Apathy Towards Water

When we moved to NOIDA a few years ago, among the various bills we paid came one from the Jal Nigam or Water Authority. Annual charges for water supply was Rs. 1800 or just Rs. 150/month. This was a flat charge since no meters had been installed. 

This seemed rather odd especially when the other essential utility service - electricity - was carefully metered, with digital bills coming in every month based on a minimum base charge.

Thanks to this apathy towards water nobody cares about the volume of water that overflows and goes down the drain everyday. Water overflowing from the storage tanks in fact had a nuisance value only because it caused seepage from the terrace. This problem was solved, not by getting residents to install 'ball-cocks' to prevent overflows, but by fitting pipes that funneled overflowing water down into the drains. Cheap solutions for cheap resources.

The quality of the water is, of course, questionable. Despite government claims of supplying a mix of river water (Ganga 80%) and groundwater (20%), it comes so loaded with salts and impurities that every household has to either install Reverse Osmosis (RO) machines, or buy water cannisters of RO water for Rs.25 each.

Summer months in North India are characterised by squalls - dust-storms driven by sharp winds that, at times, tear through at over 120 km/hour. It uproots trees and homes, and this season, has caused over a 100 deaths in Uttar Pradesh alone. One such squall knocked out my solar-panels, and one of the water-overflow pipes on the terrace.

Curious to know how much of the overflowing water was disappearing unseen down the drains, I set a bucket under the broken pipe and did a quick calculation. Water overflowing from a set of four tanks was filling up a 15L bucket in just 3 minutes. Extrapolate this to eight sets of tanks receiving municipal supply for at least four hours everyday to 12 residential towers with eight sets of tanks each, and you have a staggering 115,200 liters of water being wasted every day. So, in just one residential colony with a mere 192 houses in Noida, is wasting no less than 42 million liters of water every year!

The optimistic or pragmatic way of looking at this rather grim situation is that barely-treated water is going down the drain to ultimately recharge groundwater aquifers. 

Yet, one cannot help worrying about amount of energy, manpower and other resources that are being deployed to supply water for bathing, washing clothes - and filling the drains of Uttar Pradesh!

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Paz on India

It is interesing to view India through the eyes of Octavio Paz. 

A few days back, a tweet got me searching for the book "In Light of India" at the Dayal Singh Public Library. I had not heard of the book so when went across and mentioned the name of the author to Pankaj, the ever helpful librarian, he looked as though I had reminded him of along forgotten childhood memory. And when he pulled out the book from a corner bookshelf, I understood why. The last time anybody had borrowed this book was in 1997 - more than 20 years ago!

The book itself is a monograph of memories from 1954, the time when Paz was posted to India as a young diplomat. As can be expected, he reflects on the prevailing attitudes and biases of the time: an admiration for Nehru and the "secular" Congress party, and wariness towards the "Hindu nationalist" BJP; a sense of bewilderment over the cacophony of colors, smells that greet a visitor, and the diverse set of people who called themselves citizens of a newly minted republic. One has come to expect such reactions from visiting foreigners but Paz turns out to be slightly different.

Unlike the typical Western view of India what you get here is a unique view of a South American poet and traveller. India's caste system, for instance, is a puzzle he tries to decipher - how did it manage to survive two millennia of foreign invasions and proseletizing? 

"Castes... are not only cooperatives, such as ours, but also solidarity groups, genuine fraternities...this fabric of religious, economic, political, territorial, linguistic, and familial relations gives the castes their extraordinary solidity... Hinduism does not convert individuals; it absorbs communities and tribes, their gods and rites."

Paz notes the strong influence of Mesoamerica in India's cuisine - the word "chili" is of Nahuatl origin for the plant originally came from the Americas...- Another Mexican import "Chico-zapote" is called Chiku is North India and Sapota in the South!

He dives deep into classical Indian poetry and is amazed to find in Vidyakara's anthology of poetry, erotic poems written by Dharmakirti, a Buddhist philosopher and logician who lived in the 7th century.

Yet, Octavio Paz has his failings. The clarity with which he looks at India clouds up when he compares the influence of 'Western Civilization' on Latin America. In his view, the Spanish conquistadors did a great thing by uniting the various tribes in South America, and weaning them away from cycles of war and blood-sacrifice, and introducing to them a new religion in which "sacrifice of a god who became man and spilled his blood to redeem the world". Not a word about the massacre of the Mayans, Zapotecs, Aztecs and Teotihuacanians, or the systematic destruction of a unique civilization, its unique art and architecture, or of the shiploads of gold and silver looted and taken away to enrich Europe! 

If the world is a kaliedoscope, the designs and patterns seen by Paz are unique, but his book leaves you feeling a bit shortchanged, of expecting a real South American perspective, and finding instead, merely another European dressed in a poncho.

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LINKS

- GoodReads - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11708.In_Light_of_India

Pulp vs. Recycled Paper

"Did you notice?" A friend asked me recently, "We have reduced the number of pages in our newspaper". I had noticed not such thing.

Two newspapers get tossed on our balcony every morning and I had certainly felt that either of them was any lighter. The cost-cutting measure apparently had come about because the cost of newsprint had shot up 35 percent in the recent months.

This too had escaped my attention. What could possibly be the reasons for such a significant hike? A quick search on the net throws up the following facts:

• In 2016, the gobal demand for newsprint stood at nearly 24 mmT of which 10.6 mmT came from Asia.
• Yet, in terms of quality and value, US has always been the top market with the highest per-capita consumption of 200kg/year (India - just 13kgs)
• The global newsprint industry has been on a steady decline despite big-ticket mergers (eg. AbitibiBoWater Inc.) due to a steady decline in demand from the US market, which is declining 10%+ YoY.
• Decline in global demand, combined with fluctuations in cost of energy and transportation costs has resulted in the prices fluctuating from $320/T (2002) to over $1000/T. At present the prices hover around $770/T.
• Considering the fact that newsprint costs account for 55-65% o the total cost of producing a newspaper the future does indeed look gloomy for the newspaper industry.

However, the demand for newsprint in India has been rising steadily, thanks to increasing literacy rates and incomes. Yet the global sellers are not exactly rushing in because we are not yet willing to pay the rates they have been getting from USA and Western Europe. 

Also more recently, China, one of the major suppliers of newsprint decided to import pulp instead of waste-paper as a raw material for the the newsprint industry. While this move led to a fall in the prices of imported waste-paper, Indian mills have not been able to use them because all these years, thanks to the print-media lobby, zero-duty on newsprint imports had driven many Indian papermills out of business! 

