The Story of A Driving License

"A simulator? Wow!"

I look at my friend wide eyed as she spells forth her experience of applying for a driving license.
She tells me how she was instructed to drive a perfect 'eight' on the road and was tested for her knowledge of road signs and that she was even made to drive on a simulator.

That is how things work in Bangalore, and in Hyderabad as another friend tells me.

Guess how it works in Ludhiana?

On a chilly winter morning, I accompany my dad to the Mini Secretariat. There is a new Suvidha Centre at the furnished place with a line of window counters. The system is efficient - you get allotted to a window number from outside, you seat yourself on the elegant bench and watch the Plasma TV screen while waiting for your token number to appear on the little red neon board above the window.

Your number appears, you get up and submit your documents, the DTO - probably experienced in the art of physiognomy looks at you and signs on your papers which say ''This person is found fit for driving and has cleared the driving test."

You pose in front of the webcam, you sign on the swanky electronic signature device and there...its done!

And there I got a call from my dad last week, ''We just received your driving license by post!" Just on time - you receive the laminated card.

No tests, no simulators, no screening - probably you'd call it a hassle-free system, but yeah at the end of the day - I miss the simulator.

"Ludhiana roads must be really unsafe then -- with such people driving?", my friend asks me after hearing that little tale.

"Hmmm...not really, I guess - Its the Darwinian survival of the fittest that makes all of us move on the Ludhiana roads..."

Afterthoughts

Probably I can write a blog every day at 9.35 am since this is the time I am flushed with all sorts of emotions - anger, rage, sadness, helplessness and a desire to turn all of them productive. 

                                                          

Ms Poonam Kalra had told us the first day, how this paper - Indian Economic Development since 1947 is a very pessimistic paper. It loads you with all the data and gruesome figures and facts about what all is wrong with Indian economy. Unfortunately, it does not provide any solutions, because YOU are expected to look for the solutions.

Solutions, I don’t have to even attempt to start thinking of them – I’m taught in a way that rouses the rebel in me…and solutions have to be crafted by none other than the youth.

This morning’s lecture was about comparative growth and development analysis of states within India. We set out to identify the reasons why Kerala and a state like Himachal Pradesh outperformed every other state. Two reasons that stood out apart from education was provision of PUBLIC UTILITIES and PUBLIC ACTION as an essential democratic process. Democracy, as I see, is not only about going to Ramlila Grounds and protesting with the crowd. There is much more relevance at the individual rather than collective level. How an individual deals with corruption at his level, when HE is faced with a bribing officer is the real test. Does he protest, does he raise his voice, does he use the public facilities, does he report, does he complain to the police, does he sting the scene or does he passively acquiesce and pay the bribe as a one-time quick fix solution?

What lacks in most states is this ability to protest.

I remember how heavenly excited I was when Mam Kochhar, my political science teacher had introduced in those powerful, soul-stirring words the chapter on RIGHTS in the constitution.

‘I have a RIGHT to something!’ and she had banged the desk and enunciated in a very demanding tone– I had never encountered such a bold description of the Articles 19 to 22.

The fact that people are not aware what to do, when they are faced with injustice lies at the core! The complexity of the procedures, the multiple levels of hierarchy end up making ‘justice seeking’ a time consuming and inefficient process.

THE SCARCITY OF TRUTH

One of the things I've ended up concluding from the recent workshop about RCTs- Design, Analysis and Reporting at Indian Institute of Public Health, Delhi is that the ultimate aim of research after all is to uncover pieces of truth.

Truth - It is precious because it is scarce. It is scarce probably because of our unfailing commitment to cover up things, because of our innate preference for the opaqueness of lies over the transparency of truth, because of that onion in us. The world is like an onion - I write with no exceptions to myself. We all are layery beings, there are layers after layers of pretense and falsehood, sometimes reflecting truth in varied proportions  - people, places and situations are either lionised or demonised.

Our statistics from numerous surveys are so full of puzzles and contrasts. Sometimes I really wonder, especially after reading the paper by Deaton and Dreze about food and nutrition trends in India - probably one of the reasons that our researchers after doing a hell lot of analysis and applying statistical tool after tool, end up with puzzles and limbos is that the data in their hand COULD have all been COOKED up by someone down there. Only if truth could be ubiquitous...

Learning to uncover the truth through RCTs :P

When duality merges into ONE

Duality – it always made me uneasy. How can two contradictory things be implied by two equally true sounding statements? In the Symbolic Logic class, while proving arguments through formal proofs of validity, my teacher had remarked on a question whose result had ended in a contradiction. “you see, it is dangerous to start with a false premise, it may end up in a false conclusion”. The premise with which our proof had started was a false one, and there behold! The conclusion that was implied by the proof of validity was an equally ridiculous one. In this universe, I am taught, there are always two kinds of statements – ones that are true, others that are false, and there are only two types of arguments – ones that are valid, others that are invalid.

