ExpertDabbler

I read this in yesterday’s HINDU and felt sad.

It is very easy to dismiss this as yet another level crossing accident due to the negligence of a stupid person. Many people would be ready to jump the gun and say, “Cant he wait for 10 minutes? Apdi enna avasaram?” I wish it was that simple.

I am writing this since I am one of the several thousands who cross that closed level crossing whenever I commute to office in bike. By my conservative estimate, from 6 AM in the morning to night 11 PM there is atleast one train between Beach and Tambaram in one direction for every 10 minutes. Factor in the other direction, the fast locals, the super fast/express trains which leave and arrive in Egmore and the goods trains and you will get a better picture about the number of times this gate will close and open in a day. In fact, its appropriate to say the gate remains closed as default and opens during frequent intervals during the day.

During my initial days of commute in this route, i thought let me not cross the tracks when the gates are down and then just wait. But i waited and waited and then i realised waiting is not a practical solution. There will be trains in all the 4 tracks. One sometimes has to wait for more than 10 minutes for the gates to open and spend another 10 minutes for the traffic to clear. At such occasions, the traffic swells into GST Road. Hardly half the blocked traffic would’ve passed and there will be a siren to close the gates for yet another train. On a few occasions, I’ve even seen trains waiting for the vehicles to clear and for the gate to close.

The solution therefore is not waiting for some more time for the gates to open but to build a sub way or a flyover. There is one flyover coming up nearby, but its been WIP status since time immemorial. Every day thousands of vehicles pass through this level crossing.

The worst part is the railways are aware of the realities. They know that people cross the tracks when the gate is closed. In fact they have raised the height of the gate to facilitate a two wheeler to pass through comfortably without getting down from the vehicle.

Recently our CM, the great MK, has made an appeal to Lalu to convert all unmanned level crossings all over the country to manned ones. If only he decides to expedite the overbridge projects in the busy track routes atleast in suburban chennai…

The trouble is, our bureaucrats are champions of this Lose Lose approach to problem solving and decision making. For example, if one asks the railways to fund the overbridge project near this gate, they will cite inadequate funds allocated in the budget for this work. But they are too happy to man this gate with 3/4 guys who will monitor the approaching trains and give warning whistles to the road users to stay away from the tracks. Ofcourse the railways will give them salaries. And oh yeah no budget constraints for giving salaries to these resources for several decades. In a nutshell, India is a country where too many people are governed by too few bureaucrats who lack ideas, common sense and who sport this Who Cares? attitude.

Too often in this blog, i’ve mentioned that population is one of India’s biggest banes. But now i think if channelised properly, this can be india’s biggest strength too. The need of the hour is to unshackle the bureaucracies and pitch in for a community driven, collaborative effort in public developmental works and administration.  For eg. the  initiative to in the pallikaranai marsh was quite effective I think.  If the govt. and the railways are open to suggestions and send out an invite for the same, i’m sure the public will come up with innovative ideas to solve the bottlenecks even with all the constraints.

Lets see.

Off late there has been lot of media coverage about the sudden rise in interest rates and consequently the rise in EMI payments for home loans in India.
There are some who crib, and there are some who have that ‘Thank God i did not purchase any property in India’ look in their faces.
But who actually are the end sufferers? Its the homeless middle class of course. One may wonder how a homeless person can suffer when EMIs go up. But as is always the case, the relatively better off always manage to pass off the burden to their less fortunate brethren. In this case, the rising interest rates have resulted in nothing but an increase in the rent. 2BHK apartments which were available for rentals for as low as 6000 Rs. till last year in velachery are being quoted for 10-12K now.  House owners simply say they cannot afford to let the house for lower rent because of rising EMIs. My manager has fixed a decent apartment in Adyar for a monthly rent of Rs. 21000 (maintenance extra).

Inflationary times indeed!

In spite of being hardly 10% of the country’s population, the salaried class is the most taxed class in the whole of India. The latest straw is the levy of service tax whose breadth and width is getting expanded every day. And i sincerly think the time to put an end to this menace.