One thing however remains unclear: If India is consuming about 2 mmT of newsprint every year, why is it not being recycled? Is the process way too expensive or does it go elsewhere? The going rate for used newspapers being collected by the local "Raddi-wala" is Rs.10/kg or Rs.10,000/T whereas newsprint is being imported at about $760/T (INR 50,000/T).

It seems only 20% of waste-paper in India is recycled, compared to over Germany's 73 %, Japan 60 %, Western Europe 56 % , the US 49% and Italy 42%. So much so that we imported USD 1 billion worth waste-paper for our mills in 2011. Surely there is a case for more efficient recovery and recycling in India?

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LINKS & REFERENCES

* 2016 - Global demand for Newsprint - https://www.statista.com/statistics/596561/worldwide-demand-for-newsprint-paper-by-region/

* 2018, March 18, The Print - https://theprint.in/governance/chinas-fight-pollution-torpedoed-indias-newspaper-industry/43008/

* 2018, 12 March, Mint - https://www.livemint.com/Companies/5nUNiHL3HBuPJ2vEBGXX4M/Newsprint-price-hikes-forcing-publishing-cos-to-rejig-practi.html

* 2018, Feb - India Paper consumption - https://www.asiapapermarkets.com/indias-domestic-paper-consumption-at-over-16-mtpa-with-imports-at-over-2-mtpa-demand-projected-to-grow-to-23-36-mtpa-by-2024-25/
- The domestic market / consumption of paper is over 16 million tonnes per annum (TPA), with over 2 million TPA being imported.

* 2018, Jan - BS - Rising costs of paper - http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/paper-makers-raise-prices-by-2-5-across-segments-as-input-costs-pinch-118012000259_1.html

* Newsprint import policy - http://rni.nic.in/newsprin.html
- List of scheduled newsprint manufacturers/importers - http://rni.nic.in/listmills.html

* 2018 - Care Ratings - http://www.careratings.com/upload/NewsFiles/Studies/Paper%20Industry%20Report%202018.pdf
- India consumes about 18 mmT of paper every year which is about 4% o the global market

* 2015, FE - Wealth from Waste - https://www.financialexpress.com/opinion/wealth-from-waste/43315/

* Newsprint - https://www.lifewire.com/newsprint-in-printing-1078129

Mucous Cyst Rx

"Its just a local trauma..."
"No, its a bacterial wart! be careful, it infectious...certainly needs a surgery and biopsy..."
"Oh, just a simple mucous cyst!"

Two months, four doctors and three hospitals and many thousand rupees later, we have gained a few insights into the way in which our medical system works. It give you a glimpse of how private medical care is designed to make a mountain out of a molehill, to scare and fleece the gullible.

Two months ago, our son Aki got a cut on his upper lip which, instead of healing, developed into an eruption. Flesh etruded out of the cut which bled profusely from time to time. One day it would seem to be healing with a black scab but return to a a fleshy, bleeding nodule the very next. About 10 days after it showed no signs of healing, we took him to a doctor at the nearby Jaypee Hosptital. The pediatrician said it was just a "local trauma" and prescribed a  an anti-inflamatory syrup.

Aki found the syrup tasty but it nothing to reduce the eruption, or the bleeding. So off we went for a second opinion, to pediatrician at Patparganj, one strongly recommended by doctor-friends. The clinic was crowded and, from the number of vaccine adverts on the walls, quite popular with pharma companies as well. The doctor here came through a fair, honest, consciencious physician. "This looks like a wart", he said, "It needs to be surgically excised...it is just an Out Patient (OP) procedure in any government hospital, but given the crowds, you won't be seen unless you know somebody personally. If you go to any private hosptial, make sure you get the estimates clearly, in writing, before you get the child admitted". He also graciously returned - to our amazement - his consultancy fees (INR500) because, in his words, "I only advised you to go elsewhere." 

Next stop, Max Hospital. Here we got to meet our first pediatric surgeon. One look at Aki's lip, and he declared that it was "mucous cyst". Pulling our a couple of blank sheets, he explained in detail how it developed. "Sometimes, the process of healing ends up blocking the flow of mucus cells...and instead of keeping the lip surface moist, they end up discharging mucus under the skin. This develops into a cyst which ruptures and bleeds easily." Surgery, apparently, was the only way to get the cyst removed.

How much would surgery cost? Well, the answer depends on whether or not you have a mediclaim insurance cover. If you do, then it would cost about INR 25,000 if you got it done at Max Hospital. The cost of booking an operation theatre, anaesthesia specialists and a days' stay at the hospital, we were told, made a relatively simple procedure expensive. 

Would this be defenitely covered under mediclaim? Guys at the billing office were not so sure. "Lets see", they said, "We will submit all the papers and then know in a couple of days". Not quite reassuring.

So now we went for fourth opinion with a surgeon at Kailash Hospital, Noida. The diagnosis at Max was reconfirmed. This certainly was a mucus cyst that needed to be 'surgically excised, or cauterized'. The cost was a couple of thousands less but, given the crowds at this hospital, nobody wanted to an operation date, or the insurance coverage.

Back at Jaypee Hospital, the feedback from the billing office was the same. The procedure would cost not less than INR 25,000, which included no less than INR 8000 for 'micellaneous consumables'! The cost of the biopsy, of course, would be extra.

Since none of the pediatric surgeons said that it was emergency procedure, we thought about it for a couple of days, checked with other hospital, and settled for a surgery at Felix Hospital. This was the only place were we met a pediatric surgeon who inspired confidence in us with his surgery-as-last-resort approach. This was the also only hospital that had an OT readily available, did not insist on conning insurance companies and came up with surgery cost estimates at INR 5500. The only down side at this hospital was that they charged thrice the amount for consultancy fees for pediatric surgeons, compared to far more reputed hospitals. 

Anyway, sometimes when all is not so well also ends well. A supposedly common medical condition was misdiagnosed, received inflated cost estimates for the surgery, and was finally sorted out for one-fifth the estimates. One thing is clear, the nexus between private private, medical insurance companies, and TPAs is designed to fleece patients - especially those who may not have the luxury of time to seek a fair deal.

