On the mirage of one rank one pension

Not sure how many people know about the so called apex scale in Indian bureaucracy. This is the highest scale at which bureaucrats in India can retire. Some years back, they introduced One Rank One Pension for (only) those bureaucrats who reach this level before retirement. In some sense, this is a preferential treatment given by the top bureaucrats to themselves. I believe this should be abolished. The idea of one rank one pension is indeed flawed. It causes unnecessary load on the exchequer. And if it is awarded to military persons, I don't see any reason why it shouldn't be awarded to other government servants also. After-all, teachers also serve the nation! The only thing worthwhile is some sort of compensation to military people in pay commissions since they retire much earlier. This I believe is done in form of dearness allowances so far. In general, the focus should be on ensuring that during the military career, or just after it, people get trained enough so that they can easily get good jobs in civilian life and can continue to earn their living for doing real work and contributing to the growth of the nation. Living off pensions for able bodied persons is not a great way of living in my view. I don't have the statistics but my guess is that most of the military veterans do get absorbed in decent civilian roles post retirement. I would also mention that armed forces have different provisions for martyrs and people who get physically disabled while on duty.

Hope for best or work for best?

As I have been talking with my friends and colleagues about the change in government, a typical response has been "Let us hope for the best". In fact many a times I also gave the same response. And just now, it struck me that this is nothing but passive thinking. After giving the mandate to the new Modi government, we just want to sit back and "Hope for the Best".

What if we just replace "Hope" with "Work" and start thinking "Let us Work for the Best".  A simple change in word has a major impact in our approach to governance.  Rather than being a passive observer to the charade of governance, we become an active participant in the governance process.

There are many ways, we can keep ourselves involved with the governance process. The least we can do is to use the social media to provide constructive criticism towards the actions the government is taking or not taking. If something is not working, raise it. If government decisions are improper, cry hell. If the government is doing something right, appreciate it. If the government needs our support in making some decisions, help them. If you have new ideas to solve a problem, share it.  If any member of BJP or affiliated organizations is trying to abuse his power or reach, make it known. But don't indulge in unnecessary rants. Don't complain about imaginary problems or apprehensions without any factual basis.  Use twitter, facebook, whatsapp and other social media to the best of the ability. Know that people in this government do react to simmering anger in social media and take corrective actions quickly. An example is when Pramod Muthalik was inducted in BJP during the campaign, an aggressive twitter lashing led to he being thrown out of the party the same day. Know that Modi wants to be here for a long term and he will not do anything which would lead to erosion of his support base.


There are other avenues also for engaging with the modi government. At his website http://www.narendramodi.in/ you can directly write to him, or join him in his "Serve the Nation" campaign.  I am sure many more initiatives will be launched by the government in upcoming months to have a greater involvement of young and capable people in the governance process.

Even if you don't like BJP ideology, or something that has happened in the past, the government is here to stay. So better engage with them rather than just saying "Hope for the best".

Handling illegal migration from Bangladesh

Illegal migration from Bangladesh into India turned up as an important electoral issue while campaigning in West Bengal. While BJP didn't give a specific solution to it, it did show its tough stand that illegal migration is not acceptable.  In this post, I suggest a WIN-WIN solution which can be helpful to both India and Bangladesh.

A fundamental issue to understand is why migration happens. Essentially there are two reasons for migration: economics and politics. If people don't find job opportunities or other income sources in their native place, they tend to go to other more prosperous places in order to find jobs. The prosperous places are always in need for more blue collar workers or even general labor. So there is an economic benefit associated with them to allow illegal migration to happen.

The second reason is political. There are two sides of this. When a small group of people is harassed in one locality, it attempts to run away and find refuse in some other more friendly place.  On the other hand, politicians sometimes allow illegal migration as long as they can cultivate their vote bank.

Of the two, majority of migration happens due to economical reasons and vote bank politics is just incidental to it. Thus, if the core reasons for migration due to economic reasons can be taken care of, then migration will automatically come down. Not many people really want to leave her home place and wander in foreign lands.