Today, whether one pays a mobile bill or buys an apartment, there is service tax. Mr. Chidambaram thinks it’s a cool idea but I think its day-light robbery on the salaried class whose income is already being taxed multiple times - directly or indirectly. With each passing year, Mr. Chidambaram is hell bent on increasing the service tax net. The real tragedy is that the actual service tax is not borne by the person who is being levied the tax but by the end consumer, more often than not, the salaried person.

There have been instances where people have challenged the constitutional validity of Service Tax. Our esteemed courts seem to think that levying service tax is indeed within the ambits of our constitution. In the course of such verdicts, the courts have also declared that service tax is a tax levied on the service provider for the value of service discharged.

It essentially means if Airtel is providing me a telecom service of value 100Rs, Airtel incurs a service tax of  12.36% (a recent official SMS says so). But what these service providers do is, they pass on their tax charges to the hapless consumer.

Let’s consider another perspective. Lets say I work for a company X and get a salary. Assume my taxable income is above Rs.5,00,000 per annum and so, I am getting into the highest tax bracket slab. Now, if my employer offers to pay tax on my behalf, will the tax department agree? Apparently no, the tax paid by my employer is again added to my taxable income.

Thus, the law which lets the person who is levied a service tax to pass on the incidence to consumers does not allow a salaried person to pass on his tax incidence to the employer.

I think the time has come for the salaried class to pay back to the likes of Mr. Chidambaram by hitting where it hurts the most with our own ingenuity. In the prevailing scenario, it makes perfect sense for a professional to renegotiate his terms with the employer as that of a consultant and client rather than an employer and employee who works for a salary. Let us be consultants than as employees.

One can draw the same amount from one’s ‘client’ as one was getting from his ‘employer’ as salary.So he does not lose in monetary terms.But the advantages are many,

What would you do if you are suddenly deprived of net access, your only time pass at home? I guess that explains the sporadic updates to this blog. I could not update the blog from work either.

Occasionally when I return home early enough I had nothing to do except read some stuff and dabble with SU DO KU in HINDU. Thanks to my friend Karthik, I learnt a trick or too in cracking harder puzzles but I still have a long way to go.

Coming to think of it, I guess being a single child helps in situations like this. A single child, I feel learns faster to cope with boredom and loneliness with limited resources at hand than, say a child in a larger family. Add to it the fact that I have a strange love for numbers, one week flew away with SU DO KU :) 

Talking about numbers, have any of you heard about financial engineering? And hedge funds for that matter?

It’s all very well to know from Wiki, but i’d be very happy if someone can explain things from a layman’s perspective with a real example of what they do. A business magazine I read recently states that these FE professionals charge upwards of 30-40 lakhs per annum. Not a bad option for anyone inclined to computers and numbers.

Latest update:
Sun TV did not broadcast the Kalaignar Vizha! Raj TV did!!

In the last two days, a lot has been said and written by the people, bloggers and the press, not to mention the Sun TV Group(aka Sun TV party by Idlyvadai) on the Madurai episode. If you still do not know the madurai episode, pls. dont bother. This post is not for you ;p

As far as i am concerned, it is a clash of the villains.

Villain 1: elder son of our CM who literally rules Madurai.
Villain 2: a media mafia who have ulterior designs. They are not averse to hostile takeovers - be it a business or the entire state.

Right now, its advantage Villain 2.

The real tragedy was of course the loss of three(or four?) innocent lives.

But then ‘collateral damage’ is not a new concept to Dravidian culture in Tamil Nadu.

I only wish this tussle gets more complicated and messy as far as the villains and their families are concerned. They’ve grown so big and powerful that if at all somone can plot their downfall it should be their own kith and kin. Sabash! Sariyaana potti.  

I sincerly pray there are no more collateral damages in the process though.

For the uninitiated, the matter is simple. Marilee Jones has padded her resume with 3 degrees which she, shall we say, forgot to study. She’s done an amazing job for the past 28 years - without her degrees at an institution which is the Ivy of Ivy league - MIT.

But here’s one more perspective to that episode.

This leads me to three conclusions : 

1. Resume padding happens as much in the developed world as in poorer nations.
2. Corporates over-emphasise the degree angle and under-emphasize the skills angle, attitude angle and character angle to do a job.
3. Consequently the arranged marriage market follows the corporates in all their over-emphasis and under-emphasis, at least in India.