The sorry state of Indian Police force and the dire need for the state to bring a reformation in them real quick

The sorry state of Indian Police force and the dire need for the state to bring a reformation in them real quick

Recently we have been discussing about the callous attitude of the cops and over here. I was just wondering if the state and central administration are ever bothered to bring some improvement in the general functioning of the police system in India. At least in my personal view, I have seen the best commissioner in Chennai was Ms. Lathika Charan and then the subsequent guy (Vijaykumar), who was also part of the Veerappan mission. All others who have succeeded to capture the chair does not seem to be contributing their full heart and soul in ensuring a tangible peace and harmony of the state. Though this post has been captioned ‘Indian Police’, the most of the discussions are epicentered around Chennai Police from where I have quoted a good number of examples. Of course based on the various news sources we also get to know that similar maladies are afflicting other states as well.

 

If it is a private organization anywhere in the world when there is a non-performing asset, they immediately quarantine him besides subjecting him to innumerable amount of extra tests and stresses; of course with a good intent of making him to realise his folly and to ensure that he contributes to the organization which gives him his paycheck. However, this one yardstick of measuring the performance and/or the whip to eliminate menace of rotten apples in the basket seems to be seriously missing in state-owned organizations, which is giving them an undue protection to an enhanced elevated heights even to the extent of harassing innocent people. Some of the quick jottings that I could think about the maladies from the cops are:

 

1. A tendency to shriek their moral responsibility like refusing to register FIR for complaints tendered to them.
2. An excessive amount of inertia to look into people’s concerns.
3. An anti-people sentiment in that only when their pockets are filled and palms are greased, the services are being rendered. Take for example any services related to passport. Though they have something called police verification, unless you part with a few bucks to the local cops, the verification file would not move from their desk.
4. And still our female fraternity can not confidently walk into any police station to redress their issues.
5. As films like ‘Pokkiri’ demonstrate, an unwarranted support and/or protection rendered by a few rotten apples in the department to the accused spoils the entire fine fabric of them.

The need of the hour is that the state should bring a radical renaissance in the police system eliminating all rotten apples in all cadres in toto without any mercy of whatever creed or kind and without any bias or sans any preconcieved notions or prejudices. I am sure that this is a greatest task that our state administration can take for the welfare of the society. And similar to private organizations where they usually do the exercises like ‘downsizing’ and ‘restructuring’ to ensure that the bloated fat stuck in many parts of the body of the organization are operated upon and removed, this would help a great way for the national exchequer in constructive diversion of the people’s tax in nation’s welfare.

 

Would our UPA government think a little constructive and people-friendly terms to eliminate the maladies afflicting the police system?

 

Citibank strikes back on another illegitimate telemarketing spree

Citibank strikes back on another illegitimate telemarketing spree

 

Citibank India is notorious for the following underworld things: 

1. Illegal telemarketing. They simply do not care about scrubbing their telephone number database against NDNC catalog. We also shared another interesting incident with Citibank Telemarketer over here. Today before sharing out this thought, when I did a quick Internet Search on telemarketing, I got this link, which goes to any extent proving that Citigroup worldwide has this bad telemarketing policy. The said discussion in FlyerTalk discussion forums applies to Citigroup in USA.
2.  Plethora of hidden charges of diversified categories
3. Indisciplined collection agents

Well! Let us get back to the most recent comedy show staged by Citibank today morning. I had an interesting call from +914443504807 today around 1102 hours claiming that by virtue of having a salary account with Citibank they are offering free Titanium Credit Cards. When I challenged the telemarketer regarding her right to call a number covered by NDNC, she totally did not have any clue on the same. The caller failed to introduce herself politely but barged into offering an unsolicited Titanium credit card. By issuing an unsolicited Titanium credit cards, is Citibank driving India to become like another Titanic ship?