In order to solve this problem, it makes sense for India to help Bangladesh develop into an economically prosperous nation. If India can help develop infrastructure in the country, build ports, roads, and help grow labor intensive industries, then most of the Bangladeshis who have left the country, will naturally be motivated to go back to their home land and stay there. Further, with right kind of partnership between India and Bangladesh, this will also help India develop its north-east region much more effectively. As the roads through Bangladesh will help connect the north-east to the Bay of Bengal and excellent ports on the coastal line will help increase international trade, India will automatically benefit a lot. Such an excellent India-Bangladesh partnership will help solve so many problems in one go.

Now, it doesn't mean that the illegal immigrants problem will be solved completely through this master stroke.  The political refugee problem will still remain and will have to be addressed differently. But, its good to solve the 80% of the problem first and then come out with more challenging approaches to solve more tricky problems.

The Safe Bool Idiom

The Safe Bool Idiom Learn how to validate objects in a boolean context without the usual harmful side effects in C++.

Why English is good for us as a technical language

So if you have read about HTML, you know that a tag can have child tags and a parent tag. Children of children are descendants (recursively). Parent of parent is an ancestor (recursively again). A tag also has sibling tags. The children of the sibling of parent tag can at best be called a cousin.

Now think if you were going to be taught the same thing in Hindi.

HTML me tag hote hain. Har tag ka ek pita hota hai (Maata nahi hoti). Ek tag ke 0 ya 0 se adhik bachche tags ho sakte hain. Unhe ham putra tag kahenge (putri kyon nahi?). Ek tag ka sirf ek hi pita ho sakta hai. HTML tag ka koi pita nahi hota, isliye woh sarvochh poorvaj kahlata hai. Pita ka pita, yani pitamah tag bhi ho sakta hai. Agar pita ke pita ki shrinkhala banayi jaye to woh sab tag poorvaj kahlayenge. Usi tarah putra ke putra (pautra tag) aur agar unki shrinkala banayi jaaye to we sab vanshaj kahlayenge. Har tag ke bhai tag bhi hote hain (bahnein nahi hoti). Bhaiyon me kuch agraj honge (coming before) aur kuch anuj (coming later).

I think that all the books on HTML would become so funny if we had to read stuff like this.

We should be grateful that we have a foreign language in which we read all the technical stuff :D

Western double standards

Sri Lankan president had to cancel his UK trip since he may face arrest in UK as under the principle of universal jurisdiction, war crimes and crimes against humanity can be prosecuted in UK even if they were not committed in the country. The foreign minister of Sri Lanka has been advised by their British counter part that the current Sri Lankan government must demonstrate its unconditional commitment to democracy. I do not understand what right they have to judge other countries for their commitment to democracy. I wonder if the British will offer a similar treatment to a visiting current or former US president for war crimes committed in places like Iraq or Afghanistan.

Rights vs. Entitlements

Freedom of speech is a right. Freedom of choosing one's religion is a right. Information is a right. Freedom to pursue happiness is a right. Freedom to own property is a right. Food is an entitlement. Education is an entitlement. Work is an entitlement.

So what is the difference? Rights are freedoms from oppression by the state or by the society. Rights are based on the premise that all humans are born equal and the society and government cannot restrict the freedom of a person or discriminate between them based on race, gender, or religion. Entitlements are welfare measures entailing government handouts and are naturally constrained by budget. Rights are universal, entitlements are not.

Rights don't cost government a penny in principle. But government is responsible for protecting the rights of a citizen if any one else or any part of government machinery is infringing on it. This is part of the policing function of government. All citizens have same rights.

Entitlements however cost money. Government has to plan for welfare within its budgetary constraints. Welfare is mostly targeted towards the poor of the country. A rich person doesn't need government support for food or the education of his children. Its the poor of the people who cannot afford such things on their own who need government support for the same. Nevertheless food, education, work and infrastructure are important basic requirements for well being and successful living of the citizens of a state. Hence they are also called secondary rights. Still they should be planned very carefully. Too much of it can make people become complacent as well as lead to the bankruptcy of state. Communist states gave priority to entitlement over rights. This was a road to the servitude to the state and led to massive unrest in the society. Today very few of the communist states are left in the world. Democratic countries like Greece which prided too much on socialist entitlement to its people; are finding it very difficult to take care of their public debt now.

We should appreciate the difference between fundamental rights and secondary rights or entitlements. This will help us plan much better for the future of our country.

Reference:

Swaminomics, Times of India, August 29, 2010, Lets not confuse entitlements with rights