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Postscript:
After the final follow-up visit, our doctor requested that we evaluate him online. I received three sites on WhatsApp -- Practo, Lybrate and JustDial. This is an interesting new trend - doctors want to create a reputation that is independent of the hospitals in which they serve. I am not sure if this is good for the patients because we now have one more broker in between, and the additional costs are built into the doctor's fees :(

* Practo: Verifies feedback with an OTP sent to mobile number, collects proof of visit (bill/prescription), and creates a login for you, on the sly. 
* Lybrate: Does not have a clear section for doctor feedback. Verified using OTP. No need to login.
* JustDial: Badly designed site. The doctor's review page forces you to post your comments on FaceBook and Twitter (default option). Crazy.

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LINKS:

- Oral mucocele - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_mucocele

Young India - Unsatisfied, Unscrupulous, Unstoppable

"Where you stand depends on where you sit" - Mile's Law

Over the past two weeks I have come across two views on where India is headed, both seem to contradict each other but at the same time, pointing to a common direction while reiterating Mile's Law.

The first was an Explained session organised by the Indian Express at New Delhi where Manish Sabharwal, the chairman of TeamLease spoke of great business opportunities in the India, while the second one was book by Snigdha Poonam titled, "Dreamers".

Sabharwal was amazingly optimistic and eloquent on the direction in which India was headed. Where most liberals saw clouds of doom and gloom, he saw opportunties etched in the sliver linings. Sample these facts and figures -

- Good Times Ahead: 50% of India's labor force is engaged in agriculture which contributes just 13% of GDP, while 0.7% of the workforce is into ITES which contributes 9% of GDP! With more than 600 international companies setting up captive IT centres in India, the workforce of 3.5 million in ITES is set to double over the next 10 years.
- "Cascading Regime Change": We are already seeing the synergystic impact of recent reforms (GST + RERA + DeMo). Before GST there were only 7 million enterprises registered for indirect tax. Now there are 10.5 million -- a 50% increase in just eight months!

Sabharwal's optimism as the leader of one of the largest employers in India contrasted with that of the journalist Snigdha Poonam who saw the great mismatch between aspirations of millions of young Indians, and harsh ground realities.

If you saw a pop-up on your screen warning you of an IRS investigation in USA or a virus in your laptop/PC/mobile, chances are that you are about to be scammed by an Indian. It seems there are hundreds of call centers in the obscure byelanes of urban India, using desperate job-seekers to con the most vulnerable people across the world --  elderly pensioners, single mothers struggling to make ends meet and all those who are already intimidated by technology.

According to Poonam: "Like it or not, young India is what it is - unsatisfied, unscrupulous, unstoppable. Few young Indians had a clear sense of right and wrong: fewer gave a damn about it. 

The idea of personal benefit over public good isn't owned by them, however. It is at the core of India's value system. Sure, some young Indians will cheat their way to their dreams, but they don't see how they are different from anyone in the news - politicians, businessmen, celebreties..."

Sabharwal's TeamLease claims to have hired someone for every 5 minutes in the last few years and provided employment to more than 1.2 million since 2002. And yet, he also admits that his hiring funnel is very narrow - out of every hundred applicants, less than 5 are hired, trained and placed in various companies.

So there you are - the desperation and angst Poonam sees in the 95 who got rejected is quite different from the optimism of those who did. The way you look at the future depends completely on where you stand.

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LINKS & REFERENCES:

* Explained by Indian Express - http://indianexpress.com/article/explained/manish-sabharwal-problem-is-wages-not-jobs-minimum-salary-unemployment-indian-gdp-5106348/

* Reviews: http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/books/hope-against-hope

https://www.hindustantimes.com/mumbai-news/thane-call-centre-scam-mastermind-who-gifted-girlfriend-rs-2-5-cr-audi-arrested-in-mumbai/story-kiKLnuAVy6gNVlkPhHYEAM.html

Aadhaar - Biometric Mismatch

Last week I found myself in a bit of a fix while trying to book a ride back home late at night.
Standing on a lonely roadside waiting for a confirmation on my Uber ride, I found that I no money to pay for it - there was no cash in my pocket, and my e-wallet account balance was below the minimum INR 350.

My account with Uber is linked to PayTM, a popular e-wallet platform in India. Uber gave me two options for topping up - through my credit-card or directly through PayTM. The latter had been an easier process but this hit a wall with the message which said that my account was not yet KYC compliant.

Know Your Customer (KYC) is now compulsary for all e-wallet accounts as per the new rules set by the central bank. Introduced with the objective of reducing misuse and money-laundering, KYC requires submission of id proof -  details of Passport, Tax PAN or the Adhaar universial id number.  I was under the impression that Adhaar was the fastest way of fulfilling KYC norms. I had done it earlier for my bank accounts and for a JIO mobile connection. It had taken just a few minutes to get an online confirmation.

However, the process was quite different for the PayTM. As soon as I sent my 16-digit number, I got a message saying that a PayTM representative come an meet me personally for a confirmation. A confirmation? Why is additional confirmation needed when, according to UIDAI's own procedures, the number could be used to confirm my identity with their central database? Anyway, since there was no hope of completing the KYC standing by the roadside at night, I went back to Uber and transferred some money to my PayTM account using my credit card.

A few days later, and after a series of SMSs, a representative of PayTM's "partner" turned up at my door with portable fingerprint scanner plugged into his mobile phone. He passed me his mobile and told me to type in my Adhaar number. Soon I got a message on my mobile with a code and a URL with the message - "By providing this code to our agent, you agree to become a full KYC customer of PayTM Payments Bank and confirm acceptance." You have no time to check the fine-print so the agent gets his code.

After this, a mouse-like device is used to scan my thumb-prints. One by one, the scanner moves from my thumb, to the pointer and index, until all 10 fingerprints are covered. For each and every scan he gets a message (from where? UIDAI?) saying that all the authentications had failed!

The look of amazement on my face prompted the agent to console me - "Aise hota reha hai...fingerprint badal jaate hei" (This keeps happening, fingerprints change over time). WTF?? I had heard about farm workers losing their fingerprints to hard labour but my fingers were anything but callused, or even unclean!

How can UIDAI authentications fail in urban areas? A quick internet search reveals that mine is not an isolated case. While authentication failures have been quite common on rural areas - due to incorrectly captured fingerprints, poor internet connectivity or a change in biometric details because of old age or wear and tear - it is now increasingly common in urban areas as well.

The Adhaar UID is no doubt backed by the laws of probablity and complex algorithms but this experience has placed me firmly in the ranks of the Adhaar skeptics. Failing to get an Uber taxi ride due to an Adhaar biometric failure hardly makes a difference to me, but to think that millions depends on this flawed system for their rations is just unexcusable.