There was a very similar incident that happened three months back. When I reported the same to Citibank team besides their Head Service and India Grievance, they were taking about four weeks time and assured of no-future-calls henceforth.  I doubt whether Citibank system administrator formats the database systems and creates new desktops every three months? In my previous conversation about exactly three months back I could assertively tell the Citibank team itself that I can expect another NDNC violation by Citigroup and they have proved it exactly.

 

In the latest report, I have written to the following people on the entire history of telemarketing violations. Let me update on the responsible replies or fabricated stories that they come out with.

1. indiaservice@citicorp.com
2. indiaservice@citi.com
3. head.customercare@citi.com,
4. grievanceredressalofficer@citi.com
5. c.l.wasan@citi.com

Let us hope to see if at least one mailbox owner is awake to look into what is going wrong with Citibank India.  I have also suggested them a reading of  the document on required telemarketing practices in India (http://ndncregistry.gov.in/ndncregistry/docs/Guidelines_for_telemarketing.doc). This document is written in plain simple English and I have a little hope that they can understand it. If not, we should help them with the address of VETA.

 

The TN Cops SMS does not seem to be yet timely and effective…

The TN Cops SMS does not seem to be yet timely and effective…

 

Sometime back the cops in Chennai launched a SMS initiative that you can send in a text message to 95000 99100 and within fifteen minutes a callback from the control room or a patrol team would reach the vicinity of the victim seems to far from reality.  I have an instance of a friend needing to use this when he was traumatised in an emergency situation on October 29, 2009.  There weren’t any response from the cops for more than an hour.  With support from his neighborhood and I had to personally drive to his place at an odd hour of 2 AM to provide some support for him.

 

Only around 2 AM there was one missed call attempt by a local cop but it was too late for anyone to notice in that hour. The next day morning again there was one missed call from the number +914423452381 (around 07:28 on 30th October 2009) which traces out to be from Chennai Commissioner Office. If it is going to take more than six hours for them to act on emergency situations, where are we heading towards planning in an emergency situations? We have a long way to go. The state-central administration have to wake up from its deep slumber to kick the lazy guys in the Police department to maintain more vigil. At least as of now, they are just calling to close off the ‘ticket-requests’ and to ‘boost up’ the number of requests being serviced or to close the file as ‘party not reachable’. These can be handled by machines. What we need is more human responsibility. Would these be available from our cops?

 

High BP near IBP Petrol Bunk in Medavakkam

High BP near IBP Petrol Bunk in Medavakkam

 

The IBP Petrol Bunk near Medavakkam, a growing suburb in Chennai seems to be an eternal nightmare for passerbys of all sorts and creed — be them commuters of public transportation or private motorists. One can witness the callousness of traffic cops in their conspicuous absence to enforce discipline in the area besides the lot of stray cattle that loiters around endangering themselves besides throwing open a grave insecure road for the motorists.

 

I have personally registered a Chennai City Traffic Police complaint through the Internet Complaint Cell vide Complaint ID ‘CTPCO00679′ around the fourth week of August but hitherto the complaint is still in the status like ‘Your complaint CTPCO00679 is being reviewed’. 

 

Hence I just thought of sharing  the state of affair of the road with others too. Last week while commuting through this stretch when I saw the IBP petrol bunk the name made me think that this is really making the blood vessels to bump high and low. The badly constructed speed breaker with incorrect gradient also is for sure to give you a rough jolt when you negotiate the stretch. At least till CCTP wakes up from the slumber to address the menace, we ought to exercise an extra bit of caution whilst negotiating through this  Velachery – Tambaram state highway 48 (also known as  Marmalong – Irumbuliyur Road).

