what he deserved, he will at least continue his life with the fact that he is weak in one or two subjects.

If a person is weak in couple of subject does not mean that he is not eligible for a decent future life. A journalist needs more skills at languages than mathematics. A geologist needs more skills at geography than history. I have an engineering degree in computer science and in last five years of my professional life, I have not used skills of at least ten subjects I studied during my study. Even if I had failed in those subjects, I would be equally competent in my current job and responsibilities. So why the word 'FAIL' exists at all?

No Tax Exemptions

I heard that government is seriously planning to revoke all tax exemptions! What are they planning? I am not against paying taxes but taxation should be rational.
Even if we pay taxes, the roads are bad.
There is no proper drinking water.
Electricity is interrupted often.
Health is poor.
There is no social security system.
Even after that if there is some constructive project, they beg for private participation.
Don't get me wrong, but are the fruits of our taxes truly reaching us? And, if we save money in government funds, why should we be taxed? And, if the tax exemptions go, will anyone save anything in government funds (PF, infrastructure bonds etc)?
First of all, everyone needs to save for his future because there is no social security in India. If they do not save, everyone will be at the mercy of their children. To be self-sufficient and not be a burden, we must save for old-age. Note: I am not talking about investments which is a mode of earning. Since government does not provide social security, health-care and food, it has a moral responsibility to promote savings. And moreover, if these savings are going to government pocket, so, there must be tax exemption on those vehicles.
The exempt, exempt, tax policy is flawed in principle. First of all, there is no tax exemption, it is only a rebate that we get. People are saving for the future, no one knows what will be the tax rate/policy 20 years down the line. Now, if a person saves thinking that he will have a certain amount of money in old-age. Now in reality, no one can predict the inflation or the future tax rate. So, the person with savings gets only a fraction of what he has saved. He will feel cheated. How will he survive the old age?

If government is planning no tax exemptions, let it be this way:

1. Tax the whole salary, no rebates. After that there should not be deduction on withdrawing that money. This is regarding the government funds.
2. Cover more junta in tax net. Currently only 11% of the population pays taxes. The total revenue will increase.
3. Why will anyone save in government funds? Guarantee that the returned amount will be 8-9% interest. And this should be a no-risk fund.

And be accountable, the returns of taxes should be visible in the quality of living provided to the citizen.

Telecom Trends

Telecom is a red-hot field with fierce competition. It is also a basic necessity nowadays. There are three aspects to it:

1. Voice Communication
2. Data communication
3. Cable-TV broadcast

Recently there has been a push towards connecting even the villages with telephones and Internet. TRAI and government are talking about private participation in this regard. Also, BSNL gets special favour from TRAI (in terms of extra funds) for providing telephony services in villages. But always there is a push towards wireline networks. Though I do not mean that wireline is redundant, it is difficult to deploy. The operator needs to lay cable to far-off places and in the end, there will only be a handful of subscribers in villages. This is not financially viable for private operators, so they do not even attempt to service those regions.

I feel that preference should be given to wireless networks for telecom services in villages. 2G (GSM/CDMA) has been in market for quite long and is now available for very low rates. There is even scope of getting the equipment in 'second-hand' because cities are gearing up for 3G deployments. There is no digging involved and a single tower can cater to the needs of several square kilometers of area. Maintenance is also easier in wireless because there is no danger of snapped cables, rain-water in connectors. Handsets have also drastically reduced in prices. I sincerely feel that 2G cellular systems are better options for providing voice telephony to villages; both in terms of price and maintainability.

Ditto for internet services. Already we can find waiting list for DSL connections in most cities. There is no capacity. Policymakers should speed up deployment of WiMAX which can serve an area of more than 50 sq.km. from a single tower. The bandwidth will also be an order of magnitude higher than the current maximum bandwidth. Already the rate of mobile adoption is more than that of landline phones. Similar revolution needs to happen in broadband. We just need to take the right steps.

I am closely associated with wireless industry. I personally feel that 3G cellular technology is a waste of time and money. It seems to be too-little-to-late. It took so long to reach the field that its successors have now come up. 3G technologies like UMTS/WCDMA/CDMA2000 provide very little data bandwidth as compared to WiMAX, and for voice, GSM has got extremely high penetration and good QoS. It is also extremely costly, not just at the network side, but also on handset side. The 3G handsets will cost at-least 10 times as compared to current 2G handsets. Moreover, the small screens of mobiles will provide inadequate experience to the user. Even if a person receives 13 Mbps with HSDPA, what is the use-case? Unless other side also has 3G service, videoconferencing is not possible, moreover, there is not enough content available to even serve a GPRS subscriber. Small phones will also have less multimedia processing power. I suggest, have a good laptop for processing the huge amount of data pouring in from WiMAX and if you want to talk, use VoIP. Or, if needed, can keep a GSM phone, cheap and light-weight.

Do not forcibly impose policies to align with operator's and equipment manufacturer's agenda. Stuff like: barring VoIP through internet services, 2Mbps bandwidth only to data-quantity limited plans and delaying WiMAX to allow 3G to spread are examples of conservative and silly policies. With DTH and CAS, policy-makers are already doing the right things. They just need to be a little more open-minded and let the market and technology decide who wins. The ball is rolling, don't stop it.

In the end, I would also try to point out that there is a great dearth of stuff that can be done on content side. Good that broadband speeds are now faster than 256 kbps, but there is little that can be done on local front. I mean, people mostly work on media serviced from US. There is only a very small set of Indian websites which get regular users. Most government departments are offline, and if they are on the Net, rarely have 2-way communication. Doesn't help the business too! Leave out internet banking and ticketing, there is hardly stuff to do for the common man.

Police Reforms

First of all let's re-look what ails Indian Police and maybe consider what is the cure:

Not just political interference but also political dependence: Criminals feed the politicians with their black money and in return politicians ensure that their business is not affected. Police officers are dependent on politicians for their promotions and placement. If they try to do anything to make them unhappy, officer's fear that they can be transferred to a 'bad' location. So, police have to ignore criminals and this vicious cycle goes on.

Poor training and equipment: Just look at the equipments on the belts of a US police officer and an Indian police officer. You will understand what I mean. Moreover, in the wake of new threats like terrorism and electronic crime, the metro-police needs to be much better trained. Not just this, the police do a sloppy job of collecting evidence from crime scene.

Lack of control and accountability: Somebody said that "political interference may be dirty words but it is another term for civilian control." But in my opinion, there are better ways to have public control. For each police station, statistics should be maintained about conviction rate, case FIR to charge-sheet turnaround time etc. Also, the career file of all prominent police officers should be made public, maybe posted on a website. If an investigation is going-on on an officer, public should be aware of it. Why are the criteria for promotions of officers such a closely protected secret?

Archaic rules: The rules have become aged and desperately in need of help. There is a lot of scope for re-framing new laws and abolishing irrelevant ones. New India requires new and better laws.