It was 10:45am EST. I called our guest from India to give a heads up that the show is going to start in 15 minutes and also make sure there are no connectivity issues or problems with the phone calls. Our studio manager then took over. He made a gentle announcement about the show, about our guest and about other protocols.

It was 10:57am. And the the stage was set. The guest was on the show, the studio manager was set , the team was set and so was i , for I was hosting the show that day. The show began, the team was standing by to assist with the questions or comments, the studio manager was ready to take any live callers, and before I realized the one hour interview was almost coming to an end. It was 11:55 am EST and I was thanking the guest for being on the show and asked the guest for any closing remarks.

Welcome to behind the scenes of NRI Samay.

A brain child of 2 passionate individuals, which now grew into a team of 7 volunteers, NRI samay, an online radio, making a humble effort to bring the “Untold stories, Unheard voices, Honest perspectives” weekend after weekend after weekend.

Covering wide range of subjects from

• farming issues to RTI activists
• to budding politicians to kabaddi champions
• to anti corruption,

NRI Samay has come a long way. The show is just an interview, an interview for one hour, an interview where the discussion is based on the questions and comments either posted online or asked live during the show, an interview which is worth 1 hour of the time.

It’s just an hours show but there is a lot of preparation that goes into making this 1 hour worthwhile. From scouting for the guests during the early part of the week, to preparing for the interview during the week, to advertising for the show online, to prepare communication material for the show, to collate questions/comments online, training the volunteers for being the host or being the studio manager or for online support and finally the 30 minutes before the show.

Despite all the preparations, just like everything else, there are setbacks. There are setbacks when the guests can’t make it and have to back out in the last minute, there are setbacks when the phone connections just go bad,  there are setbacks due to technical issues with the hosting service. But each one of the set backs has taught us a lesson, made us a little better than the previous show. It has made us to prepare even for the unknowns, made us have back up plans, made us look more professional when it comes to handling the unknowns.

But the end of the show, there is a great sense of satisfaction knowing that we as a team have brought out a voice that was either untold or unheard or honest.

Looking forward to an even better and bigger and an even more effective NRI samay !

Would also like to congratulate the two brains behind this who had shared the passion, developed the idea and had the courage to bring it to life.

So if you are just as excited as the team, as eager and anxious for that one voice, then what are you waiting for ! Reach out to us on http://facebook.com/nrisamay or visit us @ www.nrisamay.com

Except it was seeking resumes from potential candidates and sort of going through a formal interview process.  Never heard of this before, and was a good enough reason for me to get excited about it. Didn’t feel like squandering this opportunity any further and I wanted to jump right into the action. To understand & learn the whole election campaigning process. I wanted to know

• How the candidates are selected ?
• What are their qualifications ?
• How is the election manifesto formed ?
• How is the campaigning done ?
• what happens on the election day ?
• etc, etc

Of course, I knew I wouldn’t get answers to all of them, but I knew I had to start somewhere. I was in touch with the then party representative for the Defence Colony constituency to find out who the candidate was, as that was the starting point. After a couple of rounds of phone calls with the contestant, who btw was very enthusiastic and energetic and was already well know for her social activism in the area.

The Team

I needed a team as it was no one person’s job to work on this, but luckily my partner in crime was none other than my wife . So it all started at home.  More people joined us once we started off the phone campaign. We quickly narrowed down on the following campaign aspects, it was almost as if one of us was contesting and thinking what should we do to put ourselves on the radar. And below were some of the answers

Calling the voters: 4 reasons for calling the voters

• to let them know about the GHMC elections ( most of them don’t know about these elections )
• to encourage them to register so they can vote
• introduce loksatta as a formidable alternative
• Nov 23rd 2009 was a holiday on which the elections were supposed to be held. It’s a long weekend and the general tendency is why waste the holiday on casting a vote.

We obtained the list of voters from the party head office or the same information can also be obtained from http://hardoi.nic.in/about_hardoi/about_main.htm.

A standard template was created to help assist the callers in case they needed a jump start.

Broadcast Automated call: at a cost of Rs2.25  per phone call. A recorded voice message ( My wife recorded this in Telugu asking people to vote for the whistle symbol ) and we emailed the mp3 file to a friend who helped with broad casting the calls. The messages were played to

• 1500 landline numbers
• 3257 mobile numbers

Public Announcements: The same audio recording was then used in their road campaign using a loud speaker.