 

A dire need to standardize Seat Allocation in MTC buses

A dire need to standardize Seat Allocation in MTC buses

The Metropolitan Transport Corporation, Chennai has been innovative and instrumental in augmenting its fleet strength and enhancing the services of the buses to ensure that the transportation abilities of the metropolitan city is fully met and the people feel comfortable in commuting using its fleet. I just felt that there are  a few things left unattended for a long time though:

1. The substandard and adhoc reservation of seats for women passengers. A few buses have left and rear for women where as some of them have front side earmarked for women. This often results in a good amount of confusion and typically in vestibule buses where a part of the rear side of the vehicle is also front of the rear section. Often you can see hostile arguments in the bus between the passengers and conductors.
2. The commuters-conductors still face the change problem and because of their inability (or unwillingness ?) to tender the change back in smaller denominations, they are eyed as miniscule pocket pickers by the public. The transport corporation still does not have a concrete solution against this menace.
3. The Eve-Teasing is still looming as a big menace. Witnessing a slew of incidents in M21 and D70, this blogger submitted an online complaint (vide reference number CTPCO00716) to Chennai City Traffic Police around the first week of August. The complaint still shows ‘Being Reviewed’. Not sure whether the CCTP is looking out for a few astrologers calculating auspicious and good days to bring a discipline in the buses.

Let us hope that the transport corporation and the city administration brings discipline in the transport operations of the city at least henceforth.

 

Do big hotels serve truly fresh and hot dishes?

Do big hotels serve truly fresh and hot dishes?

The normal allegation against small restaurants/hotels in Chennai is that they would use cheap ingredients, compromise hygiene and also serve foods that were prepared even days before without regarding for the quality. People normally tend to quote big names like Sangeetha, Saravana Bhavan etc and claim that these always ensure the quality. I have one recent observation in Sangeetha and I feel that this public protection seems to be giving them a false cover and they seem to be diminishing the quantity and quantity perhaps in intangible terms.

Some of the cons about Hotel Sangeetha in Guindy are:

• The ever-crowded place.
• During lunch time whilst I had ordered meals, the neighborhood person had ordered some bonda. And whilst casually observing what the waiter was doing, he went in and was searchng for bonda. He found some remains at the bottom, pulled out two, put in the oven for a while and pretended to serve it hot and fresh.
• The table cleaning is often missing here. The waiters are ready to serve you and want to you eat in the same place and unless you exercise a stern voice to get the tables cleaned perfectly, one needs to appear themselves as if sitting in a pig sty.
• Unless you tip them handsful, the waiters are reluctant to serve you.
• There are two or three guys near the billing counter blocking the way and in a way to allow only their waiters to pay the amount; perhaps an unscrupulous way of making you to pay extra tips for them. Unless you raise the voice again and kick their asses apart to make your way to the counter to pay the bill, you are going to waste your time at the billing counter too.

 

Costly Clerical Errors due to poorly qualified staff at contact centers

Costly Clerical Errors due to poorly qualified staff at contact centers

Sometime back we discussed about “Poor Clerical Work at Citibank Chennai“. I just thought of the gravity of this incident is actually increasing and is encompassing in a bewildering way to even nonbanking contact centers. I have two more incidents to share in this front:

• Recession days are triggering Retail Robbery
• A few days back I had my vacation trip to Manali through New Delhi. I had the entire accomodation booked through MakeMyTrip. Though MakeMyTrip offers a one-stop capsule offering of all accomodation-cum-travel, I did observe a significant amount of major goof-ups in the same. A few of them below:
  • For the bus pickup in New Delhi, the phone number mentioned in the confirmation email was totally wrong. The address was incorrect too. Actually the bus comes to a petrol bunk near Hotel Imperial in Connaught Place to pickup. Fortunately, I could manage with the help of JustDial assistance and since I was able to manage the language. The most significant thing that pissed me off in the entire incident is that at one point of time, the call center agent simply brushed off and replied “I have no clues regarding that address. This is what I have in the database”.
  • The hotel booking confirmation too had a wrong number. Instead of September 14 to September 19, they had mentioned as December 14 to December 19. Fortunately, a quick call to the Hotel supervisor and his magnanimity saved a good deal of embarassment.

The organizations which are trying to open up call centers in India for the benefit of cheap labor and ease of management should also ensure that they don’t jeopardise the quality of the services rendered.

