Universal Service Obligation

Before I go any further, let me warn the reader that the title is a technical term used for the obligation in India of the telecom license holders to provide services in the rural areas. I would also like to clarify, if it is not yet clear to anyone who has read my blog entries, that I like to write on things I know nothing about [sometimes in business this habit is petulantly termed as lateral thinking and sometimes it is called thinking out of the box].
So here I am writing about the Universal Service Obligation of Indian Telcos and I begin my story with not mobile phones but with electricity. In the 1960s, the government of many states had this crusaders' mentality [like they have now for telecom]. It was thought and genuinely believed in policy circles that electricity could change people's live.. some even believed that electricity in villages could actually cut down on the birth rate [I am sure u can figure out how and why. I will give u a hint, in my high school economics book one of the reasons given for high birth rates in rural India was supposed to be "lack of entertainment" in rural India!].
Be that as it may, the various state governments started pushing for ambitious electrification programmes. In Bihar this is how it happened: in the '60 wooden electric poles were erected, in the 70s these poles were completed eroded by the rains and were replaced by concrete poles, in the '80s poles had wires which were not live, in the '90s poles became live... but the last mile [that is connecinting homes with live electricity] was still not complete. That was the time I left Bihar for greener pastures and have not returned.
The fun on the entire process was that no one lost out. How? the electricity boards got huge money for ambitious plans, poles wallas got their money, the wire wallas made their money and the villagers did not have to adopt to something they were not sure about as yet. So the story ended in a happy note.
Somewhat similar is the story of the Universal Service Obligation Fund for telcos. This is how it works at present [ I may be wrong since as I said I write about things I do not know about]: the government [which is now very keen to earn money from anyone who makes money] takes 6 per cent of all revenues of telcos, puts it in the consolidated fund of India and promises that any telco which will wire up rural India, will be subsidised from this fund.
Do you see the uncanny similarity between the old electricity story and the new telcom story? How do you think this is going to end? As they say, more things change more they remain the same! I can clearly see that the telcos will start building towers, the wirewallas will supply the wires, the switch wallas will supply the switches and [god forbid] the rural folks will be saved from the mobile phones. So evey one will be a winner just as in the case of electricity.
What is the way forward? I think it's easy..... and the best way forward is to make a lose lose situation for everyone. But How? Simple, dont start from the telcos... start from the consumers and reverse the the flow of subsidies. Here is how the flow chart would look:
1. Pay Rs 1,000 to anyone in the rural areas to buy a handphone [one per family only]
2. Handset manufacturers will start making handsets for 800 Rs and set up shops in rural areas
3. Tower companies will start setting up the towers since people are waiting with handsets
4. Wire companies will quickly wire up the towers [or is it wireless?]
5. Telcos will very soon charge up the wireless, they will know how many consumers are waiting at the other end.
It will be a lose lose situation for all: the rural consumer will be burdened with a mobile phone, and all others will have to invest out their own pockets to build a rural business and the government will be hauled up by the election commission. And the process will be complicated... but then if you have decided to give away free money why not make the dsitribution process as complicated as possible?
Jai Hind

Diamonds for Economically Challenged, Anyone?

Ratan N Tata and his team have finally launched the Tata Nano Car. The ultimate in the world in "poor person's car". I am told that a lot of work and moolah have gone into the making of this poor person's vehicle - original reserach and development, design, engine etc etc. You name it and the car has it. The only thing retained from the heretofore known design of the cars is that the steering is still on one side [right side in this case]. I have always wondered why car steerings are on one side and not in the middle. Cars evolved from horse carriages where the coachman sat in the middle hence it would have been natural for cars to have steering wheels in the middle. That way u could also have two passenger seats in front. Perhaps someone making cars for persons who cannot even afford Nanos will make a car with the steering wheel in the middle.... someday.
But, as usual I digress. The whole point is, here is a great man from a developing country who thought of the have nots and put his resources behind making a car that is affordable by the poor. Just imagine if every industrialist and businessmen thought like him. The world would be a wonderful place to live in. So here are my suggestions to some of the biggies to make use of the recession and make pro poor products:
1. Shell, Chevron and others should start making a poor person's version of gasoline [to be used with Nano]
2. De Beers should start making poor person's diamond [we also have women to make happy, you know]
3. Boeing and Airbus should seriously start making planes for poor persons [some of us have got bored with cars anyways]
4. Central Banks should start printing poor person's money
World would be such a wonderful place to live in - there will be no class tension, no social tension, no neighbour's envy owner's pride syndrome.
Reminds me of a story I heard as a boy:
Rich Man to his new illiterate Driver: You know my only son is a IIT and IIM grad and works in Dubai
Driver: What's the big deal? My son also works in Dubai.
Thanks to Mr Tata the car industry has got Dubaied.. May his tribe increase.