Helped with the manifesto: contacted the LSP and got a sample manifesto based on which the manifesto for the constituency was also prepared

Increase the ground network: Made an effort to bring together the colony presidents and secretaries so as to discuss the pressing needs of the constituency, so that they can be addressed as part of the election manifesto.

There were a few other proposals but were never implemented because of lack of time

RTI workshop:

• a community hall in the near by colony was chosen as the venue
• RTI expert were contacted to fix the appointment
• started to rally people but had to drop off mid way

Track the development of the constituency : RTI to track the development of the constituency in the past 10 years: this was supposed to help focus our efforts more than highlighting the opposition parties short comings. The idea was to share this with the press.

I had done some previous analysis ( click here )

Write to the press or media for coverage

So what did difference we made ?

It never occurred to me that I should blog about this experience that I had way back in 2009. Luckily I had all my emails to refresh my memory. This is just a small effort to prove that in this day and age of technology distance doesn’t mean anything. No matter where we are, we are always connected by the one common thread, I’m an Indian. And once that is established, if one wants to make a difference, one can make a difference.

With the combined efforts of the ground team ably led by the contestant Surya Chowdary ( thanks for giving us the opportunity ) and the team in the US, below excerpt from a Times Of India article sums up everything

“In Defence colony, where repoll was conducted, Congress candidate Iype Mariamma won by 341 votes over TDP candidate Babitha Madhav Yadav. Here again, it was Lok Satta candidate Surya Chowdary who ruined TDP’s chances by polling 2198 votes.“

Click Here for the Times of India Article

Lessons learnt: While this was a very humbling experience for all of us, it also taught us some very important lessons.

1) Defence Colony was a predominantly an urban population but despite that the voter turn out was only 37%. Out of a total of 51,000 voting population only 19000 casted their votes

• Lack of awareness i.e. most of them didn’t know it was GHMC elections
• timing of the elections, happened to be on a holiday
• voting is not as important as we all think it is
• Lesson learnt : Voter education is very important. Irrespective of which party they vote for, there should be efforts put in to encourage them to coming to the polling booths

2) Short notice for elections: Both the ground teams and the virtual teams had just a month’s time of preparation, which is not enough especially when one is dealing with contestants who are not afraid to pump money into the campaign

3) election commission guidelines: Demand a strong enforcement of election commission guidelines. for GHMC elections, the EC had restricted the campaign spending to be 2 lakh rupees. It was very much evident during the campaign that the other contestants had easily spent crores of money.

4) personnel @ polling booths: We didn’t have enough volunteers at the polling booths directing people. There was a polling booth where recounting had to be done because of some rigging allegations. We need to bolster the support at the polling booths

5) Plan activities to create awareness among the women. Primarily the women.

India lost 4-0 to England in the test series in 2011. Fast forward to Dec 2012, India is trailing 0-2 in the 4 match series with Australia. So it’s quite obvious to point fingers, pick on players, blame BCCI, blame IPL or even blame astrology. And I’m no different, i blamed BCCI and IPL to some extent.

The Ex-Cricketers or now the Experts 

The criticism against the Indian team while the cricket series is not helping either. Even the Gavaskar’s, the Kapil Dev’s, the Ganguly’s , all having played cricket for such a long time have gone through such a phase and fully understand the stakes and know that such criticisms mean that the players have to fight extra hard not just the opposition but this never ending scrutiny.  Comments to replace senior players or commenting on how the Indian team went for gokarting between the games instead of playing practice games is also unfair. The teams were announced well in advance and so was the itinerary. They had the time to comment and criticize but they chose not to !

What could they have done ?

Instead of criticizing in the media, they could have kept their personal comments to themselves and if they were so concerned should have directly spoken to the coach or the team manager or the staff and rendered their help or advice.

The Media

The Media have become so big that they wont listen to anyone but money. Anyways, if they are so concerned by India, the Pride, Glory etc, I dare them to do this in depth analysis, expert commentary on what is going in Chattisgarh and what is happening in North Eastern states. Would they ever do that ? Beyond this i don’t have much to say

We don’t criticize , We don’t comment , so what should be done ?

