A De for the black

As I looked at the paper this morning, I couldn't help reading the headlines on the front page and feeling that cold, fuzzy feeling of... well... sadness. A few of the articles in question:

Rupee at all-time low of 52.15, to impact everyday life

Black money offenders may escape prosecution

Govt plans Rs.30,000cr bailout for Air India

Maha govt has spent Rs.16cr on Kasab so far

In the last decade, over 4 died in custody daily

How are these all linked? Well, it all starts with a question... how can I increase the amount and value of the black money I've got?

Before we begin, here's a little background.

A while ago, news reports told us that Sonia Gandhi went to the US for an operation. There's been no official statement (to my knowledge at least) as to what operation this was or what it was for. Most folks would rack this up to a personal privacy concern - which I would think of as the right thing to do. Illness in the family is hardly something you want splashed all over every form of media as 'breaking news', however, quoting from an article from Zee News:

Confirming the news, Congress spokesperson Janardan Dwivedi said, “Sonia Gandhi has been unwell for quite some time and the doctors attending her had advised her to undergo a surgery, for which she had flown to the United States recently.”
Briefing the press reporters on her health, Dwivedi said, “The abdominal surgery performed on her has been successful and she had been advised to take full rest.”

I've heard that her trip out of the country was to handle some 'money matters' - this could be related to the operation costs. I've been told that there were reports of Rahul stopping by in Switzerland on his way to the US to visit his mother after her surgery - this would seem a little cold. I'm off to visit my mom - she's just had an operation... heeeeey, wanna stop by in Switzerland on the way? When I tried searching for articles related to this, I only found articles suggesting that neither of them had gone to the US at all and were both in Switzerland. I haven't linked to any of these since they weren't mainstream media sites. Other subsequent reports say she's got some form of skin cancer or something. Maybe she should either tell the media to shut up or set them straight in reporting the truth.

Anyway, it's generally accepted in India that there are lots of people in the country with lots of black money. It's also accepted here that the people with the money are the ones in control. I read an article a while ago which suggested that the government would make it easier to bring back black money without having to pay anything in way of penalty. Just the regular tax would be deducted. It figures that people with large amounts of black money would want to go easy on people with large amounts of black money, and allow them to bring it back without prosecuting them for having that amount of undeclared money.

Which brings us to the first article I've mentioned in the post. Some news papers and channels have suggested that the government could have done something to control the sliding rupee before, but now it's going into freefall - and there's not much that can help prevent that. Heck, if I've got US Dollars and Euros, my cash is now worth 10% more than it was a couple of months ago. If I've got enough that I'm planning on bringing back to India anytime soon, I'd like it if the Rupee slid further. With all this talk about all the black money stashed abroad, if/when it DOES come back, there's a significant drop in the loss to the owner of this cash.

The next article is about how black money offenders may escape prosecution. The Income Tax department, which normally manages to worry even the most well connected people in the country would appear toothless when it comes to larger deviations from the rules. If they haven't paid tax on the money stashed abroad, they should at LEAST be made liable to have that tax deducted - freeze their local bank accounts if necessary. Any 'unexplained' assets should be made property of the country. The ED (Enforcement department) in our country is (to my understanding) only involved when it comes to prosecution. If the details can't be shared between the IT department and ED because of the Double Taxation Avoidance Treaty (DTAT), then handle the prosecution of these people once Germany gives clearance - the country would benefit, in the meantime, from infusion of a huge amount of cash. Our president went to Switzerland and Austria to talk about the issues of the DTAT, but so far the only mainstream media report I could find on this was this one, published before the trip. This would suggest that the trip didn't go well for the Indian public so details weren't published by the media. The BJP has jumped on this with the input that since the people on the list didn't EARN the money abroad, they aren't liable to pay taxes abroad - sounds straightforward enough. 

With all this behind-the-scenes activity, we, the people of the country have to be thrown a bone once every now and then - with all the reports of all the scams, it's getting hard to see what rules/laws/amendments the government is coming up with to protect themselves from prosecution. It's in the interest of most political parties to protect the corrupt. This dance would appear to be for the benefit of the Indian people so that when people finally DO get caught, they get a slap on the wrist, spend 6 months or so incarcerated in luxury, then get out to spend their ill-gotten gains - the rules still don't allow for recovery of any of the money stolen.