Spread of Ideas

I heard this story many years back from my friend. His father, also my teacher much later than the incident described here, as a young member of the Communist Party in his younger days had participated in meeting to discuss the defeat of the Party in all seats in Punjab except one. I was told by my friend that in the meeting the young scholar had raised his hand and asked "would it not be better if, rather than dissecting the cause of defeat, we deliberate on how we won one seat and recreate those conditions elsewhere so that we could win more seats". He was hooted as a charlatan and soon after he ceased to be a member of the Party. I narrate this story as an entry to the somewhat scary story of the recent takeover of the Swat valley by the followers of Taliban and the stark fact that Amritsar is only 500 kilometres from Swat.
Apart from the obvious historical fallacy in the scaremongering [Amritsar has always been 500 kilometres from Swat and Swat has always been a land of warlords since as far as historical records go], it does give an opportunity to see how ideas spread or more importantly how the spread of ideas are restricted. Here are some examples to start a debate: Bihar is zero kilometres from West Bengal where CPM has been ruling for 28 years. The presence of a marxist party at its borders has made no impact to Bihar's own variety of politics. Ditto with Tamil Nadu and Kerala. North Korea and South Korea; China and Pakistan are other examples where the flow of ideas and therefore politics have refused to permeate each other's territories. It seems obvious to me that ideology does not spread by mere geographical proximity. Then how do ideas spread? I really don't know. Perhaps socio-economic situations help or perhaps political sponsorship does....
Be that as it may, I am not alarmed at what is happening at Swat for two reasons, a) what is happening at Swat has been happening there at least since the last 200 years or more [I think Birbal too got killed in one of Akbar's campaign in that region] without affecting any one outside that area; b) empirically, ideas do not spread by just being in the neighbourhood. So let us not rush to contain the spread of ideas by half cooked methods, that could prove to be the most effective way to bring home the idea. As the Bengali proverb goes "Dont dig a canal to bring the crocodile home".

Pubs and Women

With the tragedy of the pub issue in Bangalore quickly turning into a farce with a) presentation of pink chuddy b) case against minister and c) defamation suit against chaddi party, I thought it would be appropriate to share my perspective on pubs and women and make enemies of two things I love most Women and Indian Culture.
But first a clarification: a) Pub here is stricly a pub short for a public house. Not a lounge bar we know why people go there, certainly not to drink; NOR a restaurant which also serve booze; we also know why people go there and certainly not to drink. A public house is a place orginally in UK where the public went to drink [sofas and food were incidental]. These were known as bars in the US [given the wild nature of the locals, bars had to be put at the serving counters, much like what we had in Delhi till recently].
Now the big question" "Should women go to pubs?" [strictly as defined above] and the answer is NO. especially in India. For the following reasons [mainly]
1. Women usually do not drink more than a pint or two
2. Pub is not the best place to have fruit jiuce and blue curacao and various ohter virgin drinks.
3. Even when drunk women do not usually make a fool of themselves by shouting, abusing and quarrelling.
4. They listen and note conversation to be used later rather than particiapte in it. Believe me in real pub there are no listeners only talkers except the barman.
5. They do not puke in the loo, force and abuse others to let them drive after drinking and do not indulge in any other activities that are usually called post pub syndromes.
6. Finally, in male company they never pay [resonably so since they do not drink, or do not drink so much not do they participate except as passive agents]
So what is the point in going to a pub? More relevantly what is the point in taking women to a pub [as defined above]
Disclaimer: This is not an open invitation to persons of either sex to join me at the nearest bar in my next visit.