This is a no brainer. Instead of writing obituary of the Indian test cricket, talk about the rebirth of Indian test cricket. If we have the right people in the right places, i’m referring to BCCI, then can we not have a visions, a goal for the future of Indian Cricket.

• Why not Australian pitches in India: Our players can get the exposure and experience right in our own backyard instead of getting beaten up in the most unfortunate way possible.
• Test debutante’s: A player performing well in Ranji’s gets a break through and gets picked up for a very important series. Gets badly beaten up and dropped subsequently from the team. Munaf patel, Abhay Kuruvilla, Laxman ( although he fights his way back ), just to name a few.  If someone gets picked up, they need to be backed up , backed up in a way that even if they perform badly, they should at least not loose hope.
• Obviously if the one’s who played cricket think through this, i’m sure they would be 50 different things that can be done to make sure a healthy environment is established and further nurtured.

This is not just about Cricket. Cricket is just a metaphor and anybody and anyone can find parallels with this. It’s easy to write off and be done with it, but not so easy to talk about revivals. You don’t believe me. India was knocked out in the first round in the world cup @ Carribean, came back the next time to win it.

Take politics. We love to criticize the politicians and why not they deserve it. But we can’t be simply criticizing all the time. We need to understand why things are the way they are, think what can be done to change it and take the reins in our own hands, support good candidates. So this is not just about cricket.

Don’t write the obituary, write the revival.

What is a Life worth ? To me, it’s a very loaded question. It’s also a very subjective question and a very relative question. In other words, it’s not possible to have a simple answer for that. Or may be I’m wrong. May be the politicians, the committees which look into this, are intelligent enough just by virtue of their positions and are able to better judge what a life is worth and assign a price tag to it.

• Whats a farmer worth to his family when he is not able to earn a meal a day ?
• Whats a child worth to his/her parents when he/she is not earning anything ?
• what is a daughter worth to a family who has been sexually harassed ?
• what is a mother worth to a family who got killed a freak accident ?
• what is an old woman worth who is killed in a stampede in the temple ?

No matter what the situation and no matter who the victim is, can there be a compensation ever ? Even if one can employ various means to asses what a life is worth, is that all there is to it ? Compensation, a monetary compensation ! And it’s no secret how great a job the government did even announcing a monetary compensation for the Bhopal Gas Victims. The numbers are simply a joke, not even worth mentioning.

• What about counseling ?
• What about rehabilitation ?
• What about punishing the guilty ?
• What about taking up responsibility ?
• What about making sure the incidents are not repeated ?
• What about giving closure to such incidents ?
• Isn’t this all part of compensation or Shouldn’t this also be part of compensation ?

If we don’t think of compensation this way, then there is no guarantee that railway accidents don’t happen, no guarantee that a fire accident doesn’t happen in future, no guarantee that children won’t die in the hospitals, no guarantee that pot holes will not be dug up, no guarantee that stampedes won’t repeat itself at temples, cinema halls etc etc etc.

How many  more such disasters have to happen to realize that disaster management ( which also includes prevention ) needs to be given special consideration ?

Anyways, I’ve decided to start out with a simple RTI application to find out the inspection and safety measures of the hospitals and cinema halls in Hyderabad. Hopefully i can build from here.

To,
Director General of State Disaster Response and Fire Services,
Hyderabad
Andhra Pradesh

Subject: Seek information on Inspection & safety measures of hospitals/cinema halls under the RTI Act, 2005

Respected Sir/Madam,

Please provide us the below requested information, as per the Right to Information Act 2005. As per the RTI act Section 7(I) and section 2(J)(II), kindly send this at the earliest or within 30 days, through the certified copies at below mentioned address or through electronic mail (____________________________________). In case the information is available in a different office, as per the section 6(3)(ii), kindly transfer my request within 5days.

Please share
1) the number of hospitals/cinema halls in Hyderabad that have the NOC’s
2) the information on the number of hospitals/cinema halls that have been inspected in the year 2011
3) the information on the list of hospitals/cinema halls which did not have the fire safety measures as per the guidelines
4) the list of recommendations provided by the fire department where the hospitals/cinema halls were lacking the safety measures
5) If this information is available online, then please share the details of the same.