So what's up with our national carrier? How does that tie in? As far as I see, it's just one more set of scams. The airline industry in the country's not doing particularly well - and for all the rubbish people have been coming up with like 'they're badly/inefficiently managed', or 'Indigo is doing well', I have this to say to you - inefficiencies can make a difference, but not THIS much of a difference. Indigo (or rather Interglobe) is making profits FROM the other airlines rather than from it's airline service. I understand the owners were smart enough to book a large number of aircraft which are being delivered - and sold/leased out to other airlines since delivery schedules are in terms of years for aircraft manufacturers. The politicians have been known to use the national carrier (Indian) like their own personal charters - the Civil aviation ministers (and lots of other folks apparently) are guaranteed a lifetime of free tickets. Not that the rest of the government pays in any case. Now they're giving them a 30,000cr bailout rather than paying their dues. No wonder they didn't want to give it back to the Tatas to run - they'd have objected to letting so many folks fly everywhere for free.

Rs.16cr (Rs.160million) on Kasab. This has gone on food, drink, accommodation and security over the last 3 years. That's on average Rs.1.46L (Rs.146K) per day. I thought he was in jail! Okay, so lets assume he's got prime property in Bombay. Lets peg that at 14K/day on just space and electricity - there are much more expensive hotels, but hey, this guy doesn't get room service does he? Take a few (5 or 6) of the higher pay-scale cops and pay them a little more - that's another 14K/day. Food? What the hell - lets get him 5 star rates - that comes up to (with difficulty) 10K/day. One full rate return trip to Pakistan per month (which I'm sure he doesn't get) - including rental car and security detail - Rs.2L/month (averages at 7K/day). Where's the rest of this money? Court fee/lawyers? 100K/month? We've got pictures of the guy shooting folks up. We've got an admission of guilt. There are enough eye witnesses AND he's been found guilty already... I'm guessing the rest is something to do with someone making a lot of money on the side... like by providing him with food at the price of gold, while 4 people die in custody because they've been mistreated/manhandled/not been cared about enough.

The sad bit is that all this political 'VIP' nonsense is the root of all these headlines.

De multifold coverup

Take this scenario:

A large bunch of (not particularly intimate) criminals have evidence of each others crimes. They'd rather not be prosecuted at all, so in the interest of their own safety do not 'rat out' any of the others.

Now, lets thicken the plot a little - one of these criminals gets caught for one crime in which a few other folks are involved. He's going down... there's no escape for this guy at all... he's in a particularly bad mood because he gets the feeling that someone took him down and doesn't feel like he should take the rap alone. He rats out the other folks involved in this particular crime.

We now have a few folks going down - some of their enemies decide to kick-em-while-they're-down assuming that they don't have proof of any of their own crimes. Things start getting more complicated now because now all of them have started thinking along the lines of 'if I have to take a fall, I'm pulling everyone else in with me.'

Suddenly, there's chaos in parliament. All the thievery, murders, scams, embezzling, laundering, kickbacks and lies have started hitting everyone, but the politicians have started warring... none of the parties are covering their 'friends' let alone their enemies. Some of them think that by starting one more controversy they can lessen the scope of their own prosecution by diverting attention away from their own issue. In most cases, this next controversy involves more people. With any luck, most of them will kill each other (metaphorically if not literally) and we'll be left with the few misfits in our government with some form of ethical standard. I'm just hoping there's not going to be a truce call between the 'dons' before the bloodbath's finished. It's a little sad that the only time the Delhi police have averted a full on terrorist strike, the terrorists were planning on doing us a favour - destruction of the parliament building would have been upsetting, but the place could definitely use a good fumigation.

De Ferns’n Petals Fiasco

Here's a really innovative way of conning people. Start an online flower delivery service which caters to remote locations. If someone sends you flowers, how often do you call them up and thank them (mentioning exactly what the order received was)? Do you think anyone would really complain that they've received an order of flowers from you with a poor quality gift? They'd sit there saying "How considerate... what lovely flowers..."

Okay, so here's the deal. Place an order for some flowers (with maybe a gift attached to it). Pay a premium on the delivery (since it's timed so well). When the wrong arrangement arrives (with slightly wilted flowers), you, the orderer, would never really find out as they'd be masked through the "niceties" of society.

Let's give you an example of this. I'd ordered the Exotic Life Size Arrangement from fnp.in. The description?

Mind blowing arrangement of 100 Seasonal and Exotic Flowers..3 to 4 ft high…for someone very special in your life..

This was supposed to be sent to my mother (who coincidentally lives in the same house as I do at the moment), so when the delivery arrived I was at home to receive it.

Okay, so now you're thinking "So what actually got delivered?"

The order note said Life Size Arrangement (which is 25% cheaper incidentally) and is described as:

Your feelings reach new heights with this expression of Love….An arrangement of over 100 Red n Yellow Roses of around 4 feets high.