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Other Unanswered Questions:

* Now that the private sub-contractor to PayTM has all my fingerprints scanned and saved, what are the chances of misuse?


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REFERENCES / LINKS

* https://www.businesstoday.in/current/policy/linking-aadhaar-with-paytm-deadline-ends-today-to-complete-kyc-for-e-wallets/story/271698.html
* Scroll on KYC problems - https://scroll.in/article/870873/indias-e-wallets-are-struggling-to-weather-the-storm-set-off-by-mandatory-aadhaar-linked-kyc-norms
* How to link PayTM with Adhaar - https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/info-tech/how-to/how-to-link-paytm-with-aadhaar/article22866742.ece
* Fingerprint authentication failure - https://scroll.in/article/857274/now-even-the-fingerprints-of-urban-indians-are-failing-during-aadhaar-authentication
* Medianama rebuttal to N.Nilekani's claims - https://www.medianama.com/2017/04/223-nandan-nilekani-aadhaar/

Jaipur, 1727

"Where do the poor in your city live?
Are they consigned to shanties and ghettos, far from the 'gated communities', 
or do they share a common, egalitarian space?"

Earlier this week, I found myself at IHC, a refugee trying to escape the evening traffic, looking for something worthwhile do until it was safer to drive back home. On the boards was a talk titled, "Architecture and Society Series: Future City Jaipur". It was apparently part of a series initiated by M.N. Ashish Ganju, and the speaker who posed these questions was Sudhanshu Mukherjee, an architect who thought that city planning in 1600's was a lot better than it is today.

Having visited and stayed in Jaipur numerous times, this did seem like a tall claim - until the speaker explained how the city came into being. In the early 1700s North India was in turmoil - the Mughals had weakened considerably and Raja Jai Singh thought it was an opportune time to build a new city which would attract businesses away from Delhi, Agra and Mathura, along an alternate route to the ports of Gujarat. Like any modern SEZ, the city of Jaipur offered numerous sops and incentives to traders who were willing to relocate to the new city.

The city was conceived as a nine-box grid, aligned not only to the principles of Vaastu-Shastra, but also the existing temples to the Surya and Krishna/Vishnu. While common infrastructure and services were provided by the state, each Mohalla or quarter was allowed to design living spaces as they wished, after the plans were duly approved by the chief city planner, a Bengali named Vidyadhar Bhattacharya.



The advantage of this flexible planning was that it integrated citizens from various economic and social strata into common living spaces. This, in turn, fostered a sense of belonging and an egalitarian sense of solidarity amongst various communities in the city.  This approach to city planning was later abandoned in favour of Western style grids that separated living and working spaces, in creating cities like Chandigarh and Bhubaneswar that end up looking "more like army cantonments than bustling metropolises; cities built for automobiles rather than human beings".

It seems there have been attempts to revive this approach, such as Norman Foster's Masdar City in Dubai which aims to be a "a mixed-use, low-rise, high-density development" with an emphasis on pubic transportation. Another example is Khuda-Ki-Basti (Hyderabad, Pakistan), and Incremental Development Plan which won the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 1995.

As one of the few non-architects attending the lecture, I was struck by the pessimism of all the city planners present (were most of them Bengalis?). It also brought out the disconnect and the turf-wars going on between those who were teaching (mostly at SPA, Delhi), and those running their own studios.

In a hall that seemed full of articulate, long-winded experts, if there was one person who made an impression, it was the elderly Ashish Ganju. A practicing, teaching architect who had been staying for the past 18 years in Aya Nagar, a crowded village wedged between Delhi and Gurgaon, he seemed to be the only one walking the talk!

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References & Links
* Book - Jain, Kulbhushan(): Indian City in the Arid West - https://www.abebooks.co.uk/book-search/title/indian-city-in-the-arid-west/author/jain-kulbhushan-jain-minakshi/
* SlideShare - https://www.slideshare.net/saumyakohli/architecture-and-planning-of-jaipur
* Norman Foster's Masdar City, Abu Dhabi - https://www.fosterandpartners.com/projects/masdar-city/
* Khuda-Ki-Basti, Hyderabad, Pakisan - http://www.akdn.org/ru/architecture/project/khuda-ki-basti-incremental-development-scheme

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More Qs:

* How did Vidyadhar Bhattacharya end up in Jaipur? Is there a link between Jai Singh's tenure as Akbar's Subedar of Bengal, and his presence in the desert kingdom?

* In 1739, within a decade of Jaipur coming into being, the Persian marauder, Nadir Shah plundered what remained of Mughal Delhi. In Delhi alone, he is recorded to have massacred over 20,000 people. How many of the survivors ended up in Jaipur?

The Power of One

This is one obituary that refuses to leave my mindspace.

It is not often that we see touching, personal tributes to politician who passed away but E. Chandrasekharan Nair seems to have been a very unusual politician indeed. He is being refered to as the driving force behind Kerala's public distribution system which is not just functional (an usual thing in India), but also super efficient in delivering essential provisions (grains, fuel) to those who need it the most.

My own mother is a big fan of ECN. For a citizen who is not below the poverty line (BPL), even she can get 2kg of raw rice, 2kg of chemba (red) rice, 2kg of wheat atta and 0.5L of kerosene - all for just INR 100. "Where else in the world can you walk into a PDS shop and get so much for INR 100?" she asks, "Folks with BPL cards can get foodgrains at INR 1/kg!...even migrant labourers from other states are eligible for this facility!"

In most other states, foodgrains meant for the PDS is regularly siphoned off to private millers who, in turn, package it and sell it as branded stuff. How did one politician manage to fight off the usual lobbies and pressure-groups to put in place a welfare system that actually works?

The key to building an efficient PDS apparantly lies in the government agency that runs it. In this case, ECN was responsible for implementing key reforms as the minister in charge of  Kerala's Department of Food and Civil Supplies, for three long stints (1980-81, 1987-91 and 1996-2001).

Under this department, a public company, Kerala State Civil Supplies Corp Ltd (SupplyCo) runs a vast machinery for efficiently procuring foodgrains directly from the farmers at minimum support prices, of getting the grain processed in contracted mills, and, finally, getting them distributed through 14 district depots, 56 taluk depots and around 1500 retail outlets (Maveli Stores). The sales turnover of this company was nearly INR 4000 crores in 2015-16!