So once in a while, I bump into questions which are of the so called ‘grey’ shade and fail to satisfy my puny mind which is overwhelmed by the logic it is being fed with. And yes, I’m glad I have the liberty to question them. My parents have always encouraged me to question and explore anything and everything, even the most sacred and hallowed beliefs. The answers are not always easy to find, but yeah, they come to you, after some time, strike you like a flash of lightning – or just pop up as a strange correlation in your head when you see a similar thing happening but in a different context. Its like you see a microcosm of the answer you were desperately seeking for in a random comment made by someone, in a gesture that is passed around, in a new concept you just learnt in the classroom.

...And then the duality merges into one, just one – a pure answer with no adulteration. So, one of the dualities I came across was this. The scriptures say that everything is part of a divine design and that every single thing that traspires in our lives is planned. But here in a full page advertisement in the newspaper, stands a youth icon with a tagline ‘because destiny lies in your hands’. So who is doing all that is happening? Me or the supreme Power.

I hunted for the answer and got a lot of puzzling replies from diverse sets of people, all of which would seem to me a circling argument, their premise would somehow grope in the dark and come back to the premise itself. And I would be left unsatiated. And then, as it is always under His Plan, some agent is always created and the answer is delivered to you. So when I put forth my question to Uncle Jaswant Singh Neki , he looked at me, nodded in perfect assurance that the statement about destiny lying in ‘our hands’ was correct.

Baffled I asked him so is the former false?

He gazed down at my hands, and then politely asked with the innocence of a child, ‘but then, who gave you these hands?’ That was it.

The two statements merged into one, the contradiction departed and truth remained to create a beautiful implication that made me feel bliss.

I realised, that is what happens when two become one and the one stays with you forever, like an eternal truth. It seems to me that all science and social science in this world are striving for is the same optimizing function – resolving the dualities. My discipline that is economics, especially the IED classes are full of contrasts – the contrast between privileged children and underprivileged children, between developed societies and developing, between north delhi and south delhi, between kerala and bihar. All policies made by policy makers seek to resolve the duality that so intricately exists in our lives or in some cases the multiplicity of inequalities which in Mr Ayde’s words has ‘an octopus like grip’ in our society.

The other day, listening to kirtan in Bangla Sahib, I learnt a crucial lesson. Indeed, I understood the meaning of guess what, “One”! Yes, finally it made sense. I had not been parroting ‘Ek Oankar’ for long without a reason – it had a meaning, a beautiful meaning.

  Ghat ghat eko vartda (Only the ‘One’ resides in all the places)

The way the Ragi Singh had stressed on the ‘eko’ in that line, I was moved. I got a lump in my throat and realized how ubiquitous is the concept of One in this world as echoed through Sri Guru Granth Sahib. The Guru starts with ‘ik oankar’ – the fundamental reality of the universe.

Its like the Economic theories I study – every model starts with a basic assumption about the state of the world, following which equations and assertions are made and postulated. In the Guru’s model of Truth that he starts to explain, he starts not with the assumption but the fundamental fact or foundation on which everything else rests.

 One. Just One. There is one God. That’s it.

There, it resolves all inter-faith human-made divides about who are we ultimately worshipping. It is One. The same power who created all of us, the one who is making my fingers dance on the keyboard and write this – the One who is conducted this world drama. So the Guru starts with One, and then chooses to explain the various facets of the cosmos. He then makes logical arguments with astounding rationality that I’ve not known elsewhere and puts his conclusions forward.

 ‘What difference will it make, if you sacrifice a live animal or a human before a non-living God?’

 ‘Will a piece of thread be able to save me after I die, when it gets cremated with my body?’

 ‘Why are you prejudiced against women, for women give birth to King of Kings?’ Transivity would imply that if you respect a man, a king, and he respects his mother, then you should also respect his mother, who is none but a woman. So, why the gender bias, he questioned.

So how do you explain the duality and multiplicity that exists when people talk about Ram, Rahim, Allah – well, the Guru says, it does not change the reality. Ram, Rahim and Allah are just other names for the same Almighty, just like dad, papa, pitaji, père are different ways of addressing one’s father. It does not imply multiple fathers but just different names called out of love for one’s own dad! Isn’t it?

 There are dualities after dualities, contrasts after contrasts and ultimately they converge to One goal, just one, that’s what I’ve learnt. The ‘about me’ column on my facebook profile reads… ‘yet to discover myself’. For I feel life is a discovery, of continuous discoveries, of a slew of Nobel prizes for new inventions and discoveries and surely I have not fully discovered myself yet.

