VOX POPULI
by
S Kamat
as
Aam Admi
Issue: 259 Date: 03.12.2018
Contents:
1. The Murder Of India's Economic Figures & Statistics
2. Kutta Ya Prani Mukt Raste Aur Khuli Jagah - For The Swaccha Bharat Abhiyan
Program To Succeed
3. Web Check-in & Other Travails With Airlines These Days
The Murder Of India's Economic Figures & Statistics
M/s Arun Jaitley & Narendra Modi do not seem to realise that when they try to show up anyone in a bad light, some of that bad light falls on them too. This is being said in the context of the revision of GDP figures in the decadal period from 2004 to 2014 where the growth has been brought down by some 2%. This if the fiddlers of the figures feel show the present government's economic growth in a better light, they are sadly mistaken. These figures belong to the past and have no material significance today since they are done with and are over except that they will probably be touted around in the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. What matters is that the present government should concentrate in improving the current state of the economy rather than be overly concerned about the past. Any school going child knows that if you have a table of figures, you can always juggle the base year to suit your objective depending on whether you want to show the succeeding figures in a positive or negative light. Once this is done you only have to have a strong reason to justify your base year. This is precisely what has been done about the GDP figures and the justification being given is that this is more aligned to international norms and the Central Statistics Organisation (CSO) is an organisation independent of the government. In this the fiddlers of the figures seem to forget that the CSO was the organisation that wielded the hatchet in murdering the WPI & CPI figures in the past which has undermined its credibility substantially. No one believes the CSO figures any more except the instigators and the manipulators, in this case the government. More saddening is how professionals like the head of the CSO and reputed economists like Rajeev Kumar, Vice-Chairman of Niti Aayog are acting like flunkeys of the government and mouthing their master's voices with no compunction at all. Like the erstwhile Planning Commission was disbanded and re-christened in its new avatar as the Niti Aayog, if this kind of a situation continues then it would make sense to close down the Niti Aayog also. Postscript: With news coming out that the current year's 2nd quarter GDP growth ending September was just 7.1%, it shows how timely the fudging of the GDP figures was so that the present regime do not look any more bad than they already were. Talk of portends and ominous occurrences Modi & his team have been quite successful at least at knowing what is coming at them but have not shown very much their ability at managing these disasters. So as we come closer to the end of Modi's term the 'acche din' remains as much of a mirage as it was in the early part of his Prime Ministership.
Kutta Ya Prani Mukt Raste Aur Khuli Jagah -
For The Swaccha Bharat Abhiyan Program To Succeed
Unless there is a Kutta Ya Prani Mukt Raste Aur Khuli Jagah, there can be no Swaccha Bharat Abhiyan. This message has to be drilled into the minds of our political leaders on whose advice our administrative officials are running like a brainless herd helter skelter on the Swaccha Bharat Abhiyan program spending crores of rupees which are being literally thrown into the unclean drains. Considering we live in a semi-urban area in Goa, for us the dog and cattle menace is critical. The dogs with their urinating and shitting on the roads is a huge nuisance. On the morning walks where one seeks fresh air, the first thing that assails your nostrils is the smell of dog pooh. Then you have to be careful where you are stepping since one wrong step will have your feet dirtied with the dog shit that dots the roads and the pavements. A lesser nuisance is cattle where the cow dung is seen on the roads but in sheer numbers the dog shit is the more aggravating. The cattle on the roads is more of a traffic bother particularly in the nights with buffalos not able to be seen on our dimly lit roads and many an accident occurring because of this. Coming back to the Swaccha Bharat Abhiyan, the first thing is to decide on a policy level for the whole country on what to do with garbage since that is the burning question today in all living settlements be it from village to the metropolis level. In the absence of this we find the garbage piling up near roadsides or in open areas creating nuisance, stink and a health hazard for people across the country. This pile of garbage is where the stray animals be it dogs or cattle feed upon. The stray dogs thrive on this food and multiply. With their numbers swelling, you have them urinating and shitting on the roads generating the stench and the nuisance. With garbage minimised on the roads the dog numbers will fall and consequently the mess they create. Dogs maybe a common problem across the country but in specific places you may have other stray animals that contribute to similar nuisance like donkeys or mules or camels etc. Dogs also have to be taken off the roads for some more reasons like rabies arising from dog bites and because of the people attacks they resort to particularly against small children and aged persons which has resulted in a number of fatalities across the country. Thus if the Swaccha Bharat Abhiyan program has to become successful then get rid of stray animals like dogs off our roads and open spaces.
