From 9,500 ft in Himachal Pradesh

So, what do you do?

NITYIN — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:28:52 +0000

Recently I completed three years working from home. I had earlier posted about my initial days on work from home. Things did not change much but I have now accepted the situation and deal it my own way. I later shifted to Kotgarh in April 2009 after my son was born. Big thanks to BSNL for launching the broadband service in the hills, a life line for my kind of work. The performance is much better compared to Shimla and there are no nosey lineman trying to grab money on every festival to just keep the broadband working.

It has been busy marriage season in Kotgarh and met a lot many relatives and friends. The first point of conversation is, “So what do you do?” Putting the idea of working from home takes some effort. In a traditional society like mine where doctor-engineers still are at the top of the vocation hierarchy a mere mortal like me is dismissed instantly! Now the best part are the following questions. “You left your regular job?” I reply in affirmative. “And where you used to work?” I tell them about my previous job. “You actually left a regular government job?” is the retort with an astonished look! I stopped short of blurting that now only corrupt people work in the government and I was feeling a little left-out. Better sense prevailed as I realized that the one asking was in ‘government service’ himself.

“So why did you leave?” is how the conversation leads. Now this is something which needs some explanation. Why people in Himachal will go to any length to be in the service? Mainly because of the power and prestige which comes with the job. I grew up in the pre 1991 era when it was only the government sector everywhere. A typical visit to my father’s friends house used to have an introduction as head of the family being an engineer/doctor/HAS officer and sons studying in either IGMC or in engineering colleges in Maharashtra or Karnataka. Good boys like me were tutored to excel in studies so I too could join the elite club. That I didn’t is a different story.

The government service teaches one to be arrogant. The ‘servant’ (as in government servant ) is just a tag. See these servants acting as Lords once sitting on the chair. I noticed an abrupt change in my batchmates and some of the friends who finally made it to the service. One of my ex-friend and a present BDO sahib started avoiding the evening Mall road friends club once he got the joining letter. Another, now a vet doc would wait for us to come and greet him else he would just walk away. I was so naive when I joined the service that one fine day this doc guy asked me what pay scale I was in and I had no idea!!! Later when he found out I was x scale lesser to him he started avoiding me completely.

Once the power and prestige is acquired, the next step is to get sucked into the system. On job, it is time to unlearn what one has learnt all throughout. The process is like a river meeting the sea. Even if one does not have an inclination to join in, the flow ultimately lands you up their. Slowly the inner resistance starts breaking and the lure of easy money takes over. Every person has a breaking point. Some who resist face the ‘wrath’ and ultimately buckle down at some point of time. I have seen it happen to the best of person.

I chose to refuse to be a part of this system. There were initials hiccups selling the idea to my family. Eventually they agreed to my view point. There are always out of box solutions. We just have to apply those. I see people who have made it their goal to join the government service. Why does one wish to work for a rotten, stinking system!

So, what do you say?

Working from home experience

New blog theme

NITYIN — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:43:13 +0000

Switching over to the new theme became inevitable as the previous one got into some serious SEO issues. The posts were not showing up on Google search and there were lot many errors which had cropped up. Add to this, the customer support finally stopped and it was becoming very difficult to maintain the blog in a proper fashion.

Social bookmarking was also one issue where the previous theme lacked. The theme did not had a widgetised sidebar and the side bar looked cluttered. Quite a chunk of traffic comes from social bookmarking site these days. Ignoring social bookmarking sites is equivalent to a suicide if one wishes to have a presence on the web.

There are very few good quality free themes available for Wordpress. Among magazine style themes no new good theme has been introduced lately. Apparently, Indian designers have stayed away from putting up free themes. There are a lot of themes available for the Blogger platform by Indian designers but none for Wordpress.

Buying premium themes remains the only option if one has to have those sleek themes but they do cost a dime. Good themes starts from $50 and can go upto $150. Whoosh! that is quite a money when converted into Indian rupees.

I have tweaked this theme and added some custom changes. If you find any broken links or page not available errors shoot me a mail.

I know.. the header looks terrible. I don’t have Photoshop and this theme only supports images in headers. Shall workout something more pleasing to the eyes.

Wishing everyone a very Happy Guruparb.