Day after day, some of the tangled mess and puzzles unfold and leave me all amazed and ecstatic. So what is the objective function of life? The purpose of life is a life of purpose, I know. But what purpose, then? The lesson I have learnt this day is that our common goal in this cosmos is nothing but to find the ‘One’, become ‘One’ with him and see the ‘One’ in all.

GOODBYE MARKET PHOBIA - Summer experiences at LSE (Ludhiana Stock Exchange)

I enter the wonderfully cooled air conditioned office amidst the sultry June heat every day. Even the AC smells of indices. There are LCD screens on walls around featuring minute to minute stock market news 24x7. I hear numbers spoken out by sub-brokers conversing all around, terms like derivatives, futures, options, margins. In a couple of days, things make perfect sense – the same conversations which sounded Persian to me few days back now become comprehensible! I understand the general mood of the office consisting of hundreds of sub brokers which is inevitably (i discover), a function of the stock market indices!!!


Contrary to my perception, the common salutation here was not ‘How are you’ or the ilk but yes in a forceful Punjabi accent, ‘Market kidaan?’ (How’s the market?) – The answers would range from overtly optimistic, slipping down to flat.


It’s a world full of numbers – live trading and incentives. If you’ve ever been inside a stock exchange, you would know. Although no live trading goes in this regional stock exchange, it functions as a brokerage under LSE Securities Ltd - the huge building is replete with offices of sub-brokers.


The most glaring thing that I noticed about this office was a strange sense of punctuality and sincerity of almost every employee at work. Now that’s not very common, at least in the public sector offices I have been to. The fledgling economist in me recognizes the beautiful alignment of incentives in this office. It is a stock exchange after all – a place to build fortunes and gambling with rules. It is the self interest in this typical ‘firm’ that makes each employee reach his/her chamber on time – its about incentives and mainly, monetary incentives. And these incentives are not lump-sum, not like a fixed pay at the end of the month which deadens all motivation to work, but on a MINUTE TO MINUTE lively basis. You get daily rewards and returns from this wonderful space called the stock market where funds are channeled from the idle to the industrious and capital gains pour heavily, though on the selected few.


Under my internship, I got a lively exposure into a wide array of things. Apart from attending a 1 hour class everyday in a smart classroom amidst 40- 50 other MBA students by the executives of different departments (clearing, depository participants, IPO, KYC, legal department etc.) on the basic working of all aspects of the stock markets, I also had the opportunity to work with the legal department of the exchange and with who else, but the Sr. GM here. I learnt a lot from my boss - a lively lady who conversed in a lovely Punjabi accent and was such a big motivator. She had spread her charm in the workplace with the effect that most of the officials from the receptionist to the accountants had such a high frequency of smiling. The ‘smile’ I discovered was a permanent client here.

Since this one-to-one attachment with the executive was not a formal part of the structured internship program, I had to figure out work for myself and offer help on whatever I could offer. On the second day, looking into my potential, I was handed over a list of targets to be fulfilled within a week. My work involved preparing a formal brochure for the internship program and figuring out the right combinations of evaluation strategies that the exchange should adopt for interns (from the next year onwards) – lo! Now that was fantastic – I now had to be in the judgement seat and figure out what would be the best incentive for a final year MBA student, say who ‘has’ to do an internship as a part of his boring college project and has no motivation to learn or contribute.

Another task I was allotted was to work on the Annual Report of the exchange – designing a cover page, I discovered needed a lot of economic and financial insight into the working of a firm over a year. I contributed my set of suggestions for both the programs at the end of program which were well received.

Not to forget, the cubicle I worked in had a wonderful occupant – the legal officer of the exchange who guided me into this new world. I discovered the legal procedures involved in the financial sector and working of the system.

As a last leg of the internship, interns were required to learn live trading and understand the analytics of the same. Well, that was simply WOW! Guess what? You push a button, and that’s it – the share is bought, another button, it is sold. You press F3 twice and you can view all the bids in your window pane. A sub-broker’s chamber is such a live and a bit confusing place initially. 5 sets of sleek desktop computers with different markets opened on each one, 6 sets of landline telephones with a vexing 8-calls-per- minute frequency, a TV showing live stocks and market news – that goes from 9.15 to 3.30, till the stock market finally closes.

The most interesting part of the internship apart from the formal learning was the vital insight into a workplace and the informal contacts I ended up building. The conversations over lunch at the set of tables with the light pink financial newspapers serving as the table cloth, the neat cutlery that would await the hard working employees at the strike of 1. 30 and not-to-mention the vibrant guffaws and informal exchanges of experiences at this time – it was an enthralling experience.

