The "Governance" issue seems to be the flavour of the season; I see blogs and digital posts commenting on the lack of Governance in India.
Maybe it is time for introspection on how we behave as citizens of India; We seem to hate any form of governance in our life, we hate to be told what to do, after all are we now free from colonial rule.
It is our privilege to litter and urinate where we like, and break the law whenever no one is looking, are we not a free country.
My belief is that good governance starts from the citizen following the laws of the land irrespective of anyone looking.
So when do we start using bins, if bins are not available we can carry trash in a bag until we find a bin.
We can plan our journey so the we need not use the roadside to urinate and finally we must learn to respect the law and accept that is made for our well-being.
We love to talk about lack of governance in our great country and complain about every other event little realizing that charity begins at home.
To begin with we could start by leading by example and spreading the word around of basic hygiene, courtesy and abiding by the rule of law even if no one is looking.
If we feel governance can only be achieved by policing, which means only doing the right thing when people are looking then we are bunch of citizens ready for dictatorial rule rather than democracy.
I shudder to think what our life would be under dictatorship, friend reporting on friends, relatives reporting or relatives and the dictator having the last laugh.
It is time we started governing our own behaviour before we talk of better governance, one small step by each citizen will cumulate into a Large Stride and keep Democracy alive in India.
Mr. LS Subramanian is a thought leader, writer, speaker and advises banks, financial exchanges, hospitals, manufacturing conglomerates, micro finance institutions in information technology, cyber security, and cloud computing.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Monday, February 7, 2011
An Auto Drivers Perspective on why we break the law!
On Sunday the roads in Mumbai are generally empty in the mornings and it is easy to get around without getting choked in the traffic. Last Sunday I decided to take an auto since securing a safe parking place in Bombay even on a Sunday is a challenge.
I got chatting with the auto driver as he drove me through the empty roads and he stopped at the right light. The traffic behind him kept honking until he decided to move on through the red light.
I asked him why we have such scant respect for Red lights and the law. His wisdom in the matter was interesting, he told me it was not corruption that made people break the law, it was the fact that first they may not get caught at all. If they got caught at a signal by the police officer one could negotiate to be let off without a receipt, but if one insisted you could still pay the mandatory fine and get a receipt.
His observation was the fine was so petty that no one worried about breaking the law, there were no harsh punishment like cancellation of the license or prison terms for most road offences and he identified that was the reason why people break the law! He also told me that even if one is taken to court the law takes its own course and time.
I reflected on his wisdom and I think he is right; no one dares to drink and drive anymore in Mumbai because the police made sure that you spend an evening as their guest before the judge fixes the fine next day. It was quickly understood that no amount of money would get you off immediately and hence everyone stopped drinking and driving. Of course the police still do catch foolhardy drivers but that is an exception then the rule.
Earlier the same Sunday morning I was in another auto and guess what the police were busy booking people for jumping the signal at 7 a.m. in the morning, it was clear that the police did not believe in late night catches anymore for drunken drivers and now believed in the old saying “The early bird catches the Worms”.
Maybe we should get auto and truck drivers to be in the committees that formulate the traffic laws so that we have a safer ride in our roads. Remember we have one of the highest number per million of road fatalities in the world.
I did some primary research and found this wonderful website of International Road Federation – India chapter (http://www.indiairf.com) addressing the issues on road safety and I reproduce below from the document on this site by the name “REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON ROAD SAFETY and TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT” dated February 2007 which highlights the outcome of our Breaking the Law.
According to WHO statistics (year 2002) about 11.8 lakh people die every year in road accidents, the world over, of which 84,674 deaths are reported to take place in India. In 2004 the number of deaths had increased to 92,618. The mortality rate in India is 8.7 per hundred thousand populations as compared to 5.6 in UK, 5.4 in Sweden, 5.0 in The Netherlands and 6.7 in Japan. In terms of mortality per 10,000 vehicles, the rate in India is as high as 14 as compared to less than two in developed countries. The cost of road crashes has been assessed at one to two per cent of GDP in developed countries. A study by the Planning Commission in 2002 estimated the social cost of road accidents in India at Rs.55, 000 crore annually (2000 prices), which constitutes about 3% of the GDP.
The statistics are dated and one can safely assume that they would have moved North in the last 9 years (2002~2011).
I believe the only way to arrest this is if we start making the difference in our driving habits and also educate the “law breakers” and finally pay heed to conversations with auto drivers!
I got chatting with the auto driver as he drove me through the empty roads and he stopped at the right light. The traffic behind him kept honking until he decided to move on through the red light.
I asked him why we have such scant respect for Red lights and the law. His wisdom in the matter was interesting, he told me it was not corruption that made people break the law, it was the fact that first they may not get caught at all. If they got caught at a signal by the police officer one could negotiate to be let off without a receipt, but if one insisted you could still pay the mandatory fine and get a receipt.