• A young girl is kidnapped and raped, the guilty don’t feel any remorse. No one to arrest them, no one to prosecute them. Why ?
• A disaster that happened 27 years ago, the whole world witnessed this ? Yet, the guilty are not punished. Why ?
• Elections are fought, votes are bought, next 5 years are spent recuperating the money. Bloody hell, ministers have turned politics into a business and yet there is no stopping them. Why ?
• A school teacher is accused of being a maoist, tortured, everyone knows about it. No one reports it, no one condemns it. Why ?
• There are schools in every village, or at least 4 walls there. However, the schools don’t have teachers. If they have the teachers, then they don’t have kids. Education is a fundamental right and yet when the right is not available, no one is held accountable. Why ?
• Kids die in the hospital because the hospitals lack the basic amenities to take care of them on a timely basis. This is completely un acceptable. The entire country should be held accountable for this. But not even the local authorities are questioned. Why ?
• A country that can’t offer a single meal a day to it’s citizens, what is it really proud of ?
• People have to travel miles to just fetch a pale of water, what is the country proud of ?

It’s heart breaking. It’s heart breaking and it’s heart breaking.

There are serious short comings, lot of negativity around us, there are hardships, there is corruption, and then there is the freedom, the independence, the rule of law, the rights given by the constitution of India.

The freedom to express, the freedom to protest, freedom to celebrate, freedom to share, freedom to worship. Yes, sometimes this freedom is exploited, misused but by and large this is what keeping the country going. There are also individuals, ordinary individuals who do extra ordinary things in their life, that impact a whole society, a community. India is proud to have such individuals who with sheer determination, their passion and commitment have not only excelled in their life but have also served as an inspiration to the society, the community, the entire country in some cases.

I myself have been extremely privileged to have met few such individuals and i’m sure you must have come across such people in your life.  A Ganesh Pogula,  a Mallesham,  a Vijay Anand,  a Katari Srinivas, a Revathi, a Balaji Sampath, a Dr JP, a Prashant Bhushan , a Nikhil Dey, a Medha Patkar, a Venugopal , a Himanshu, a Praful Kumar, a Srinivasan and many other friends who I’ve personally met are heroes, leaders in their own way from whom I draw inspiration, motivation, courage, optimism that it’s not the end of the world and there is still hope.

• Hope that we can question the authorities
• Hope that we can stop the injustice
• Hope that we can fight the corrupt
• Hope that we can contribute to the change
• Hope that we can still be part of the system ( however broken it is ) and yet fight it and reform it
• Hope that we can someday be really proud of our country
• Hope that roti, kapda aur makaan become every individuals right that they can enjoy
• Hope that human sensibility, human emotions, moral values prevail.

The Bill

Simply put, a bill is a draft law that the parliament proposes to make. When approved by parliament, the bill becomes an Act. The lifecycle of a bill goes through

• Introduction Stage
• Discussion Stage
• Voting Stage

While the different stages are self explanatory, the discussion stage needs special mention here. This is the stage where, the bill is subject to discussions/debates/amendments/ and this is done by and large via a Standing Committee and/or by seeking general opinion. This stage is really critical as there are subject mater experts outside of the parliamentary structure who can provide valuable inputs that can help make the bill serve the purpose for which it’s really intended for. This in other words can also be called “socializing” the bill. Socialize with peers, with subordinates, with superiors and the people for whom it’s intended for. The constitution clearly laid out this in black and white leaving no ambiguity.

In this day and age of technology, such consultations , if well led by the government, can bring in the desired effect of involving the right people in the drafting process. The BT Brinjal is a very good example where only through active participation from the people, the environmentalists, NGO’s etc a moratorium on the release of Bt brinjal was placed by the then environment minister. The RTI bill was another example where through active public consultations the bill took the form a very powerful law. But in both these examples, the consultations didn’t happen automatically i.e. they didn’t happen because the constitution said so, they rather happened because the government was forced to do so.

The Government’s view of a bill

The government seemed to have defined it’s own life cycle for the bill.

• Introduction Stage
• Voting Stage

Kill Bill

The bill has been reduced to a mere revenge taking game played between the opposition and the ruling party where most of the time is spent to “Kill Bill”, rather than to socialize, understand, debate, discuss, contribute and formulate the bill for the general good of everybody. Any bill presented by either civil society or the parliament today receives stiff resistance. As I said its the Kill Bill notion. when it gets to the parliament.