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REFERENCES / LINKS

- Obituary (NewsMinute) - http://www.thenewsminute.com/article/ex-kerala-minister-e-chandrasekharan-nair-architect-maveli-stores-passes-away-72372
- Obituary (The Hindu) - http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/kerala/e-chandrasekharan-nair-passes-away/article21095877.ece
(2000) - Interview - http://www.frontline.in/static/html/fl1719/17190980.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Chandrasekharan_Nair
Maveli Stores - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maveli_Stores
SupplyCo, Kerala - http://supplycokerala.com/

The Air We Breathe

Over the past one week, I have been analyzing the market for air purifiers in the NCR Delhi region. It is just the right time of the year for an assignment like this - the quality of air here takes a nosedive with the onset of winter.

Today the reports of suspended particulate matter - especially PM 2.5 - were particularly alarming. It peaked at over 715 mg/m3 when the prescribed limit is below 60 mg/m3!

Just before the festival of lights, Diwali, farmers in Northern India harvest their summer crops and prepare their fields for the winter sowing season. Since it is too expensive to physically remove the post harvest residue from the fields they just burn it.  A huge cloud of smoke then slowly drifts over Delhi and settles down with all the smoke from Diwali firecrackers, turning the national capital into a gas chamber.

This year, a one-off intervention by the Supreme Court resulted in a ban on the sale of firecrackers, so there was a marginal reduction in the smog and haze, but it still left most of us teary eyed, and with a niggling irritation in the throat.

Pollution is not bad news for everybody. There has been a spike in the number of companies selling air purifiers, big advertisements in the newspapers point to the fact that 15 odd companies are all set to make hay while the sun shines dimly through the smog.

According to the Philips salesman at GIP Mall in Noida, air purifiers have been flying off the shelves as Diwali gifts. The company is barely able to keep pace with the demand. From what one could see, in their enthusiasm to sell, their glib sales pitch is also barely in touch with scientific facts.

"We human being consume about four kilograms of food everyday", said the Philips salesman, "But do we know that we also breathe in about 24 kgs of air, with all the pollutants in Delhi?" I did not know that. Having been under the impression that the volume of air is measured in liters or cubic feet or cubic meters, I have been trying to figure out the actual volume of air consumed by us everyday.

The World Health Organisation and US-EPA has some clear figures on this. Considering the fact that the air contains 20-23% of oxygen, and that an average human being breathes in about 0.5 liters of air with each inhalation. At about 20 inhalations per minute, we are consuming no less than 6-8 liters of air while we are sitting around doing nothing. This jumps up to 60 liters/minute while running at 5 miles/hour. So it turns out that we are breathing in no less than 14,400 liters of air every day (0.5 * 20 * 60 * 24). This volume would take up all the space in a room measuring about 500 cubic feet!

The Philips salesman might have been talking through his hat, but there is no denying the fact that most of us are unaware of the sheer volume of contaminated air entering our lungs every day!

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LINKS and REFERENCES

*  WHO  Factsheet - Ambient air quality and health - http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs313/en/

* USA - California Env Protection Agency research - https://www.arb.ca.gov/research/resnotes/notes/94-11.htm

* YouTube video - How much oxygen does a person consume/day? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-QYVKYKyfg

* https://www.quora.com/How-much-volume-do-we-inhale-and-exhale-in-a-day

* Oxygen intake - https://health.howstuffworks.com/human-body/systems/respiratory/question98.htm

On Owls and Idioms

This is one of the most intriguing idioms I have come across.

Translated from Hindi to English, it means, "To straighten one's owl", and the common understanding of the idiom in North India is "get one's work done", in a sneaky kind of way.

For instance, when you are in a meeting that has been called to discuss, say, a cleanliness drive. If you see some participants holding forth on an issue that has little to do with cleanliness but more to do with settling an old grudge with somebody specific, it could be said that he is  'straightening his owl'. He is using the meeting as a means to achieve a goal that is narrow and personal.

It is similar to 'Shooting off somebody's shoulder' but it goes beyond taking advantage of a person or a friend, to achieve you own purposes.

While this idiom is pretty apt in a lot of situations - especially at a workplace, or in politics - it origins remain mysterious. The owl (Uluka in Sanskrit, and Ullu in Hindi), despite being the vahana of Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, is considered a stupid bird in North India. So if you do something idiotic, you might be called an Ullu in Delhi, or an Ullu da Pattha (son of an owl!), in Punjab.

Perhaps this is because the bird looks quite lost and disoriented during daytime. However, unlike bats, it never perches upside down. So how on earth did this idiom originate?

Also, are there similar idioms in other languages?

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REFERENCES & LINKS

• Hindi Idioms - http://www.hindisahityadarpan.in/2013/01/famous-hindi-idioms-phrases-and.html
• 25 Hindi idioms inspired by food - https://www.naukrinama.com/stressbuster/25-hindi-idioms-inspired-food-brought-hearing-saying/
• Vahana - (Sanskrit - "that which carries, that which pulls" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vahana

Nature Watch on the Kugti Trek

Its amazing how the flora and fauna changes in the Chamba Valley, as you ascend from 10,000 ft to 16,500 ft. It starts with compulsive greenery, a riot of colorful flowers and the chirping of unseen birds in the pine forests, then, as you climb, the vegetation first thins down to the bare minimum, and then to none at all.

Here are some of the scenes we managed to capture along the way.

A Monitor Lizard basks in the sun. As you cross Kugti village and trek towards the Kaylong Kartik Temple, they seem to be all over the place - basking in the sun, staring at you warily atop boulders, or just slinking out of the way quietly. 

Why are they so numerous in the vicinity of the village? Is it because of insects that are attracted to the terrace crops? 

Wagtails of all kinds! 

When you are driving from Bharmour towards Kugti you can see them swooping and diving in front of the vehicles. These are mostly Citrine Wagtails with their distinct pale yellow undersides. Beyong Kugti, you see two others: White Wagtail (Motacilla alba) with- white wedges around their eyes, and 

the White-brown Wagtail (Motacilla maderaspatensis), the ones with slick white 'eyebrows'.

Tiny glossy leaves, red berries, cushiony on rocks - Cotoneaster microphyllus (Bhedda)

 And the ones that are yet to be identified:

Yellow flower with a hundred needle like petals - Inula grandiflora (Daisy family)

Dam Good!

One thing that strikes you as you travel to Kugti is the number of hydro-electric projects that have sprung up all over the Chamba Valley.

