Skyward Fire

I’m going to keep it simple this time. Those unlucky readers amongst you who might have had the pain of dealing with State Bank of India probably know what I am talking about. There are a lot of reasons why SBI sucks. Here’s a few as to why is it to.

• A year ago back in August 2009, I used my SBI ATM card to withdraw Rs. 2000 from a Corporation Bank ATM. No money came out of the machine, I got a ‘Transaction Failed’ message, no receipt came out, but my account got debited Rs. 2000. I contacted my SBI branch and they asked me to draft an application mentioning my grievance. I did so, but I never got to see 2000 INR again and I never heard from the bank regarding the same again. I live in a different country, so I came back after a year right now. I asked them about it again, and I was made to run from one Babu’s table to another.
• Since 25th of June, 2010 I have been trying to change the phone number registered with the Bank for all Internet Banking transactions. I first wrote an application, and then I was asked to print and fill up an approval form to be given to the bank. I did both, and then I was told the number registered with them for the change is different than the one I mentioned on the approval form. I asked them if I could change that on the website itself. There is no such option on the website, but the lady at the branch kept insisting that option was there. So I took a screenshot of the page and showed it to her. Finally, she agreed with me. So I filled up another approval form and submitted it. The change is still pending.
• I wrote an email to the customer care of the bank regarding the same but the only reply I ever got from them was an automatic mailer mentioning the complaint ticket number.
• My ATM card isn’t working, probably because I haven’t used in more than 10 months for withdrawing any money. When I try to use it at an ATM outlet, it says the PIN I entered is invalid. I have been using the same PIN for a while now and I got no such message. So I wrote another application asking them to change the PIN, and they say the new will arrive in at least 15 days, and I will have to come pick it up personally. What the fuck? What’s so lengthy and sophisticated about this that it is going to take 15 fucking days? And how hard is it for them to mail me the new PIN by post if they’re going to be charging me a 100 bucks for issuing me a new PIN?
• They claim to have a dense network of ATMs all across the country. Out of the 10000 ATMs they might have in the country, 8000 never work and the shutter is always down. 1500 are crowded with long fucked up line, and the remaining 500 are in such remote places that no one ever visits.

So in the end no matter how user friendly, paperless and customer caring State Bank of India claims to be, there is absolutely no truth to all that bullshit. I am going to personally do my best to avoid dealing with them in the future and would recommend the same for everyone.

All Together Now by Light of Midnight

Before I came to the UAE, I was told a lot of negative things about the country, about the ways of the government, and how things really work over here. Most of it turned out to be contradictory to what I had heard when I actually saw things with my very own eyes. And most of the things turned out to be basically the same in form or another like it is there back home in India. Might I as well add, that for the next years, UAE is my home. The 4 years of engineering studies will keep me occupied here. What plans after that? Well, that will eventually unfold during the course of time.

One amongst the very things I heard a lot about was the Government. UAE is a monarchy, actually, one amongst the very few fully functional monarchies in the world. There are different rules for the Royal Family, different rules for the locals, and different rules for the expatriates. But is that really that bad? I don’t think so. If you go to someone else’s house, you’ll be expected to abide by their own rules and ethics for as long as you’re there at their place. You’re a guest there, and your hosts will do their best to appease you as long as you keep them happy. You came here out of your own free will, and you are free to leave at your own liberty. And if you think you’re not free to do so, you should have thought and re-thought about getting here in the first place.

We here a lot about the economic recession and the bad press that Dubai and UAE usually get from non-Middle Eastern press. Alright, every one knows that the local press, the local media as a whole is controlled by the government. And it is bad. But I’m kind of glad there’s some restriction. Back in India, the press and the media have often taken advantage of such freedom to promote agendas of their own every time they get a chance. As far as the class system goes, it’s rampant here. And it is so even in India, and that too, not just in small towns and villages, but even in metros and other occupationally bigger cities. We define what goes on here as racism. And what happens in India is basically put together as casteism. Basically, it’s the same thing with two different names. Are we so different after all?

Some people find the rules and regulations here really restrictive. I am absolutely with the government on most of the rules and regulations that apply directly to social life. Actually, I’m in huge favor of laws against smoking, drinking & non-medicinal drug consumption. Of course, it’s a personal choice, but how about doing so without causing discomfort of the others. We have plenty of that in India, and over here, it’s less. And if the cops here for once just really enforced this rule, we might just flush out all the drunken rats that we have here. If you can’t hold on to yourself after a drink or two, you need to stop. Like right now. As for the whole economic recession rant about Dubai, there is none of that here. And it probably wont have a bad financial time as long as the world needs oil, and as long as UAE produces it. People here have enough gold and sumptuous bank balances to actually be in any kind of economic recession. The same goes for India. There’s just so much of black money there that no matter how bad the situation is, the black suits and the politico types can always inject some of their own personal wealth to make sure the engine is well-oiled for even the worst of situations. So it happens everywhere. Are we so different after all?

