I'm a Satyamev Jayate Fan

Satyamev Jayate is about the only television show that I make it a point to watch religiously. The show has come in for lots of criticism ranging from "Aamir Khan is making money over social ills" to "it lulls the middle class into believing they are doing something about social ills by watching/tweeting/SMSing" and "it's scripted melodrama".

Yes, Aamir Khan is probably making big bucks for hosting the show (why shouldn't he?) and a (large?) section of the middle class probably silence their conscience by watching/tweeting/SMSing. And I completely believe that the tears are scripted in order to gain TRPs.

Then why do I watch it each week?

I watch the show because it brings serious ills that plague our society to the forefront; issues that we'd rather not even think of because they are huge blots on our "India Shining" imagery. I watch it because, melodrama apart, it appears to be well-researched and has success stories that show all is not lost. On any issue, it's completely worth it if the success stories help even one person cross the bridge from victim to survivor.

I'd like to ask the armchair critics of the show what they are doing to help deal with the issues that the show is raising (apart from criticizing Aamir Khan for bursting into tears).

To close -- a serious tip of the hat to Aamir Khan for raising, dwelling-on and humanizing issues that we Indians would rather not talk or even think about.

Extortion

Petrol prices above Rs. 80 per litre where I live and I will not be surprised if they cross Rs. 100. There have been the usual platitudes of how oil companies have been losing money selling petrol to us, thanks to the global oil prices.

And then ... there is this: Indian Oil net profit up 224% at Rs 12670 crore. *After* selling petrol at a loss, Indian Oil *still* managed a *net* profit that was 224% *more* than the previous year.

How then, is the petrol price hike not plain and simple daylight robbery?

Raising the prices of petrol leads to all prices rising even further (and inflation has been on a runaway horse for a while now). Yet, the oil companies, instead of helping the nation, choose to further line their already deep pockets.

And Team Sonia/Manmohan/UPA blatantly stand by and let them.

Shame!

Today is a Bharat Bandh called to protest the petrol price hike. While I don't support bandhs, I can't help but see that the imperial rulers of India (Team Sonia), by consistently not listening to the people, essentially leave them with no choice but to resort to bandhs.

Pearls Of Wisdom

Mohit Chandra of KPMG, in an open letter to India's graduating classes brilliantly sums up the issues the corporate world faces with young graduates seeking employment.

Educational institutions would do well to address the gaps and help create employment-ready graduates who:

1> Speak and write English fluently
2>  Are good at problem solving, thinking outside the box, seeking new ways of doing things
3>  Ask questions, engage deeply and question hierarchy
4> Take responsibility for their career and for their learning and invest in new skills
5>  Are professional and ethical

Read the entire letter here.

Flipkart & the Pointy Haired Ones

Update: Flipkart customer service called to 'assure' me that an ETA of 'within 2-3 business days of placing oprder' is a better ETA than 'May 2'.

I said they are morons and stand by it!

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I have been a fairly regular customer of Flipkart, having ordered ~ 50 books / CD's in the course of my online shopping with them.

If memory serves me right, when I first ordered a book, I was pleasantly surprised to find a book ordered late on a Saturday night delivered the following Monday.

Of course, there have been ups and downs with Flipkart making (and then rectifying) pricing "errors", suffering from poor website response times and throwing 500/502 Bad Gateway errors every now and then. However, I'd been going back to Flipkart because it seemed reliable for timely delivery.

Not any more.

On a a recently placed order (this weekend), the ETA changed without warning from 'May 2nd' to '3 business days from order date'. Now, a glance of the My Orders page gives me *no* useful information. In order to (try and) calculate when my order will arrive, I have to click the order, look up the order date, and then try and figure out Flipkart's holiday list in order to determine when the '3 business days' will be up.

In today's day and age of *intense* online competition, what kind of organization goes from being user-friendly to user-unfriendly? Does Flipkart actually think that reducing functionality is the way to keep customers coming back for more?

Certainly seems like Flipkart is being taken over by the Pointy Haired Community.

Eagerly waiting to take my business  to www.amazon.in!

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Update: Looks like I'm not the only one having issues with Flipkart. Lots of disgruntled customers vent here.

RTE -- A Cynical Half-Measure?

The Supreme Court recently upheld the Right to Education (RTE) Act as legal, after the government's lawyer said that the fees of children from economically weaker sections (EWS) will be paid for by the government.

That said, the government is willing to pay less than Rs. 20000 per child per year. I don't know of *any* half-way decent school that charges an annual fee that is not atleast double or even 4-8 times that amount. The government's argument of "we spend that much per child in Kendriya Vidyalaya" rings hollow because private schools are *not* central schools.

In an interview, Kapil Sibal suggested that schools should approach corporates to pay fees for the children from EWS, because, according to him, corporates were waiting to do so! Mr. Sibal, given that you are sure corporates are waiting to fund RTE, why don't you write it in the bill/get it passed as an "RTE Tax" in the budget? why send schools out with a begging bowl? Is it because your words come from your hat instead of from conviction? Oh, and while you're at it, can you please tell me what happens to the 3% education cess that you collect from me on virtually every tax I pay?

Another issue with the RTE is that the children from EWS are taken care of from the ages of 6-14, i.e., grades 1 through 8. Children are expected to speak, read and write alteast one language and know basic math. concepts *before* they get to grade 1. How does Mr. Sibal intend for this to happen for the children from EWS if they *start* school in grade 1? And, even more weird, what sense does educating them till class 8 make? A decent milestone would have been the 10th grade (which would get them a certificate), or even better, the 12th grade (which would ensure that they are in school till they get to the legal age of work).

To summarize, RTE is nothing but a cynical modern-day equivalent of "garibi hatao" peddled by the Congress in the hope of winning elections.

What a shame.