From the moment you leave the Punjab plains and enter Himachal Pradesh, you see power projects of assorted shapes and sizes all along the route. Many of them are the conventional, small-scale run-of-the-river projects where you have a small dam blocking the river and the resulting resorvoir being used to generate electricity. Others are a lot more complex, and the only sign of their existence is the tunnels that have been bored through the mountains, to divert waters into long pipes that feed hidden turbines.

It may not make the river look cleaner or prettier but it certainly helps the local population access one thing that makes the winter months more bearable: electricity. Thanks to projects like these, Himachal Pradesh is able to generate more than 8500MW of electricity which it is able sell to states located downstream.

Perhaps the largest player in this valley is the National Hydro Power Corp (NHPC), a central public-sector enterprise that has set up some of the largest power plants on the Ravi river, such as the Chamera-I and Chamera-II projects. Having decided to settle down for a long haul, NHPC has numerous office/staff/residential complexes all along the Chamba valley, commanding some of the best views in this district!

Private players are not too far behind. GMR and Lanco too have a growing presence here with the former represented by deep green container-box offices set up all along the road up to Holi.

Now, which are the small HEPs located along the road to Kugti? 

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REFERENCES & LINKS

* NHPC -- http://www.nhpcindia.com/projects-overview.htm

- presently has an installation base of 6667 MW from 21 hydropower stations on ownership basis including projects taken up in Joint Venture.

* GMR - http://www.gmrgroup.in/energy-gmr-bajoli-power-project.aspx

- Bajoli-Holi 180MW project on Ravi - to be commissioned in 2018

* Lanco Budhil Project -- http://www.lancogroup.com/DynTestForm.aspx?PageID=29

- 70 MW plant commissioned in 2012

- Village Thalla, P.O. Ghared, Tehsil Bharmour, District Chamba 

* Hydro-Electric Power in Himachal Pradesh - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroelectric_power_in_Himachal_Pradesh

- 8,418 MW is harnessed so far

* Hydro Electric Projects in HP - http://india-wris.nrsc.gov.in/wrpinfo/index.php?title=Hydro_Electric_Projects_in_Himachal_Pradesh

* Himachal Pradesh Power Corp - http://www.hppcl.in/page/hydro.aspx

Trek to Kaylong Kartik Temple and Kugti Pass

I'm sitting at my desk, with my eyes on a glowing laptop screen, but my mind is still in the Himalayan mountains.

Having spent the whole of last week trekking through the stunning Chamba valley, attempting my first Cross-Over trek through the Kugti Pass to Lahaul-Spiti in Ladakh, I realize that this trip has been an eye-opener is more ways than one.

I did not know, for instance, that affordable trekking was possible for a small group of five, with the support of two guides, one porter and a cook! Since much of the grunt work of setting up camp, cooking food and foraging for fuel is outsourced, it leaves you with enough and more time to take in the scenery, observe the birds and insects, and enjoy the journey.

This trek passed through the Manikaran Kailash area, an ancient pilgrimage circuit. It was therefore not surprising to see the route dotted with tiny roadside shrines and larger temples. What was intriguing, however, was the set of beliefs and traditions that blended so well with that of the nomadic shepherds who form the economic lifeline of this remote district.

The Keylang Kartik Temple is an excellent example. It is open only from 13 April to 30 November every year - the time when the shepherds are taking their flock from their summer grazing grounds in Lahaul-Spiti down the green meadows and fields of the Chamba valley and the plains, to escape the harsh winters in the mountains.

The temple itself is at multiple levels, blending with the steep slope on which it is located. At the lowest area are the toilets, a little further up, attached to the main building is a shop selling votive's and offerings. This shop is run by the same family that takes care of the temple - priests from the Kugti Village. At the next level you have the temple with a large courtyard, attached to a cooking shed and a little spring-water pool purported to contain the footprints of the presiding deity.

The main temple is a wooden structure divided into two areas - a prayer hall with a window on each of its three walls, facing the towering snow-peaks, and the sanctum containing three idols, one each of silver, panchadhatu (?) and marble. As in most North Indian temples, devotees can walk right into the sanctum and touch the idols before going around the narrow passageway surrounding the sanctum.

The evening Aarti takes place at 7 PM. The priest corrals whoever is around to help with the puja. I was handed a Yak-hair fly-whisk while our guide took charge of the cymbals as we walked around clanging numerous bells hanging overhead. We all then stepped out to offer prayers to two more deities in the courtyard area - Ganesha and Kartik again represented by his vaahana, the peacock.

One thing you will not miss at the temple is the iron chains and tridents along the temple walls. While most of the tridents / trishuls are offerings from the pilgrims on the Manikaran Kailash circuit, the chains are more than just symbolic. They are used by soothsayers from the nearby villages to flagellate themselves as they go into a frenzy while "talking" to the mountain spirits. They become the medium through which the Gods speak to the villagers, and vice versa.

According to the temple priest, the older chains are considered more potent by the villagers. If they need to borrow the older chains to be used in the village temples, they have to deposit two new ones as security. Also, a chain borrowed from the temple is to be carried "without touching the ground", even if it is tucked away inside a bag.

Animal sacrifice is the most accepted form of thanksgiving here. Villagers and shepherds come here to offer animals in gratitude for a successful crossing, or after surviving another winter in the mountains. Perhaps quite appropriately, the main prasad here is mutton-curry and rice. While this may not be to the liking of many Hindu purists in the plains, its best to leave those who survive in the mountains to frame their own rules!

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Unanswered Qs:

* Is there any other temple in India where Kartik is considered the protective diety of nomads and shepherds?
* Mythology says that Kartik lost a bet to his brother, Ganesha, and destroyed himself. Does it talk of a sister named Matala-Devi who sits atop a craggy peak on the opposite side of the river?

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REFERENCES & LINKS

Manimahesh Parikrama - http://www.bharmourtreks.com/show_tour.php?tourid=3&cat=1
Kaylong Kartik Temple - Mythology - http://www.bharmourtreks.com/show_tour.php?tourid=3&cat=1

All That Gas

At Sector-105, Noida, this is quite a regular sight on any given day - vehicles waiting for their turn at the CNG filling station.

Cars, buses, mini-vans all stretch out for more than 500 mts crawling bumper to bumper, twiddling their thumbs, wasting precious time, until they finally reach the fuel nozzles.

What is it that makes the transfer of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) from the fuel station to vehicles, such a time consuming process? How much CNG is being wasted while waiting to get CNG?

