Switching Technology Loyalties

Reliance Infocomm’s suspected switch of royalty from CDMA to GSM may or may not worry Qualcomm, the US based patent holder for CDMA technology, but it has definitely worried me.
I am worried because I switched from GSM to CDMA after the latter was explained to me as a 3G technology and I was assured that data and voice over CDMA is far superior and better than GSM technology. I was told that GSM is a closed end technology and CDMA is an open ended technology where the consumers would benefit. After having brought a Reliance connection, I tried to test this and found that whatever they said was true. I am satisfied with both the voice as well as the data connectivity of Reliance CDMA. Accordingly I invested huge amount of money on gadgets that works with CDMA technology. Now Reliance’s switch of royalty means my investments will go down in drain. Today, I can be mobile anywhere in the country with my CDMA phone as well as my Simputer. But if I switch to GSM, it is not possible. The Cellular Operators Association of India – the association of GSM operators – may disagree. But you just cant beat a user.
“CDMA is a third generation technology. It provides data capability in proven economic conditions, even at the bottom of the pyramid. Therefore, it seems strange to move from a 3G technology to a second generation technology,” Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs said in New Delhi and fully agree to his view. GSM, though is widely used across the world, has been a poor cousin to CDMA as far as data links are concerned. Even GPRS has not been able to help me send my data with the speed that I have been able to connect through a CDMA phone. Not only is the bandwidth poor, the costs are exorbitantly high. That is the reason very few consumers uses GPRS or any other data technology in GSM.
For an average mobile user who uses voice and sms services, it may not matter which technology he uses. But for those who are mobile, it does matter. But then how does a consumer complain and object to this technology shift?
But what is exciting for me is another news item which says Qualcomm announced plans to sell its new third generation mobile phones in India through planned tie-ups with Indian companies and is currently in negotiations with Reliance Infocomm.

B A

Switch That #%#$@ Box OFF !

Last week as I was browsing through the sea of news channels available to me, I came across an interesting report in one of them. It was on how the international fares have nose dived. The reporter, obviously a lady, along with the desk help put in a series of graphics to show that the rates are at the bottom. It further added that this is the best time for the Indians to take up a foreign holiday.

That made me think how out of the world are these channels are. They are so desperate for stories directed at the urban elite that they cant see a huge deluge of stories about socio-developmental aspects just outside yours and my home.

First the stories are nothing but truth. People who watch these ‘sponsored’ stories and makes up their mind to visit Kualalumpur or Singapore will be disappointed to learn from the airline officials that the tickets under ‘these category’ are full. Instead, they offer full rate tickets which are almost double what the graphics displayed. I had a bad experience of visiting a British Airways office in Ahmedabad for booking discounted tickets to the US. I was impressed by the BA fare that they advertised in all the national newspapers which promised return airfare of Rs 34,000 to Chicago or any other places in the US. Of course, the taxes and other levies will have this charges climb to nearly 50K. But that is still half of what the full rates are. I called up their helpline number in a northern Indian city and held the phone for 37 minutes before a lady executive attended. She told me that the fare are actual and I can visit BA office in Ahmedabad for the booking.

At the Ahmedabad office, it was a rude shock since the only girl who was sitting at the booking counter paused her telephone conversation and asked me why I was there for. I said I need to book the ticket. She asked me the dates without hanging on the phone. I told her she can complete the conversation and I can wait till that time. No, ‘just tell me the date for which you want the ticket for’.

For a moment, I felt she was managing the modern East India Company and I was a famine struck Indian who went to the company in search of a mouthful of morsel.

While she kept the phone receiver on her lap, which made me believe that it must be her boyfriend or husband at the other side, she keyed in a number of strokes from the keyboard and smiled. Unfortunately, the smiles appeared because she can get rid of me fast and continue with her conversation.

“There isn’t a single ticket available sir,” she raised her head and picked up the receiver asking the fellow at the other end to hold the line for some more time.

“What about the next day, or the next. Can you give me a date on which I can get a confirm ticket?”

‘None’ pat came the reply. “Why” I was not far behind.

‘Because there isn’t any ticket available. It is as simple as that. You can book on our regular fare but we don’t take cheque or credit cards. You have to bring cash,” she again took up the receiver and asked the person at the other end to wait and then looked at me.

Can you please get out. To hell with your tickets – this was what I thought she would tell me by the gestures she started portraying.

“But you continue to give ads in the newspapers. Why is that? Your call centre executive told me yesterday tickets are available. Why…..”

“I don’t know all that. Anything else sir?” she interrupted me. It was more than obvious that staying any longer would be dangerous.

This is just the tip of an iceberg that corporate world plays with the media. This is also the result of the changing scenarios of media business. I expect a reporter to go to an airline office and book a ticket and tell the viewer how the airlines makes fool of the passengers by announcing tickets at discounted rates. Not the other way round.