A white elephant called Air India

NITYIN — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 20:32:50 +0000

A white elephant called Air India – A Taste of Life

A mockery of catching the corrupt in Himachal

NITYIN — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 08:32:19 +0000

The recent anti-corruption drive of the Vigilance department touched a new low when the Himachal Government recently reinstated the infamous drug inspector Sher Singh and the mai-baap class (IAS) officer Sanjay Gupta. Both were caught red handed while accepting lakhs in bribes. Sher Singh’s case was an eye opener for us the junta class as we marveled at the money one can make serving as a ‘humble’ government ‘servant’.

Sample this, a kothi worth just Rs. 2 crores, numerous bank accounts, land papers, plots, flats, the list seemed to be unending. When he was arrested our ruling netas from top to bottom were thumping their chests and announcing on roof top, ‘Look here we are and now the people will have corruption free environment’. Sher Singh have had some powerful godfathers all these years. He was merely a drug inspector who was then asked to look after the work of drug controller as the one before him was also suspended. Since his suspension was revoked he has been given a plum posting of Registrar of the Pharmacy Council.

Earler there used to be a three member licensing authority which was quashed by the present government and all powers were handed over to Sher Singh. In other words Sher Singh starting minting money alone which was earlier being shared by three people. This must have caused heart burn among some quarters ultimately resulting in his arrest. Those were the earlier days of the present regime with Vigilance given go ahead to flex it’s muscles and this ‘poor, humble’ servant fell into it’s dragnet. Similar has been the case of the IAS officer Sanjay Gupta. He too was caught with Rs. 2 lakhs in his person. Since he happens to be from the mai-baap class, nothing can technically happen to him. As they happens to be our lords and masters they have impunity over all crimes. Case in point is another IAS Subhash Ahluwalia who too after being suspended is back to being a humble public servant.

Once the Vigilance catches a person, it recommends a departmental action against the accused. Cases are filed seprately with the police. If the government has honest intentions of punishing the guilty it can chargesheet the accused and hold daily hearings of the departmental enquiry and recommend termination of service. There is no need to pursue the case in courts. But what happens is the opposite. It suspends the accused and files a case in court which drags on for years. The accused is reinstated after some time without directions from any court making the entire exercise futile.

Vigilance seems to be doing it’s job and catching the guilty regularly. It recently announced a mega - win a prize scheme to help catch officials accepting bribes. The informer now will get 15% straight on the amount seized. But this can become a great business for the Power – ful.

This is a win win situation for the Power-ful. 15% is a peanut to be be paid and that too from the seized bribe money. Consider the math to get re-instated. Imagine how much will be later paid by the accused to get back into the service. Hypothetically, any guesses how much money a person like Sher Singh Thakur would be ready to offer from his ‘treasure’?

Few PWD officials were recently caught near Manali and large amount of money was recovered from them. These are from the electrical wing of the PWD whose budget is just 10% of the entire PWD budget of repairing and building roads. Already an officer of the same electrical wing of the PWD was arrested in Shimla while accepting bribes earlier. One can easily draw conclusions about the money being exchanged in the PWD department on the rest 90% budget. No prizes for guessing whose names will be there in the next list of the re-instated officials.

Finally it may boil down to robbing the robber. The accused here cannot even complain of bribing the power-ful. A shameful chapter has been initiated in the state. Catching the corrupt and then reinstating them is going to be next big industry in Himachal.

Hats off..!!

Is this BJP’s turn in Rohru Assembly election this time?

NITYIN — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 20:35:56 +0000

News of Manjeet Thakur as a Congress candidate has come as a blessing in disguise for KR Balnatah, the BJP candidate. Balnatah has fought election against Virbhadra Singh five times in the past and had lost each election. Though his vote share did increase in every election. This is the last chance for Balnatah to become a MLA as Rohru seat has been made reserved from the next elections. With BJP being the ruling party and Singh not being a direct or indirect candidate, it would be interesting to watch how voters will vote since Pratibha Singh has been denied a ticket. Will the ‘Raja’ still campaign for the Congress or will he be a mute spectator. In case the Congress loses this seat, it will be bad news for the Congress President, Kaul Singh. Congress has already lost 3 out of 4 parliamentary seats under his stewardship and seems to be on a sticky wicket on the other assembly seat in Jawali which was won by BJP the last time.

Past few months has not been kind to Virbhadra Singh. Firstly, he was not in the A team of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and later he was booked in the CD case along with his wife by the state vigilance department. Now the ticket for Rohru assembly seat has slipped from his hand. Singh had even started the election campaign at Rohru for his wife during his last visit. His son was now actively running the campaign. Rohru has been a traditional seat for Singh and he never lost an election from this seat. No one from the Congress till date had even forwarded their name as candidate when Singh used to fight election.