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LINKS

* (2016) - BS - 72 new IGL stations - http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/igl-says-has-set-up-72-new-cng-stations-so-far-this-year-116050200855_1.html

When History Repeats Itself

Each time I read a book by William Dalrymple, I wonder why our country does not produce such engaging scholar-storytellers. The book, "Return of a King" is no exception. It is meticulously researched and weaves a story that blends the contrasting versions of the victorious and the vanquished, into one 500-page, eminently readable tome.

In this book, the author also has is also a personal angle tucked away in the story. Dalrymple's great-great-grand uncle was an active participant in the Afghan wars, first as a bureaucrat in Punjab, and then as a soldier and prisoner-of-war in Afghanistan. So it also serves, to some extent, as the family history of a Scottish Highlander.

The book describes a period is spread across three centuries, from the time of Nadir Shah's invasion and plunder of Delhi in 1739 to the entry of British and US forces in the 1980s,  with the proclaimed intent of "fighting terror" and "restoring democracy" in what had become the stronghold of Osama bin Laden and his band of Arab fighters.

At the time of Nadir Shah, it was his Shiite Persian followers - the Qizilbash - along with his former soldiers, who formed the ruling elite of Afghanistan. The Sadozai clan was formed by a soldier named Ahmad Shah Abdali/Durrani who was to defeat the Maratha forces in the Third Battle of Panipat in 1761, while the Barakzai clan arose from a gunner is Nadir's army named, Haji Jamal Khan.

While the central theme is politics, intrigue and power-struggles between these two clans, the book makes you wonder about the Afghanistan that would have existed long before it was taken over by Islamic soldiers of fortune, and of the times when fighting "Jihad" against "Infidels" was not the rousing war-cry that destroyed a rich cultural heritage.

It offers glimpses of economic linkages cultural traditions that persisted even until the last century -- of Shikarpuri merchants whom kings approached to fund their war-efforts; of Nepali pilgrims visiting the remains of Hindu holy sites in the mountains; of regular raids that took place across the Khyber Pass into the plains; slave traders who flourished in the markets of Kabul, Khulm and Balkh, all the way to Bukhara.

You wonder what a different world it would have been a few thousand years ago, when Princess Gandhari of Mahabharata moved out of Khandahar to marry a king in the Gangetic plains, and then went on to blindfold herself and listen to a courtier's commentary of the internecine war that destroyed her dynasty.

Later, did Alexander's army too wreak vengeance on villages just as the British army did in the early 1840s? Did they also plunder and rape, torch villages and cut down all fruiting trees, just as the British did in the Jalalabad valley and in villages like Istalif, the Shomali plains (which is today home to the USAF base at Baghram)?

What thoughts would have crossed the minds of the thousands of people who were taken away as slaves - so many that an entire mountain range is now called the Hindukush ("Hindu Killer") where most perished? In this context, some of the narratives make you cringe, such as the one by Josiah Harlan that describes how Uzbek slave-traders sewed their captives to their horse-saddles:

"To oblige the prisoner to keep up, a strand of coarse horse-hair is passed by means of a crooked needle, under around the collar-bone. a few inches from its junction with the sternum; with the hair a loop is formed which they attach a rope that may be fastened to the saddle. The captive is constrained to keep near the retreating horse-man, with his hands tied behind his person, is altogether helpless" 

This story revolves around the return of a king, and yet, it reads like a play that has been performed many times over on the same stage. The costumes change, religious leanings change from Hindu and Buddhist to Islam; languages switch from maybe Kharoshti/Prakrit, Pali, and Sanskrit to Persian, Pashto, Dari and English, but the same tragedy gets repeated over and over again.

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LINKS & REFERENCES

* GoodReads - "Return of a King" - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13454654-return-of-a-king
* Istalif village - http://www.istalif.com/

Promising the Skyscrapers: Jaypee's Corporate Debt Burden

There was a showdown yesterday in our neighborhood yesterday. About 4000 homebuyers staged a protest against the Jaypee Group for its failure to deliver their apartments on time.

The anger and rustration of homebuyers is undertandable. Having been promising a "Wish Town" with sprawling lawns, gold courses, playgrounds and various other amenities , and having invested  their life savings to buy a home of their own, they are now being left in the lurch. Apartments that were to be handed over in 2011 are still undelivered. Across the expressway, a vast array of unfinished apartment complexes can be seen on the horizon -- empty shells of brick, cement and concrete, with no sign of life, or work-in-progress.

A number of protests have been taking place from time to time. The last one led to a blokage on the expressway, and this one was aparently triggered by a decision in the High Court. The Allahabad bench of the National Compaly Law Tribunal (NCLT) admitted IDBI bank's insolvency plea pertaining to Jaaypee Infratech. The company had failed to repay a loan of INR 8500 Crores (USD 1.3 billion).

Behind the anger and frustration of the homebuyers is the larger picture of Corporate Debt in India. Thanks to poor internal controls, bad debts in Indian banks has shot up to INR 7,00,000 Crores (USD 109 billion) over the last two years. In order to defaults companies have been on fire sale of assets: Reliance Communications (RCom), which had debts of over Rs 47,000 crore sold its tower business to escape default default, the Ruias have sold their oil refining business to Rosneft, GMR and GVK parts of their airports and power businesses, and Vijay Mallya parts of his liquor businesses that were mortgaged to fund Kingfisher Airlines.

Jaypee group’s debt is over Rs 75,000 crore (USD 11b). So, according a report in the Hindu:

"... the group has agreed to sell its 20mtpa of cement assets to Kumar Birla-led Ultratech for Rs 15,900 crore. This will leave its listed entities with about 6mtpa of cement capacity, three thermal power plants, one hydropower plant, an expressway project and land parcels. It is looking to sell most of these assets at the right price, but buyers are not easy to come by. Aside from selling stake in its land parcels and the Yamuna Express Highway, the group is looking to sell its remaining cement plants for Rs 4,000 crore and its Bina thermal power plant for Rs 3,500 crore. In the last year, the group has defaulted on payment obligations worth $350 million. Analysts say its capacity to service its debt has not improved."

No wonder there are few takers when the Jaypee Group boss, Manoj Gaur, tries to tell the homebuyers that their "investment is safe".