But now every reporter’s dream is to have a mic and appear in mini screen, the fastest short cut to fame. Why not, they have studied journalism from colleges that charged as much as any doctor would have paid for his MBBS studies including the capitation fee.

Fraternities of good journalism and imaginative journalists have disappeared. Story telling is not more the motto, it is story selling rather. Today we have cub reporters who have no idea of what they are reporting on but since they are paid salary, they have to invent some ways to give a live byte.

I was not interested in Rahul Mahajan because he was an ordinary citizen whose case would have made headlines only in a crime magazine. But I was fed not for one day but for days together about his cocaine habits not by one channel but by all the sundry ones. But these are the stories that the urban elite relishes on. Any news- however, important may be- cannot dominate twenty four hours of a news channel. I am paying from my hard earned money to watch national and international news and you are feeding me with what you think is saleable. How fair is this?

Binu Alex

Gujarat has stopped producing leaders

Gujarat has stopped producing leaders – Don’t you feel so?

The last leader that I can remember from Gujarat is the same that no one from Gujarat want to associate with. His name is Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Ever heard of him? Well, see the postage stamps. The last democratic protest Gujarat had was Navnirman and it was four decades ago. As the state stopped producing leaders, the state stopped looking towards solutions. Instead of leaders, we have smart politicians today. The politicians are always biased. They have a basket called development. This basket is full of skeletons. Full of ghosts of those who died silently waiting for their rehabilitation or as urban slum dwellers. The politicians opened this basket far too often and automatically it started producing wealth and created millionaires. As more Nirmas and Reliance mushroomed in the state, more people became refugees. On the road to prosperity, you have no solutions. You crush whoever comes your way and the state will help you in doing that. Whenever a helpless poor shed tears, the politicians opened the same basket again and again. Whenever an influential shed tears, the courts came to their rescue. The oppressed stood dumb looking for a leader but he never turned up because there was none.
And this is exactly the reason the BJP rebellion in Gujarat died before it could germinate. Mistake – Keshubhai thought he was a leader. It is the same reason Congress is orphaned. Mistake – Too many crooks disguised as leaders. It is the same reason the Left parties are part of history in Gujarat. Mistake – They became number one enemy for the basket holders.
Leave the political field for a little while and enter the NGO sector. They too have a basket where they create nothing but wealth. In order to do that, they have to be at loggerheads with the government. If you are against the government you earn. If you are with the government, you still earn. Not a single NGO can gather a thousand people to a rally without arranging for logistics. The people have lost faith in all the system. They come only when they are transported. So here too leaders are hard to come by.
Now pause a little while we go through theatre scene. Ooops, are there anyone in this field? Anyone who have enacted a political play on the stage that evoked good applause?
Now let’s come back to the political scene. There is not a single person to counter the series of misinformation campaign unleashed as far as Narmada is concerned. I wonder how Aamir Khan has hurt the feelings of the people of Gujarat by speaking for Gujaratis? How is that the people from the valley who are going to type Cntl+Z in their life not a Gujarati? I remember the elections campaigns in these tribal areas where the same party – BJP – asked these tribals to oust missionaries from the region because ‘you all are our brothers and sisters’. That was the reason the BJP did well in Central Gujarat in the last assembly elections. That is the reason they could easily put the tribal to fight against the Muslims in these areas. No body dared to ask how suddenly they have become orphans. If they are not Gujaratis, they are not from any other neighboring state as well. Where do they belong to? I pity the tribal leaders who have not questioned this logic. They have been staying in the valley for centuries. Civilized people created provinces and divided them into different states without taking their consent. They didn’t protest. The civilized people created a new government department called Forest Department and cleaned up the forest wood which they had preserved and worshipped for centuries. They didn’t protest. The civilized people created cities and to have water right upto the asshole, they created dams and asked them to vacate without giving any notice. They didn’t protest. Now somebody like Aamir Khan said a word in support of these helpless refugees, there are protests everywhere.
Because there was blood shed during partition and we have a Kashmir problem burning, there is a cruel logic when people like Pravin Togadia thundering that Muslims should got to Pakistan. Because the majority of the nations in the world are Christian dominated, I can understand the logic of the same guy asking the Christians to go to either the US or the UK. (It is a different story altogether that he withdrew the statement immediately and as to who are desperate to go to these places). But how can you uproot a tribal on whose land you and me are staying by preparing some paper documents? How are they not as loyal to the state as you and me? Is it because they are demanding the basic livelihood needs in lieu of their ouster?
You made them refugees by vacating them from their land. You made them orphans now by disowning them. Is there any leader who can help them? Is there any one please who can give them a state because they don’t belong to any state? Is there any one who can at least report in the media how they are living away from the land they owned and preserved? Any one please.