Things have slowly started turning from bad to worse for Singh. His detractors has been playing their cards behind the scene effectively. A host of leaders from the rival group were camping in Delhi and they persuaded the high command to look for a candidate outside the Rampur royal family. If the Congress looses this seat, it will be a major setback for Virbhadra too. To loose a seat where he had 68% vote share in the last election, a seat he represented five times, a foe he defeated five times and a seat which has been part of his erstwhile princely state of Bushehar, this will come as a blot on his political career. He has been well circled this time by his rivals within his party.

It is going to be a cliffhanger in Rohru!

ABVP and the Mandi episode; Shameful student politics.

NITYIN — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 14:27:53 +0000

In a shocking incident in Mandi, leaders of the BJP student wing organisation ABVP alleged that the Deputy Commissioner Mandi had slapped their leader in the office and thrown them out of his office when they had gone to submit a memorandum to the DC against starting of IIT classes in Mandi college. As reported in the media, Chaman Lal, a Mandi district leader of ABVP have lodged a complaint with the police against the ‘atrocity’. ABVP leaders have demanded the DC may be suspended and removed from Mandi district.

On the other hand, the Deputy Commissioner, Onkar Sharma clarified these student leaders never came to his office with a memorandum and no one was slapped. He had stopped these leaders from collecting money from the district collectorate office. It is against the rules to collect money from any government office for political purpose.

One can simply marvel at the twist given by ABVP leaders to the whole episode. Either pay or face the blackmail of these student leaders who seem to have a full backing of the ruling party. Student politics in the state have already been taken over by rowdies and is merely a stepping stone to the larger goal of becoming a MLA. Already Mandi is a hot bed of ABVP as three powerful cabinet ministers are from this district. Under this backdrop it becomes extremely difficult for any officer to enforce the law. The tragedy here is the administration has been completely taken over by the netas and their chamchas. There is a complete Mafia style grip of the political parties. Anyone who dare oppose this caucus is severely reprimanded.

One feels jittery the direction in which student politics is heading. Student parties may look good from far but are far from good. Party workers give two hoots to the rule of law and have the guts to collect money from the DC office which happens to be a main administrative office in the district. Slowly the political culture of UP is creeping in the state. The day is not far when political parties will fix targets to all govt officials to collect money for their coffers.

Student leadership in the state have mastered the art of projecting themselves as ‘the oppressed’ whereas they happen to be the biggest offenders of law. Where is the need for student parties, what good are these for the students, exception being the student leaders themselves. One wonders what were they doing in the collectorate when they should be in the class rooms. With such academic attitude in the state why do we wonder our boys never make to the A list of the companies. They are only fit for good for nothing sarkari jobs.

By all means, democracy is now reduced to a power play of the clans, castes and the majority. Our founding fathers would be turning in their graves seeing the gradual rape of the ‘system’. On one hand we blame the govt. for every wrong, isn’t it is our duty to support upright officers who try and enforce the rule of law against all odds.

What do you think?

Festivities at Stokes house in Kotgarh

NITYIN — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 16:44:46 +0000

Today was a day full of fun and festivity at the Harmony Hall at Thanedhar, Kotgarh. The entire Stokes clan had gathered from all corners of the world. The eldest, Mr. Vijay Stokes had organised a traditional dham. It was a reunion of sort for the people here as they were meeting the entire family after a long long time. The younger generation of the Stokes is now settled in the United States and only Mr. Vijay Stokes stays here in the Barubag Hills. Mrs. Satya Parmar, wife of the late Chief Minister Mr. YS Parmar had also come for this occasion who also hails from the Stokes family. Here are a few pictures I clicked without intruding into the privacy of the family. To know more about the Stokes family, the Harmony Hall and the Barubaug hill, click here.

Stokes residence, The Harmony Hall, built by Mr. Satyanand Stokes in the early 20th century.

Natti starts with the ladies taking the lead

And goes on for hours!

The Arya Samaj temple built by Mr. Stokes

The temple has inscriptions on the walls with no deity in the temple. Mr. Stokes was an Arya Samaji after all..

Another look at the temple

Some great views from the Barubag top. A view of the Kotgarh valley

The distant hill tops looked so near. The farthest hills are that of Rohru

An amazing view of the Satluj

Another view of the Harmony Hall