Ban tobacco in India

Why doesn’t the Indian government ban tobacco totally? Is it really that hard?

It is a known fact that tobacco leads to a hell lot of health irregularities like heart attack and cancer. No way it is going to help anyone, except maybe those who are involved in tobacco farming who will be reaping huge profits.

Banning tobacco might affect the income of tobacco farmers, distributors and petty shop owners. But the government should take this risk and ban tobacco totally. It would even help us keep the city clean of tobacco product covers which are thrown around by people. It is really not hard to implement the ban. It just requires strong will and dedication by the people involved in law making. And yes, it will affect the votes for the ruling party in the forthcoming elections. Probably this is what prevents the government from making this a reality! Or am I wrong?

Traffic violation fee increase in Bangalore

Today morning I heard on a local FM channel that the traffic police department in Bangalore has decided to increase the fine for traffic violations by 5 times.

This is definitely a very good improvement. A wrong parking violation earlier attracted a fine of 100 bucks. Now people will have to shell out 500 bucks for the same violation.

I believe this will make drivers more cautious on roads and follow traffic rules in a better way than they were doing before. A person wouldn’t mind much paying 100 bucks, but would think twice before violating a rule when he knows that he has to cough up 500 bucks. Now parking of vehicles at non-parking zones and signal jumps might reduce a great deal.

However I believe that the traffic cops should actively track and fine arrogant and negligent drivers who keep changing lanes often. Not only do these drivers put their lives at risk, but they endanger other lives too. At the same time proper lanes have to be marked on the roads and the roads cleared of debris. Otherwise enforcing strict no-lane-change policy might not work.

For the betterment of the country, the traffic police department should start a whistle-blower policy, where individuals can report traffic violations with valid proof (a camera snap?). I appreciate the Bangalore Traffic Police team using a FB page that works almost on the same lines, but people who complain would like to be anonymous for safety reasons.

How to complain against Auto drivers for refusal / over-charging?

Note: This is valid only for Bangalore location.

I really wonder if any action will be taken against errant auto drivers. Until the traffic department shows some proof of action taken against the errant drivers, I’m sure many wouldn’t bother complaining.

Source: Bangalore Traffic Police on FB

Income levels in India

The income levels of Indian employees are quite low compared to our western counterparts. This is a well known fact. But is the low pay really justified?

The average pay of an Indian IT engineer is around 20k INR. This translates to roughly around 400 USD. Any westerner would be getting in excess of 2k to 2.5k USD per month as his take-home income after tax deductions. One might argue that the low pay is justified taking into consideration the standard of living in India.

India is a developing country and has one of the highest inflation rates. To maintain a above-decent standard of living in these times at a salary of 20k is un-imaginable. One might not be able to save his income for his future.

No wonder Indians prefer to go abroad and make some quick bucks. As the saying goes, “What really matters at the end of the day is your bank balance”.

I really appreciate the outcome of the 6th pay commission. Government employees are having a better pay scale now compared to their earlier pay scale. What this essentially means is that even the Government employees might now think about going to that posh restaurant on a weekend, which they were afraid to do before. A family trip to nearby Singapore or Hong Kong is possible. Admitting the children to top schools is now possible. One area where this will really help is for the students who need to make a career choice. Now engineering and medicine are not the only high-income earning streams. This has opened up new avenues for employee seekers.

I hope the Indian Government continues to revise the pay scale of Government employees at regular intervals considering the inflation rate and improved standard of living. Our lifestyle and standard of living has not yet reached the same level as that of the westerners. But some sections of the society have had a major overhaul in their way of life, and as a citizen I welcome this change.

“The Ugly Indians” group

Saw a video in yesterday about few employees of Netapp Bangalore taking the initiative to clean up the dirty footpath outside their office. Got to know about “The Ugly Indians” group after seeing this video:

This is really a very nice initiative by the citizens. One thing is clear: You cannot count on the Government to provide the basic infrastructure that we deserve. Sometimes we have to get out of our comfort zone to get what we need. And this is particularly true in a country like India where almost every person is aware of the corruption issue.

I have decided to do my bit and will contribute in whatever way possible toward the cause.

Indian Air Force at its best!!

The power of IAF n French Air Craft Mirage 2000

Schedule your router to turn ON/OFF

You can use this tutorial to turn ON/OFF your router. This can be used effectively if you want to go online and disconnect at a particular pre-determined time. For this purpose, batch files are needed. This guide is written for Huawei MT882 router. The scripts will work for other routers as weel, with some minor modifications. Place all the files in C:\RouterSwitchfolder.

Step 1: Download TST10 from winsite. Click here to download it.

Step 2: To turn OFF the router. Create a text file named disable.txt. Include the following lines in the file.

192.168.1.1
WAIT “Login: “
SEND “admin\m”
WAIT “Password: “
SEND “admin\m”
WAIT “–> “
SEND “pppoe set transport 1 disabled\m”

Step 3: To turn ON the router. Create a text file named enable.txt. Include the following lines in the file.

192.168.1.1
WAIT “Login: “
SEND “admin\m”
WAIT “Password: “
SEND “admin\m”
WAIT “–> “
SEND “pppoe set transport 1 autoconnect enabled\m”

Step 4: Create a btach file labelled routerOFF.bat, with the following text:

chdir C:\RouterSwitch
c:
TST10 /r:disable.txt /o:last_log.txt

Step 5: Create a batch file labelled routerON.bat, with the following text:

chdir C:\RouterSwitch
c:
TST10 /r:enable.txt /o:last_log.txt

Step 6: Now schedule the routerOFF.bat and routerON.bat using the Windows task scheduler

Watch Republic Day Parade Online

http://republicday.nic.in/

Use the above link to see the streaming video of republic day parade and President’s speech.

Tata’s 1 lakh car

The news about TATA about to release the Rs. 1 lakh car is getting stronger day by day. This car will be out in the market in mid 2008. There is no car in the world right now that is as cheap as this car. The car is labelled NANO

The car features miniscule features, with no advanced features like ABS, MP3 player, radio, navigation system. The car is reported to have survived the side-crash and frontal-crash tests. According to the TATAs, the car has passed all the tests that a car need to pass in order to be released in the market. Also it is reported to be compliant with EURO IV emission standards.

In my opinion, this’ll revolutionize the way middle class and lower-middle class people see the automobile industry. A lot number of people will be able to afford such a low cost car. The running cost is also expected to be less, with the on-road mileage being close to 22 or 23 kmpl. Not bad at all for a four wheeler. The car being a four-seater, will suit the modern Indian family well. More and more people will be able to purchase this car. TATA’s superior service and wide-spread service outlets are always an added advantage. Looks wise, the car is not quite that bad looking. Conisdering the fact that this car will be sold for 1 lakh, this car is really worth every penny. However it would have been really great if the TATAs roll out an LPG version or the one driven by fuel cells. Even an electricity driven model would have been great, considering the fact that the most famous electric car in India, Reva, costs close to 3 lakh, and an average to good bike costs around 50 to 60k!!!

How to avoid frequent broadband disconnections – Part 2

This is in continuation to my previous post regarding ADSL router disconnection. Although the ping  technique solves the problem most of the times, sometimes the problem might still recur. This is because  some people change the Windows XP’s default settings. The most commonly changed value is the number of  half-open connections, thinking that doing so might increase their download speed. On the contrary, it’ll  attract more number of trojans and worms, and will result in rampant disconnections. It’s advisabe to  keep this value to 10 itself (defualt). In case, you need to change it desparately, raise the value to  200 (max). Keep the value between 10 and 200 at all times. Couple this with the ping task, and you’ll  have a rock-solid ADSL connection.