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LINKS & REFERENCES

* (2017) - http://www.hindustantimes.com/noida/noida-authority-jaypee-tell-homebuyers-not-to-panic-assure-their-money-is-safe/story-nYjtbZb1bR6tzfYbZitI2N.html

Jaggi on the slowdown (30may17) https://swarajyamag.com/economy/not-just-demo-pm-modis-black-money-chase-is-x-factor-in-growth-slowdown

(2017, May) Financial Express - http://www.financialexpress.com/industry/banking-finance/demonetisation-impact-bank-npas-mount-to-rs-614872-crore-set-to-rise-further/558916/
- They now constitute 11 per cent of of the gross advances of Public Sector Unit (PSU) banks. In all, the total NPAs including both the public and private sector banks were Rs 697,409cr in December 2016. These figures were compiled by Care Ratings.

 - 31 May - Reliance Defaults -  https://www.bloombergquint.com/markets/2017/05/31/an-ambani-default-won-t-fly
Andy / Bloomberg - http://m.economictimes.com/industry/banking/finance/banking/at-this-rate-fintech-will-slaughter-indias-banks/articleshow/58782969.cms

The Hindu- http://www.thehindu.com/business/Industry/the-biggestever-fire-sale-of-indian-corporate-assets-has-begun-to-tide-over-bad-loans-crisis/article8573163.ece

USB Vulnerability

Ever so often, whenever I pick up a USB memory stick, a certain train of thought crosses my mind.
"Here is a miracle device", I remind myself, "which one of the 6 billion+ across the world, one that has made data-transfer and battery charging so amazingly simple, and yet, contains within it the power to destroy nuclear plants, water and power supply grids and to unleash starvation, misery and death across the world!"

A few years ago, the Economist highlighted positive features of the 'thumb-drive' in an article very aptly titled. "In Praise of the Humble USB". While reading this piece, I was delighted to know that a computer architect of Indian origin,  Ajay Bhatt, had a key role to play in creating this amazing interface, which his parent company, Intel, decided to make 'the cheap USB plug and socket an open standard, available to manufacturers everywhere free of all royalty charges and licensing fees'. This one move destroyed the Firewire standard that had been patronised by Apple, and made USB a de facto standard across the world.

The ease with which the USB drive could be used also made it a handy tool in the hands of spies, spooks and saboteurs. The most famous example of this is the Stuxnet virus which CIA and Mossad used to destroy a thousand centrifuges in Iran. Ever since I heard of this cyber-attack, I have been awed by the sheer scale of destruction that can be unleashed through the USB drives. It also led me to the mistaken belief that the Iranian nuclear program had been irreparably damaged because of Stuxnet.

A recent documentary by Alex Gibney - "Zero Days" - suggests that in the real world, things are not what they seem. In their eagerness and impatience to destroy the Iranian nuclear centrifuges, Mossad apparently changed the codes created by their CIA/NSA collaborators, and released a version that was a lot less subtle, and left behind an electronic trail that was being used against the USA. It seems Iran has now built up one of the largest cyber-armies in the world, one that was behind two major warning attacks: one on the largest oil company in the world, SaudiAramco, destroyed every line of code on 30,000 computers, and then a surge attack on banks in the USA that crippled commercial operations.

As a friend recently pointed out, our biggest vulnerability is that new technology is being built on old systems that were not intended to be on a network. So, by default, we have gaping holes in just about all the things that now run our lives - utility supplies, banking & finance.

Even the ubiquitous USB works on FAT-32 system which has since evolved into exFAT and NTFS. However, the base continues to be FAT32, and as long as this is the case, our systems will continue to be inefficient - and utterly vulnerable.

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LINKS & REFERENCES

* Stuxnet - Alex Gibney's Zero Days - https://youtu.be/AcgUGujn_nY
* FAT32, exFAT and NTFS - http://www.pcworld.com/article/3109559/hardware/why-your-usb-drives-file-format-matters-fat32-vs-exfat-vs-ntfs.html

SpeedPost Courier Racket

India Post works like magic these days. If you pack a handloom saree and send it by SpeedPost it magically transforms enroute, into a cheap rexine handbag!

This is exactly what happened to us last week. My wife had been eagerly waiting for her first "Dubakka" cotton handloom saree sent from Maanini Vastra Samskriti India PL (MVSI), Bangalore. Photos had been exchanged on WhatsApp, a design had been carefully chosen and confirmed. When the packet arrived by Speedpost (no. CK 02481962 5 IN) yesterday, it looked like a saree packet, it weighed like one, but when we opened it, the packet contained a tacky, cheap rexine handbag.

SpeedPost packet no. CK 02481962 5 IN

Puzzled, we called up MVSI immediately. Had they, by any chance, sent us a handbag that was meant for another customer? The answer was an emphatic "No!". The company did not deal in anything other than handlooms. In fact it had carefully built a reputation as a reliable partner to a larger initiative by a group of handloom enthusiasts from "Kaithari", a social network that had been working tirelessly for the revival of handlooms across South India.

At a time when artisans in remote villages in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh were losing their livelihoods to a change in fashion trends, groups like Kaithari and MVSI had come together with a revival initiative, linking weavers in small towns like Udupi and Dubakka (AP) to markets in urban India. Over 1200 sarees of the "Udupi weave" had been sold by MVSI, and the "Dubakka weave" (aka Chitkula Sarees), was just beginning to notch up sales.

Convinced that this was not a mistake at MVSI we examined that Speedpost packet a little more carefully. The packed had indeed been tampered while in transit. The brown tape had been carefully sliced open with a blade, the contents switched, and the packed re-sealed with transparent cello-tape.

While a formal complaint is being registered with India Post / SpeedPost, the question is - Is this a one-off incident or does it represent a larger problem plaguing India's booming e-commerce industry?

Two years back in 2014-15, the postal department’s revenues from e-commerce majors had more than doubled to over Rs 1,000 crore, up from Rs 500 crore the previous year, and just Rs 100 crore in 2013-14. While the e-commerce majors get all the attention, fact remains that SpeedPost, with its unmatched national network, remains the first choice for entrepreneurs in remote corners of the country.

Many rural communities depend on Speedpost for their livelihoods. Unless strict action is taken against such pilferage "Make in India" and the fledgeling "Digital Economy"is bound to suffer. This is one magic-show that India Post customers can do without.

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LINKS & REFERENCES

MVNI - https://www.facebook.com/maaninivastrasamskrithi/

http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/india-post-rides-e-tail-boom-reaps-big-rewards/

Dubakka Sarees aka Chituka Sarees - http://www.thehindu.com/lf/2005/06/03/stories/2005060301840200.htm