I guess, I receive my dividend from the 20 day long internship everyday - in the joy of reading Economic Times every morning. The pink newspaper is no longer a monotonous gibberish – it makes a lot more sense. I no longer have a ‘market-phobia’, so to say – it’s the ‘market magic’, I feel :)

A selfish, Hobbesian voter's views about the college elections - interspersed with a background drawn from the IED and Pol. Sciences classes :)

I like Nehru. Wasn’t non- alignment an awesome strategy in the wake of cold war? Reading a bit on game theory, I realized that in any two party game, the ‘third way’ could be better for any third party as opposed to aligning with one of the two in which case one invites the wrath of the rival camp. ....

Click on the text above to read more.

NREGA - a perspective

A First-Hand Experience of NREGA at a village on the international border in Rajasthan

Distance perpetuates poverty. As I travelled from the centre of the Sriganganagar district in Northern Rajasthan to the fringe, that is what I discovered - a parallel movement of the people working under NREGA from the centre to the fringes of their economic landscape.


The MGNREGA under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme is indeed a commendable act. Every family in the specified rural areas, measured by the number of chulhas serving a group of people is entitled to 100 days of assured employment within 5 km of their house. I chose to survey two NREGA sites in the district on the basis of the diversification of work in these areas and to record the work progress and gauge the success rate.


The first site we surveyed was Mirzewala, 12 kilometres from Sriganganagar where the road widening work was in progress from 16.06.2011. The road I was told was a State Highway. The labor force of 65 comprised of mostly women, not very young. A possible reason was the job card. Since each family is allotted one job card, workers may choose to complete their stipulated 100 days of work in turns with their family members – each member in a family of four could contribute 25 days of work working together or in different shifts over the year. The NREGA in Rajasthan where the minimum daily wage, right now is Rs 119 thus promises a wage of more than 10,000 per year to every family (contingent on the task performed by the group under the group system). However the wage as we enquired first hand from the women laborers at this site varied from Rs 90 to Rs 100. NREGA permits wage payments on daily rate as well as on piece rate. Since Rajasthan has followed the piece rate system – wages are paid in proportion to the work performed; earning the minimum wage requires completion of the prescribed task for the group.


The rest 265 days of the year, the source of employment for the section of people is agriculture which by its basic nature is seasonal in nature but promises a daily wage of Rs 60-70 for each laborer. NREGA has undoubtedly raised the wage income of the people during the period of agriculture off-season (non-sowing and non-harvesting months). Direct personal interview with the laborers here revealed a significant level of contentment at the wages received which had improved their living although no assets had been created using the additional income.
The progress towards the second site at Sangatpura located right at the international border through the desert landscape was a drive towards an economic desert. No toilets, no pakka houses, no implements supplied by the NREGA reached the region.


Poverty has become such a mechanical term in textbooks and classroom discussions. The abstract version of the term was what I saw in the eyes of the people here. Some of the ladies started crying as truth slowly started emanating out of some feigned responses by the bunch of old ladies here. I was surprised to see the change in their tone as the Sarpanch joined us. They veiled their faces and replied rather laconically thereafter. Only some brave old ladies took courage and spilled the beans.


The heart of the matter, as it came up was that much of the consumption expenditure gets drained into feeding their alcoholic husbands. They were also victims of domestic violence by the husband.


“Bachat karte hain aap?” I asked amateurishly.


They looked at each other and smiled at the irrelevance of the question – There are no savings, the income ends in feeding the family and does not translate into assets. “Paise aande baad cha a, asi tan pehla kadhaan nu karde haan”, I was told in a Punjabi accent. (We desperately wait for them to credit our account with the fortnightly wage, which we withdraw completely right off the bat).


So while the policy framed by the government is excellent, its promulgation is smooth, this is where it ends in the end. The social complexities in a region where illiteracy is rampant clog the channels for economic development. It ends in the pockets of their alcoholic husbands; drug addiction among the male members eats up the wage that is earned. While the constant and reliant stream of income from NREGA will help them survive, I have doubts if it will lift them above the poverty line.


As per the act, the wage should be transferred within 15 days into the accounts of the laborers, the villagers told us sometimes it took about 2 months for the transfer to occur and that the bank was far – it took a “hefty sum of Rs 5 to the bank and back”.


The survey of the border regions at Sangatpura and Sahibsinghwala presents a paradox. While the NREGA implements are not reaching the area, the laborers are bringing their personal implements to level the ground which banks the H5 minor distributary – there is easy availability of rivers of alcohol. The statistics are encouraging, the work is encouraging but the condition of the laborers is not. You find a disproportionate number of ladies working on the sites, a cursory inspection of their pale hands and nails points to their anemic condition. While the nurse appointed visits the site regularly, she can do little to save them from the beatings of their drunken husbands.


As a first year economics undergrad student who was on her first ground visit, I discovered how these laborers could not be crystallized into mere statistics I was holding in my hand. The dupattas of the women laborers wet with tears had tales to tell while I could just be a mouthpiece of their woes.