Binu Alex

Tap Tourism in Alang

Devang and Anita got into matrimony after an year long romance. But an year of gossips could not give them a final destination for their honeymoon trip. Alps, Goa, Kerala, Kashmir, Hong Kong, Singapore and the list went on without any consensus. Ultimately they decide on Alang. They will get into a cruise liner that has come for breaking. They will stay there for a couple of days with food and beverage served by Gujarat tourism department. Thousands of such couples have skipped greatest honey moon destination to select Alang in Gujarat.

PUZZLED????

Well I was narrating this to my toddler and all of a sudden I woke from my slumber. Alang, to my knowledge, is the most unlikely guarded place for any journalists to visit. Even the IAEA would not have faced such a problem visiting uranium enrichment venues in Iran. But Alang is a place where the Gujarat government makes the visiting journalists feel that they have more to hide than reveal.
I believe Alang could have been a historically important place to visit where aging cruise liners, fishing trawlers and warships came to die. But Gujarat has never realized its tourism potential. And so like many other beautiful places in Gujarat, Alang is also untapped, unexplored because the government fears it might backfire if they allow Tom Dick and Harry to visit the place. The ship breakers have followed the suit putting boards to display “Visitors not allowed”. Perhaps the government may be toying the idea of putting this at the gates of TCGL. Wonder what TCGL is? It is Tourism Corporation of Gujarat Limited.

When I called up the Gujarat Maritime Board in Gandhinagar, the MD politely advised me to give a written application for the visit since there were two foreigners with me - two of my colleagues who happens to be Americans. I asked him whether an email would do and he sounded positive though he had no idea what the email address was. ( visit www.gmbports.org for their email address that nobody is aware of) As expected, there was no response to the email and then I got it printed and faxed it and also couriered it to the GMB address and also telephonically confirmed its receipt.
But even on the day of the visit – two weeks after the email and letter was dispatched, GMB showed its true government attitude and acted as if they haven’t received any such application. But on account of some personal connection and after pleading with the MD, it was granted on the eve of the visit.
This was where the notion of mistrust started and when I returned after the visit two days later, I had a set of ten toilet cleaner rolls, from some ship procured by some scrap dealer and purchased by me at a very low price. Not that I use a toilet paper but I bought it as my remembrand of the place, which I had visited a decade ago when there were no restrictions. Who knows the government will not make it tighter and tighter. And I didn’t want to preserve a lasting memory either. A toilet paper sufficed my need.
Situation in Alang is not a rosy picture and it was on the expected lines. The colonies where the workers stayed resembled any urban slum with no basic amenities. Some rights activists blame the ship breakers of not providing good amenities for these laborers. But they would have lived in a worse condition anyway had they been out of the ship yard as well. So if you don’t have any sympathy towards millions of slum dwellers in any parts of the country, what sympathy are you showering on these workers who live in almost the same conditions.
Secondly I found no Gujarati labourers working in the yard. The yards are dominated by Hindi speaking population mainly from BIMARU states. One of them even pointed out the reason for this. "To cut steel, you need the nerve of steel".
Without any doubt, they were doing the most dangerous jobs that a man can engage in. A Ship a day, an accident a day - is the norm that is widely used to justify the number of deaths that happens in Alang. But which job doesn’t have the risk? Is there a designated job or place where you are destined to die? Well, the answer to many is No. But to these labourers, it is a big Yes. If they go back fearing the dangerous working conditions, they will die of starvation back home. If they take up some other job, the amount of wages will not even suffice to look after oneself, leave alone their extended families back in their villages. So what are the options for them?
We went to Alang to look at the economic picture of the ship breaking business and not mainly to weigh the human sufferings. But no body was willing to take our word except perhaps the port officer who was candid enough to admit that there are dangers involved in ship breaking. Ultimately who doesn’t know that?
The biggest pain was an officer who was deputed not to assist us but to control us. Though the workers were trying to explain to us how they would work in Alang despite all the objections of an adverse working conditions, the GMB guy thought, they would spill out some beans. This meant, the GMB is primarily responsible for the bad press and they squarely blame on others. We were told that the workers and the ship breakers would 'cut us into pieces' if we go around unescorted. But what happened was the opposite. They wanted to tell us how the business is dwindling and how working conditions has improved - though we were not novices to take their word.
Large vessels waiting in the wings to cut into pieces is a treat to watch. It is especially great for those who have never entered a cruise liner. Well, if a state like Kerala can promote rains as one of the tourist attraction, it is yet another opportunity lost for Gujarat. Devang and Anita will go anywhere but Alang.

Binu Alex