Corruption Corruption everywhere !!!

this blog may be a little late in the day. But havent had the motivation write on something for months ( or is it years;) now. But finally have got over my bumpiness and laziness.And yeah have been thinking abt the noise and high( or it is super high decibel) campaign against corruption that the indian civil society( the new name of the middle class intelligensia)is waging.

As I was thinking about it, i starting with the most basic question ? What is the root cause of all this corruption ? It is not that corruption is unique to India. It is exists in every part of the world and at almost every level. Politicians, bureaucrats, government officials and even private sector employees ( vendor gifts and holidays anyone) in every nook and corner of world indulge in the act of corruption. So what is the root cause of it ?

Well i think there multiple reasons why people are corrupt and support corruption. here are some the possible reasons.

1. GREED GREED GREED !!! : I think this one word signifies a lot. And it leads the various other reasons . How else would one explain the fact that someone like Kanimozhi (who probably wud have inherited crores from M Karunanidhi as a legal heir) is accepting favors from the likes of Unitech and DB realty. The fact remains that the human being is always greedy and is never satisfied with what he already has. That is where the problem starts.the more you get, the more you want !!.

2. Compare and Perish !!! : Consider 2 guys who are best of pals from college, have very similar backgrounds, got similar scores in academics but as luck would have it, one of them got into a government job and other into private sector.As most of us know and would agree, the rewards if you do your job well is much higher in the private sector than in Government and so the government job guy starts feeling left out in the race when compared to his dear pal over years. So what does he do ? Start looking at other options to earn money and that is when he thinks of under-table earnings etc ( it is afterall easy money rather than quitting a cozy government job and trying his rusted skills in private sector. So the point here is dont compare your wealth and success with someone else. You don't know the efforts and sacrifices it took for that success.

Mind you, both of these above root causes have a positive shade to them. And a little greed and comparison is not necessarily bad because it can induce a healthy competition and get you thinking.Especially with the comparison thingy. The key word here is healthy and the line between healthy and unhealthy is rather thin. And that is where the value systems each of us builds becomes very important. Part of what the value system should teach everyone of us to where to draw this very important line.

So the fight against corruption which the Indian civil society is waging really has its roots in the value systems. We may fight to get our black money and get it back now. But there will be another generation of corrupt guys who will learn how to circumvent lokpal or any other bill and continue the corrupt acts.

Can we create a system where by the next generations of leaders have the right values ? Is there a value system test which we can ask the future leaders to take before the can fight elections ? (simply because politicians and law makers are considered the most corrupt and also can be most influential in stemming corruption because of the power they wield) Points to ponder and innovate on !!! .

India and the Digital "divide"

Hmm trying to blog on something after a really long time. Work has kept me very busy off late and this blog is well... about my recent work experiences. My current job profile is taking me places ( literally tat is :) ) .. exposing me to the digital divide which exists in this country. Well I am not talking of the usual rural-urban divide which the media often highlights and says that IT in rural india will solve all the problems but a divide of a different kind. Read on ......

Picture this .. you are to visit the IT head office of one of the largest PSU banks in the country for a meeting.(The head office is located in the heart of the "cyber" city of India).Like a good IT guy who is meeting the client, you email the entire meeting agenda and other documents relevant to the meeting...hoping that the IT head reads the whole thing and is aware of the meeting agenda.
Circa the day of the meeting .. I am at office and wat do I see ? The client contact has 3 copies of the documents/agenda nicely binded in the XXX bank folders.. whats more every single email yours which you have sent during the course of this project is nicely printed and labeled/filed in a cabinet next to the manager.. I look at the "paperless office" poster hang over the manager's head ....ahem . ahem ..

The next meeting also in the hitech cyber city ... but this time in the ghettos of government offices. I am entering one of the first "IT enabled" departments of the state Government for a meeting...and I am meeting the IT director.. As is usual in the babudom, the person I am supposed to meet is yet to come to the office for the day ( it is 11:15 am already .. the meeting was supposedly held at 11 am) ..
so I wait in the "cabin" of the director .. the assistant IT director's seat is next to the directors.He is scribbling something in a big register looking extremely busy but every 2 mins he switches on the monitor of a swanky dell desktop and checks on something for a few seconds and then goes back to the register. The routine goes on for a few minutes and then he checks the monitor again and says " Chey.. Sachin out .. India batting waste !!" .Voila it turns out that he checking the desktop only for cricket match score ....otherwise his "normal" work is to do fill in the daily transactions in a ledger which in turn will be entered into the system by a "computer operator" .
I want beat my chest like Saif did in Dil Chahta hai ………. So such goes the digital divide in the country … more the rural-urban divide later …….. yes. my work takes me to the heart of India .. the villages ………