For every nation, there’s pros and cons. And there’s always room for improvement. Is something is broken, it can always be fixed. We’re a planet run by humans, and we’re all very familiar with human nature of erring and fixing, and sometimes, not fixing. India and UAE are two very different cultural mechanisms, but in the end, who we are, and what we do is all the same for everyone. UAE and India are two beautiful countries, and both have intense potential to marvel up ahead in time.

In my previous post, I discussed why the procedure for elections in India needs a major overhaul. Now, I’m going to share my views on how that can be done. A few days ago, in a conversation with @abhishekkant, we were shedding light on the same exact agenda. We came to a conclusion that there has to separate ways of looking at the voter crowd – urban & rural. Implementation of technology and live information sharing on a larger scale is a necessity of the recent times amongst the urban voter crowd. Obviously, the techniques we’ll want to work out for the urban and sub-urban voter crowd would be completely different. But just working out a proper layout for the procedure specifically for the urban crowd would boost the outcome percentage from disgusting figures like 18%, 40% and 53% to something marginally larger.

The process for registration of voters and then consequently, voting, has to be made easier. Not just the reason being for the same as it would make things easier for everyone, but also the fact that it can be done and it’ll work in everyone’s favor in more ways than we can think off. That is exactly why you have more people voting in to stupid reality shows than in the Government’s elections. You don’t have to stand in the sun, you don’t have to bother about getting shot, you don’t have to do all the senseless thinking about where you’re supposed to go vote, or you don’t have to physically travel somewhere to find out whether you have your name on the voter’s list, and registering as a fresh voter would be a breeze too. The thing about using online services in India, even in the 21st century, is that, be it banking or paying your taxes, or booking train tickets, or something related to Government operations, is that no matter how much you think your work will be done online with ease – at some point of time, you’ll have to involve yourself physically and directly. The reason for the same is cited as security issues. There is the fact that to get things done without a security hitch, you’ll have to get involved personally. Is there a way out of it? Of course. If you’re using the optimum methodology, and gold-standard tools, it’s not so difficult after all.

The following steps can be taken to make the process of voting easier and convenient for those in cities and towns.

• Digital profiling of everyone over the age of 18 providing them with some kind of an identification. PAN cards can be expanded, and made more detailed. There’s no need of any other format. The PAN card, like any ordinary debit card, can contain all required information of the particular person, and it can be used at multiple channels as a source of identification including but not limited to just the elections. When it comes to costs for making sophisticated PAN cards on a massive scale, I’m sure many of our undeserving politicos can live without carcades with a dozen vehicles and personal security that they get from the tax payers’ money. It’s high time our taxes were put to better use.
• The PAN card part deserves another mention in the process of it’s initial registration process. In various cases, PAN cards can be made by forged support documents and voter count can be faked. The one and only way of tackling that is shelling out corruption, and making the whole process of registration more automatic, thus lowering the possibility of human interference where it’s not needed.
• Conducting the elections on the same day everywhere.
• Using specially designed computers instead of electronic voting machines that are connected to a single national server which will store the votes once casted instantly no matter where it is being done, and then keeping count and providing live feed of the preliminary results consistently, keeping the whole thing as transparent as possible. Such computers can also provide real time video help to those who need it, and with a camera on the computer, the voters can be kept under scrutiny and also, a voter support channel will remain open to help anyone who needs it.
• Those based abroad with dual citizenships can be asked to register themselves at the embassies in the countries they are currently residing at a month before elections, so that they will be allotted a username and a password, that they can use on an NRI voting portal on their own computers at home or at work and cast their votes without having to come back to their constituencies in India. The same can work for those who’re in India and aren’t sure they will be able to go to the kiosk to vote on the day of the election.
• The election commission should maintain a proper and very detailed & transparent database of everyone who’s contesting the elections, and make it a high priority deal to ensure that it’s publically available to everyone who needs to know about their would-be leaders. Even though the same is done to some extent right now by NGOs, it is not enough. For example, everyone knows the reality behind the facts and figures on the personal financial profile that these contestants give out to the election commission. Rigorous reviews of the same needs to be done with a constant vigilance.

I’m sure that the aforementioned points, if thought upon by the authorities and the details worked out well enough, would smoothen up the process and motivate more and more people to vote and give them a chance to sincerely involve themselves in the enrichment of the country’s democracy.