For the cause of "poor" bribe taker

All of us criticize the "bribe taker". Let it be the local traffic constable, or any government servant in any government organization. But we never look at what causes them to take bribe. ( I am only trying to justify the position of low level bribe takers in a government organization, many of whom I have come across being "forced bribe takers"). Bribes in lower level of bureaucracy can be best explained by the trickle down effect of corruption!!!

In one of my previous blogs, I had mentioned about the apathy of a traffic police constable and the terrible life he is being forced to live in. In this post, I am trying to extrapolate and generalize this concept, i.e. the plight of any ordinary government employee who earns an average of less then 30,000rs/month.

At this age, cost of everything right from education, to daily rations, travel etc have become so high that the lower class and middle class have found it virtually impossible to bridge the gap between expenditure and income. India has become a living model of how the government policies can be designed in such a way that rich get rich and poor get poorer.

Coming back to the core point of this blog, why does some officer take bribe? Simple, because he has to take it. He cant get decent food, he cant get his kids educated in good schools or colleges and ya he cant provide his family a decent place to live in. In order to bridge this gap between expenditure and income he is forced to take a bribe.

I will like to give the example of a real life incident (that does not involve a government employee). Once I had taken an auto-rickshaw from Chennai CMBT (main bus stand) to my home in chrompet (roughly 20KMs away from CMBT). Over the coarse of journey I had a chat with the auto-driver about how life is getting tough for normal middle class people and what the government did (or does) for making the condition better. He begin telling me about his personal life experiences and how he is fighting to get his three kids educated so that atleast they can have a better life then his. He was forced to give "capitation fees" to get his kids admitted in private schools. Just hearing at his plight made me realize how much of a comfortable life I am living in.
Though this auto-driver (or any auto driver) charged me extra for the ride. This is an indirect form of bribe. But again he is forced to charge me extra. If he had some help from the government, he would have charged me right!

Imagine a situation when cost of petrol is as low as 10rs per liter!!! Ya, it can be a possible if the government brings back all the black money!!, and it makes better use of the gas in KG basin(There is a separate scam involving KG basin and Ambanis, which is set to explode in the next few days). They would be able to provide enough subsidy to the poor people (like the auto-rickshaw driver). Petrol cost is one thing that affects the life of majority of the people in this country. Right from the vegetable vendor, autoricksaw guys to any ordinary citizen of this country.

Why cant the government bring in effective policies to control effective distribution of PDS of foodgrains? Why is the opposition silent on it? The answer is straight forward. All the political parties and its members get their monthly money (read it as 'salary') from this theft!! Why cant the government do something about it? If we had effective PDS, the bribe taker need not take bribe. They need not go to the local ration shop to buy foodgrains at highly inflated rates.

The bribe taker at the lower level is taking money which indirectly reaches the people in the higher level of bureaucracy! And therefore rich get richer and poor get poorer.

The power or social media

The various social media sites have had a tremendous impact on how news reaches the people in this world. Even till a decade back, a government would survive even if there was a massive disconnect between what he promises and what he delivers. But now there is a vehicle to connect information and people. In recent months we have seen protesters take on the government by organized street rallies, sign online petitions and reach out to more people. Social media sites like twitter and facebook has made information reach people faster and more accurately.

Social media as such by its design promotes democracy! It presents the government and its leaders with challenges, challenges where they have to constantly live upto their promise! There are a couple of instances where I have seen people, ya, ordinary people take up social media to reach out to the needy.

During the recent mumbai blasts (13/7), large number of people not only offered others a free ride home but also provided them with accommodation for the night stay! people used #google docs, #twitter and #facebook to reach out the needy. Injured people who needed blood were able to connect to possible donors and when the phone lines were dead, people used twitter to communicate their safety to their relatives.

The present uprising of the people of India against corruption and the inefficiency of the government in tackling corruption has also been vastly helped by social media sites. People were able to communicate about fasting sites to large number of people. My own parents took part in a candle light march in marina beach after coming to know about it via a twitter! such has been the reach...

Even in corporate level, social media sites have come to their rescue during difficult times. Most of us would have seen the youtube video showing two disgruntled employees contaminating the food they were about to deliver..it become a rage then..It was a nightmarish week for the company. dominos fired back via youtube and twitter...they uploaded their own video what they were doing to fix the situation..this way they could connect directly to their customers..dominos were able to come out unscathed from this potentially catastrophic event..such is the power of social media..

FDI, an intro

I have been reading quite a about stocks, FDI etc in the last month.
Here is a small intro on Foreign Direct Investment(FDI).

The world has come of age after globalization. People with money are exploring new coutries with large market and exploitable workforce.
In todays world, FDI is very essential for the growth of the economy. Coutries like India, China etc are competing with each other for FDIs. Infact many policies are framed by developing coutries to attract more FDI

Definition
To put it crudely, FDI is the investment made in businesses outside the investors economy. A parent foreign enterprise teams up with a foreign affliate, which together form a multinational cooperation. FDI is permitted through joint ventures, technical collaborations etc. For example, Bharthi (ya, the airtel company) and Wal mart have teamup to form Bharti Walmart Pvt. Ltd. and have already opened up stores across india.
The advantage with FDI is that it is non-debt creating and non-volatile. The returns depend on the performance of the projects.
FDI is not allowed in all sectors. Generally most countries wouldn't prefer to have FDI for Arms, Nuclear energy and other sensitive sectors.