Hundreds of crores of rupees are wasted when the parliament sessions are disrupted. Instead if the government spends even 5% of that money in educating, socializing the bills and it’s important aspects, it will help reduce the controversies , increase transparency and also  smoothen the whole process leading to some meaningful debates in the parliament.

The current winter session is really important as the government is supposed to introduce the “Lokpal Bill” in the parliament. Hopefully, things don’t get sidelined, don’t need another “Kill Bill”, else the shoe gates, the slap gates and who knows what other gates will be opened.

7.1 Should FDI in multi brand retail be permitted? If so, should a cap on investment be imposed? If so, what should this cap be?

7.2 To develop the retail trade in food grains, other essential commodities and multi-brand retail in general; should FDI be leveraged for creating back-end infrastructure? To ensure that foreign investment makes a genuine contribution to the development of infrastructure and logistics, should it be stipulated that a percentage of the FDI coming in (say 50%) should be spent towards building up of back end infrastructure, logistics or agro processing?

7.3 It is necessary to encourage only genuine players in this sector and avoid a situation where retail outlets are run through working capital support from financial institutions. Should a minimum threshold limit for investment in backend infrastructure logistics be fixed? If so, what should this financial threshold be?

7.4 To develop our rural sector, should conditionalities be put on the FDIfunded chains relating to employment? For example, should we stipulate that at least 50% of the jobs in the retail outlets should be reserved for the rural youth?

7.5 Similarly, to develop our SME sector through local sourcing, should we stipulate that a minimum percentage of manufactured products be sourced from the SME sector in India?

7.6 How best can small retailers be integrated into the upgraded value chain? Can they be provided access to the logistics/ supply chain set up by the FDI funded retailers? Should it be stipulated that a minimum percentage of the latter’s sales should be made to retailers through special wholesale windows?

7. 7 As a part of a calibrated reform process, should foreign investment for such stores be initially allowed only in cities with population of more than 10 lakhs (2001 census)? As there may be difficulties faced with regard to availability of real-estate in such cities for setting up such ventures, should an area of 10 kms around the municipal/urban agglomeration limits of such cities be included within the definition of the city?

7.8 Will any of the conditionalities mentioned above be inconsistent with our commitments under the agreement on TRIM at WTO? If not, to ensure national treatment, can such conditionalities be extended to all retail chains in India above a certain size? Will such extended conditionalities be consistent with Article 301 of the Constitution?

7.9 What additional steps should be taken to protect small retailers? Should an exclusive legal and regulatory framework be established to protect their interests? Is a Shopping Mall Regulation Act required? Does this require intervention at national level or should this be left to the States?

7.10 The present public distribution system provides a valuable safety net to vulnerable sections of society. To ensure that the integrity of the PDS system is not
weakened and buffer stock is maintained at the desired level, should Government reserve the right of first procurement for a part of the season or put in place a
mechanism to collect a certain amount of levy from private traders in case the level of buffer stock falls below a certain level?

7.11 How should compliance be ensured with the above stipulations? Should a centralised agency, to be nominated by the State Governments concerned, be
empowered to grant permissions to every outlet to be opened? The onus of proving compliance with these conditions could rest with the concerned retail chain. The
chains could submit an annual statement to such State Government agency providing proof of compliance. Should this agency be empowered to monitor
compliance of the present cash and carry outlets too?

7.12 The penalty for non compliance could include cancellation of approvals as well as denial of future permissions for such activities. What additional penalties could be levied? Should civil penalties be imposed? Or criminal? Or both?

Source:http://dipp.nic.in/DiscussionPapers/DP_FDI_Multi-BrandRetailTrading_06July2010.pdf.

What did the Subedar Say ?
The elders were actually the mother and father, who were mourning the death of their young son. The youngsters were friends of their deceased son. When the Subedar was greeted at the door, he said something on the lines of “I’m sorry about your sons loss. I know it’s very painful to ask this, but I’m helpless. You have lost your son, I’ve lost my land. The land where your son was cremated belongs to me. So can you please dig up the remains and put it somewhere, so I can have my land back”.

This is why the youngsters jumped at him. The parents were angry as well but they were too traumatized from their sons death to fight back, at least at that moment. After some very heated arguments, the situation came down to normalcy with the Subedar backing away from his request.

