I feel better today

After months of struggling with the inadequate English skills and critical thinking abilities taught by our Indian schools, I feel much better after listening to this Verizon customer service audio clip from the US.

They have their own problems!

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Senseless TV: payback time?

For the US at least, this recession is all about payback. Letting the finance guys (and girls) dream up paper money? Payback. An entire generation not investing enough in education? Payback. A culture of living off credit cards? Payback. Dependence on cheap Chinese labor? Payback.

Spawning a particularly mindless genre of TV that now corrupts the entire world? Payback.

I must confess that as much as I am mostly nauseated by the tabloid talk shows exemplified by The Jerry Springer Show, reality TV, WWE/WWF, tabloid style "news" channels, and even the song/dance contests, I never fully grasped what the downside to this all-American programming was. Perhaps people would spend too much time in front of the TV, perhaps they would not really develop their intellects. But so what?

Well, the most significant payback has, it seems, come in the way that the US is no longer able to sensibly discuss or debate the crucial questions that it faces.

So even while nearly one out of five American men of working age is unemployed - yes, one of out five - the rational debate is drowned out by the type of hollow arguments, petty one-upmanship and invective-filled language one would normally associate more with The Jerry Springer Show.

As Thomas Friedman points out in the New York Times, "the rise of cable TV has transformed politics in our country generally into just another spectator sport, like all-star wrestling. C-Span is just ESPN with only two teams. We watch it for entertainment, not solutions."

So here's a request to all of you - the next time you find someone you know watching senseless television of any type, intervene. Friends don't let friends watch senseless TV. The life you save may be your own.

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A newly productive India?

In the mid-1990s, Japan funded and provided technology for a new bridge across the Yamuna in Delhi. At that time even minor repairs on the old Yamuna bridges would carry on for decades (seriously). Therefore it came as a shock to us Delhi-wallahs when we saw this bridge being built in a matter of months, sometimes even at night under spotlights, with every worker wearing a bright yellow hardhat. It was the talk of the town. Somehow the pace of road/bridge/flyover/metro construction in Delhi was never the same again. Today, our city's public works proceed almost at the pace at which they do elsewhere in the world.

A few years later, in the early 2000s, I noticed the local FM radio stations taking up specific local issues and demanding accountability from the government. For example, they would talk about a big pothole on such and such road and then report back a few days later that it had been filled. (I immediately invested in the Indian stockmarket, with good results!) That activism on radio appears to have subsided but it left its mark. Delhi's roads are by and large of better quality than, say, Boston's.

Yesterday I had another experience that appears significant. I had to get my Delhi driving license renewed and went to the Regional Transport Office at Surajmal Vihar. Though the place was moderately crowded, the experience was smoother than that at most private sector institutions.

The man at the Enquiry counter directed me to Counter #4 ("Renewals"). I stood in the queue and got to the counter in a few minutes. The guy looked at my papers, smiled and said, "We don't need so many documents for residence proof, just one will do. Just get it verified from Counter #11."

The Counter #11 guy spent just about 30 seconds on my document and signed the copy. He directed me back to Counter #4.

The #4 guy now entered my data into the computer. There were two computer screens, one facing him and one facing me. He asked me to verify the details when he was done. Then he stamped my paperwork, asked me to sign and said, "Pay the fees". Used to Indian government offices, I thought the cashier would be sitting somewhere far away behind a wire grill, acting like some demi-god. I was pleasantly surprised to find instead that the cashier was the Counter #3, which was essentially three feet to the left of where I stood and looked identical to every other counter.

A few minutes in the queue later, I was in front of the Counter #3 guy. He glanced at my documents; "Rs 300".

While I counted out the money, he pulled up my case on the computer and at once my receipt began to print out in front of the guy next to him. He asked me to step in front of this other guy, who motioned me to sit on a stool I had not noticed till then, clicked a photograph via webcam, asked me to step up and sign an electronic pad and then offer my index finger for a fingerprint. All in a minute.

And then it was done. "The license will be couriered to you." I could not believe it - the entire process had taken just ten or fifteen minutes and had been pleasant. Every RTO employee was fully occupied and productive. In the US it typically takes much longer and even the productivity appears to be lower.

This automation of processes in government departments yields fewer opportunities for bribery. A friend noted yesterday that some folks who work there try to squeeze out some money by being slow to return the change when you give them a currency note and hoping that you will just walk away. Bad, true, but a big improvement!

Kudos to the Delhi transport minister for running such a smooth operation. If such cleansing spreads outwards from Delhi and the metros, it will be a big reason to be bullish on India.

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