What actually arrived was however quite a few (definitely more than 70) pink roses about as tall as my dogs (how does 2½ ft strike you?). It was quite nice in a few ways, but nowhere near what I'd ordered.

The order process itself was difficult enough. Yatra.com advertises a partnership with a discount of 25%. They even give you a promo code to enter on the fnp.in site to avail of this discount. When I tried using the promo code I got a "Sorry!! Try again" repeatedly. I thought it may be a problem with the code I was given, so called up Yatra (where a customer service person asked for my user names and passwords on both Yatra.com and fnp.in – I even provided them in the interest of getting this worked out). They acknowledged that there was a problem with the fnp site.

I tried using an alternate promotion (for ICICI bank account customers) which gave me the same error, so called the fnp customer care and was asked to "please try again in half an hour as there may be a technical issue". Strange that 22 hours later it's still not working with ICICI.

I got a little fed up with speaking with the person on the phone so left a comment on the website about the it not working properly and was surprised (quite pleasantly) by a call from Ashish the webmaster who informed me that he could help me with my order if I could order it on my ICICI card (and get a 20% discount instead of 25%) as they'd stopped the promotion with Yatra for Diwali (but still hadn't contacted Yatra with this information).

I mailed him the order details (along with my ICICI bank debit card details – I was wondering how he'd get the payment through with this info, but he'd asked me for it so I sent it). I got a call back a few minutes after sending the mail saying he wanted a credit card rather than debit card. I don't have an ICICI bank credit card, so gave him my HDFC credit card information for him to use, which he said would be okay.

I'm still sitting here waiting for the correct order to be delivered. The instructions for delivery at 9am sort of went down the tubes when the incorrect order arrived at 10, followed closely by a phone call from the "head office" which I passed on to the delivery man. I'll possibly update this if the correct order arrives.

It's arrived... and just as I was getting on the phone with the company again. They've added a top to the original one they sent, not quite what I'd ordered, but it' still nice.

I don't think I'd have written this entry if this was the first time I'd had such problems with them, but then I didn't get to see the last order they'd dispatched and assumed it was a one-off mistake. Hope they're not doing the same thing with you.

De Cleanup Job

I live in Delhi. A place I've always thought of as home, but also a massive mess. There's the standard attitude of "I'll mess it up - the people paid to clean should do their jobs properly". I still remember a while ago (when the BJP came to power) seeing this strange man sweeping the road in front of our house. My mother asked him a few questions and found that this man had been responsible for sweeping the road outside our house for a few years now - only now he was actually doing his job. The city cleaned up quite a bit with all the people who'd been employed to do their jobs for years actually starting to do them.





At some point of time, the government got smart - there's only one way to make sure the job gets done properly (and continuously) without having someone sit on all the cleaners heads...





OUTSOURCE!





Hey, if I give you assurance that irrespective of whether your job gets done or not, I'm not going to fire you/cut your pay/irritate you at all in any way and you're a slacker, you're not going to get your job done. On the other hand, if I call a contractor and tell them to clean the place up, then as soon as they screw up, I jump on them and tell em I'm not going to pay them - I become king... yay! Plus, I get to pay them less by putting out bids for the job of cleaning the place.





So there you have it. I drive to work every day - occasionally see a very hip looking cleaning truck trundling along the side of the road whipping up all the dust, dirt, plastic, excrement, blah into it's large belly. The roads? They're squeaky clean in Delhi now.





But back the truck up just a minute (pun intended). Where do these trucks empty their guts?

Well, it would seem to me that they dump the stuff quite a distance from where they pick it up - a few inches perhaps? This is a picture I took yesterday when I was heading back home from Nehru Place (a sprawling commercial complex in Delhi) just accross the road from the famous Kalka Mandir.

Hang on... lets get a little closer...

So THESE are the guys cleaning up the roads. Yesterday after I saw (and photographed) this, I thought of two things - going to the Kalkaji police station (about 100m away) and telling them (I actually went, but was in a bit of a rush to get home, so thought I'd just blog it and send it to the papers). The second was that I hadn't really looked at the sides of the roads for quite a while - they're dirtier than ever before - I guess now I know why. Maybe these contractors are planning on asking for a contract to clean the sides of the roads as well.

I drove up to the truck and motioned for the driver to push back his window - he motioned for me to drive round to the other side of the truck which I did. His "co-pilot" gave me a big grin while he pushed his window open. I asked one question "is this the rubbish dump?" to which his immediate reply was "yes".

I'm thinking I should send this around a bit more than just to the papers. Lets see what happens.