 

TRAI says minimum broadband speed is 256 KBPS but does Bharti DSL understand it as 2.56 Kbps?

TRAI says minimum broadband speed is 256 KBPS but does Bharti DSL understand it as 2.56 Kbps?

According the TRAI, the regulator authority of communications services in India, a broadband connectivity is defined as follows:

“An ‘always-on’ data connection that is able to support interactive services including Internet access and has the capability of the minimum download speed of 256 kilo bits per second (kbps) to an individual subscriber from the Point Of Presence (POP) of the service provider intending to provide Broadband service where multiple such individual Broadband connections are aggregated and the subscriber is able to access these interactive services including the Internet through this POP. The interactive services will exclude any services for which a separate licence is specifically required, for example, real-time voice transmission, except to the extent that it is presently permitted under ISP licence with Internet Telephony.”

However, at least this week when I use my Airtel Broadband and check against the various Internet Speed Testing websites, it is a ghastly shock to witness pathetic and snail-speed internet. The fastest homepage (Google) takes four seconds to load on a typical business day with Airtel Broadband (Chennai).

Not sure if some business development manager in Airtel who has signed the license agreements with TRAI for ISP business misintrepreted the 256 KBPS requirement as 2.56 KBPS. I have also raised this as a doubt to Airtel Broadband as an escalation note. Let us see if they are really serious about the quality of service and what reply they give.

 

Hostile Hi. What prevents one to politely excuse back with an amicable bye!

Hostile Hi. What prevents one to politely excuse back with an amicable bye!

 

This is a little followup of my previous post “How would you treat people who just hop back at you only when they need something for themselves?“. Today afternoon I had to confront one such creature near my workplace. I never had any affinity to ‘it’. And no sooner did I sit in my workstation this sniffed near me with a cunningly curious and a prank-tainted pleasant ‘hi’.

 

Since I have been following a simple logic of not to entertain such creatures I just to chose to ignore it. I would like to comment on its attitude and (mis)deamenour it was demonstrating by showing all sorts of long faces because describing it would mean feeding the troll and encouraging them. Let us uphold the spirit of ‘Do not feed the trolls’. The basic idea of this post is to serve as a guideline/eyeopener for other people to be wary of such creatures around them.

 

And similarly when it comes to prank calls and unsolicited telemarketing calls, I don’t think one should be too much carried over by them. We have a lot of ways to tackle them elegantly:

 

1. Reverse Telemarketing 
2. Mission Hilarity
3. Infinite Sink

   (We may need request services like (1) and (3) to our respective cellular operators in getting those implemented)

4. Or simply, as we have discussed above, when the telemarketer says ‘Hi’, you reply ‘Bye’. [Tit for Tat]

 

Truant Telemarketers seem to be bursting out gay to make the best hay whilst the sun shines …

Truant Telemarketers seem to be bursting out gay to make the best hay whilst the sun shines …

 

As today’s thursday demonstrated, the telemarketers seems to be active after a good period of hibernation because of the global economic slowdown and since the economy is showing slow signs of recovery, they want to make the best out of the moments to make fastest bucks and to jump-and-escape into the wild.

 

At least today, I have reported two major telemarketing violations on a number which has been registered and is staying-protected with the National Do Not Call Registry of TRAI for more than two years. Either the TRAI seems to be in deep slumber or it has got tired of these truant telemarketers or these telemarketers are entering into a bargaining spree of pitching hot sales deal versus penalties to be paid for reported and booked violations, taking into account of the less penetration of NDNC knowledge amongst the masses. In this juncture, it is our responsibility to ensure that we contribute to the nation in ensuring that every mobile user is brought under NDNC protection, subject to their interest of abhor towards those smelly telemarketing nuisances.

 

We would need to we wary of these telemarketers who just sell off crazy unsolicited things draining our wallets, filling up our mailboxes with rubbish and piling up our brains with tensions of multiple creed and kind.