Web Check-in & Other Travails With Airlines These Days
Web check-in at a price as announced by Indigo has created a furore among airline travellers on social media. But hidden away is the plight of our esteemed musicians who more often than not face damage to their valued instruments while travelling by air both on domestic as well as international flights. The musical instruments even after being marked as fragile and the airline staff told to handle it with care are carried with no responsibility by the airline. When queried about this the musicians are told that they can carry the instruments at a charge which does not guarantee no damage but only to create 'more space' for the instrument in the cargo hold. Thus you will see the airlines go all out to exploit the plight of the travellers in any which way to make money. Thus airline travel nowadays has become ridden with tension even when it is not the holiday season or subject to the vagaries of the weather as in the cusp of the New Year as a consequence of fog at Delhi. Airlines mostly the private ones forget that the reliability of flying from point A to point B is important on an announced schedule. Cancellations of flights nowadays are rampant and more so on the non- trunk sectors. The emphasis of the airlines is to make money as much as possible on one pretext or other. Earlier it was the flexi-pricing on which basis the airlines would charge exorbitantly and take advantage of even natural calamities to make money. Nowadays this has somewhat levelled off after a certain amount of government intervention to cap the fares. Now the airlines focus is on other services. It could be food or beverages or choice of seats or excess baggage or web check-in. There is no end to the excuses that are given to make money off the hapless passenger. Take the case of baggage limits one cannot understand why it was reduced from 20kg. to 15 kg. except for the fact that it is to increase revenue. For business travellers this limit is irrelevant but for vacation travellers the 15kg. limit is a pain and more often than not is exceeded. The old Boeing 737 the workhorse of the past would carry about 120 passengers and today the A320 also seats the same number so it is not understood why the baggage limit is reduced from 20kg. The only explanation is that the flights are carrying more cargo at the cost of passenger amenities to drive up revenues. The other day we were flying from Kolkata to Goa via Surat by SpiceJet. The flight was delayed departure by about 3 hours from Kolkata making certain that we would miss our Surat to Goa connection. For this change we got a bland and innocent message from the airline saying that we had been booked by the next day's flight from Surat to Goa. Upon asking the airline counter whether they would give us a hotel at Surat for the night which was the custom earlier since the change was because of the airline, we were told that they would check by email, the slowest of today's communication options. For about an hour there was no response to the email as told us by the airline staff. Actually we were not sure whether the email was at all sent. However, finally we asked SpiceJet to cancel our tickets which they did and gave us a full refund. Thank God for that grace! We had to then book Indigo via Hyderabad to Goa and reached home around 12 hours from the time we left Kolkata! For re-booking by Indigo for the same day flight where we had to obviously pay more nobody compensated us like SpiceJet which should have re-routed us on either their flight or through another airline at their cost. Unfortunately this does not happen in India and the airlines exploit the anxiety of the traveller to reach his destination at the earliest. When we returned to Goa, the next day we had someone we know flying to Chandigarh by SpiceJet and the airline cancelled the flight telling them they had been booked the next day! So lessons from this experience:
1. Never fly SpiceJet. They always cancel at the last minute.
2. Do not book via Tier II destinations like Surat since airlines are likely to cancel if they do not have sufficient load factor. Always route via trunk destinations.
These are the travails an air traveller faces these days.
1. Never fly SpiceJet. They always cancel at the last minute.
2. Do not book via Tier II destinations like Surat since airlines are likely to cancel if they do not have sufficient load factor. Always route via trunk destinations.
These are the travails an air traveller faces these days.
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