His observation was the fine was so petty that no one worried about breaking the law, there were no harsh punishment like cancellation of the license or prison terms for most road offences and he identified that was the reason why people break the law! He also told me that even if one is taken to court the law takes its own course and time.
I reflected on his wisdom and I think he is right; no one dares to drink and drive anymore in Mumbai because the police made sure that you spend an evening as their guest before the judge fixes the fine next day. It was quickly understood that no amount of money would get you off immediately and hence everyone stopped drinking and driving. Of course the police still do catch foolhardy drivers but that is an exception then the rule.
Earlier the same Sunday morning I was in another auto and guess what the police were busy booking people for jumping the signal at 7 a.m. in the morning, it was clear that the police did not believe in late night catches anymore for drunken drivers and now believed in the old saying “The early bird catches the Worms”.
Maybe we should get auto and truck drivers to be in the committees that formulate the traffic laws so that we have a safer ride in our roads. Remember we have one of the highest number per million of road fatalities in the world.
I did some primary research and found this wonderful website of International Road Federation – India chapter (http://www.indiairf.com) addressing the issues on road safety and I reproduce below from the document on this site by the name “REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON ROAD SAFETY and TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT” dated February 2007 which highlights the outcome of our Breaking the Law.
According to WHO statistics (year 2002) about 11.8 lakh people die every year in road accidents, the world over, of which 84,674 deaths are reported to take place in India. In 2004 the number of deaths had increased to 92,618. The mortality rate in India is 8.7 per hundred thousand populations as compared to 5.6 in UK, 5.4 in Sweden, 5.0 in The Netherlands and 6.7 in Japan. In terms of mortality per 10,000 vehicles, the rate in India is as high as 14 as compared to less than two in developed countries. The cost of road crashes has been assessed at one to two per cent of GDP in developed countries. A study by the Planning Commission in 2002 estimated the social cost of road accidents in India at Rs.55, 000 crore annually (2000 prices), which constitutes about 3% of the GDP.
The statistics are dated and one can safely assume that they would have moved North in the last 9 years (2002~2011).
I believe the only way to arrest this is if we start making the difference in our driving habits and also educate the “law breakers” and finally pay heed to conversations with auto drivers!
Sunday, February 6, 2011
The LP record on the header
The Long Play Record on the header of my blog page is a blast from the past when you could stack records and they would play one at a time in the sequence you wanted.
The idea was like the LP I would blog at least once a week and keep the words flowing.
Life is like a record player, remember we used to have the various RPM speeds , some records would have only one song while some would have more and the Long Play record the most.
Youth is like an LP the energy just does not wane and every waking hour is filled with action, then comes middle age when you move more slowly like a 78 Rpm record with a few focused activities and finally comes the post middle age when you go back to the LP mode when you wonder when the day will end. Of course there are some sunny days in our life which are like a 45 rpm quick nice and entertaining and which are our fond memories, like weddings, parties and celebrations of our achievements.
The cycle of life too is like the record player and finally a day comes when we are retired like the Record player; sometime we are repaired and kept going for a while until the final call comes when we are Beyond Repair.
The youth takes over and they go through the same cycle again, the cycle of life is a constant though the youth play to a different music on maybe a MP4 player :-).
But still we do not realize and think we are invincible like the Record Player technology which lasted not more than 100 years, subsequent music players had shorter life span like the cassette player, cd player,video CD player and so forth.
We need to compare our life to a record players turntable and realize that life is finite,though we may have a number of revolutions only until our inertia comes to rest.
Reflect on this blog through the week and you will begin to realize how miniscule our life span is !
The idea was like the LP I would blog at least once a week and keep the words flowing.
Life is like a record player, remember we used to have the various RPM speeds , some records would have only one song while some would have more and the Long Play record the most.
Youth is like an LP the energy just does not wane and every waking hour is filled with action, then comes middle age when you move more slowly like a 78 Rpm record with a few focused activities and finally comes the post middle age when you go back to the LP mode when you wonder when the day will end. Of course there are some sunny days in our life which are like a 45 rpm quick nice and entertaining and which are our fond memories, like weddings, parties and celebrations of our achievements.
The cycle of life too is like the record player and finally a day comes when we are retired like the Record player; sometime we are repaired and kept going for a while until the final call comes when we are Beyond Repair.
The youth takes over and they go through the same cycle again, the cycle of life is a constant though the youth play to a different music on maybe a MP4 player :-).
But still we do not realize and think we are invincible like the Record Player technology which lasted not more than 100 years, subsequent music players had shorter life span like the cassette player, cd player,video CD player and so forth.
We need to compare our life to a record players turntable and realize that life is finite,though we may have a number of revolutions only until our inertia comes to rest.
Reflect on this blog through the week and you will begin to realize how miniscule our life span is !
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