An Act of Desperation
The Subedar was posted in another state on the army duty. It could have been his family who informed him of the developments and so he came rushing. He was in the uniform when he showed up at the house. A couple of days after this incident he apologized profusely saying and said that his helpless situation had forced him to make such a request. All his savings were put into buying this land and his family’s future was directly tied to this. He bought the land many decades ago when through a middle man, who claimed to the legal rights of the land. And since it was very closed to the cemetery it was also being sold for less than the market price. The cemetery did not have a clear boundary either.

Who is responsible for this situation

• The family who buried their son for not verifying where is he is being buried.
• The army Subedar for not doing his due diligence before buying the land.
• The middle man whose greed made him indifferent to his human side.
• The municipality for not securing the boundaries of the cemetery. All it could have taken is one signature by an officer in the department.

So what happened next ?
The family took a while to come out of the shock, the army Subedar never showed up after the second visit, the middle men, of course was not be found anywhere, but the municipality did build the boundary around the cemetery.

It’s actually a plot of a movie. I wish I could say that. Unfortunately, It’s a real life incident and I personally know the family who lost their son.

It’s not safe even 6 feet under the ground, after all !

Police cars, CBI raids, politicians in and out of courts, massive corruption scandals, media reports, secret recording of the lobbyist tapes, opposition slamming the government and the government returning the punches, flash lights, phone calls, phone trappings, bribing,  you name it, its happening, it’s all happening !

The Invincibles: 

Vijay, at least had someone to blame for his ill fate.

Who is to be blamed ?

These days the first thing that comes to my mind when i hear farmer is Suicide ! This is no exaggeration.

I tried calling our agriculture minister but I couldn’t get to him even after several attempts, I wanted to ask him the same question. There is a PM who says inflation could be due to prosperity, there is an agriculture minister who is more into cricket than agriculture, there is an opposition who is doing a rath yatra and there is me who is simply blogging and there is a farmer committing suicide.

Refugee in ones own country:

I know the farmers in our country had quite a distressing turn around from being the nations pride to becoming the most neglected and most ignored section of the society. I wonder what their children will be going through. Will they feel proud that despite all the hardships, their parents continue to plough the fields, sow the seeds, grow the crops, harvest them and manage a “Do Waqt ki Roti“. Or would they be thinking why bother go through all the pain, instead just sell the land, migrate to the city, pick up odd jobs and continue to live like a refugee in their own country. What is better of the worst. It’s hard to pick right ? The children must be facing a real tough time coming to terms with the situation.

Will they have a childhood ? Will they go to school ? Will they play with their friends ? I think these questions never cross their minds, because they will be thinking, Will they get to eat today ? They have to live on the mercy of the politicians and the babu’s to give them the subsidies, the money, the schemes the government had allotted to them.

When suicide becomes the only way of survival

When a farmer is pushed to the brink, with no money, no land, no subsidies, no grants, but only and only debt to the private money lender, the only way of survival is to commit suicide. No he is not running away from the problems instead he hopes at least the compensation will reach the family and will help them survive, mind you not live, but just survive.
What more can the farmers do to show that their situation needs some serious intervention ?

The most difficult and skillful job and yet so poorly rewarded

A software engineer has requirements, a missile scientist has even more precise requirements, a teacher has a syllabus to go by, a doctor, by and large has a procedure to follow, a farmer knows only what crop he has to grow. But everything else that goes into that is a variable such as the weather, the pests, the peoples life styles and a government that is indifferent to his needs. Unlike other professions there is no or very little margin of errors and there are no dry runs either.

After managing all the variables if he manages to produce a good crop, there is no guarantee that it will fetch him a good price. He then needs to depend on the market and worst of all, yet again the government to guarantee a certain minimum price and protect its interests in the global market.

What the future holds ?

We know what the farmers future is ? But what about their children, the next generation. Would they be branded forever as farmers because it’s written in their fate that “Mera Baap Kisaan hein” or can they turn this into a prized possession and fight for their rights, their subsidies, their land, their fair share of the deal from the government. Obviously they can’t fight this fight alone as they are up against the Big Babu’s, so are we willing to take up this fight or are we happy to buy the genetically modified vegetables, the frozen vegetables from the big super markets, the imported Dal and Chawal ? Whatever the future holds it all depends on what we do today ?

So should the farmer become another Vijay from Deewar because it’s written in his fate that “Mera Baap Kisaan Hein” ?