Mobile Mania

I watched with interest, the recent IPL series. However, more distracting than constant replays and zoozoo endorsements were those intermittent SMS vote requests that kept popping up on the screen. In India cool ringtones and text messaging seems to be the ‘in’ thing- from the jingle of the Vedic prayer to a Thought for the Day and what the Stars Fortell for you this week.
Cell phones have taken over the way we think or act. A US survey revealed that Americans as of today would gladly give up their TV sets or telephones in exchange for that precious gadget. Most of the respondents apparently used their mobiles for text messaging, followed by those who took pictures at the slightest provocation or recorded scenes randomly. Other participants said they browsed the internet or looked up directions. The survey failed to mention how many of these people actually used the device for making calls!
Today, cellphones have morphed from brick sized gadgets of the 1980s to captivatingly svelte beauties. There are too many things that these gizmos let you do these days – organise your life, take pictures, play music, watch TV, offer games, check the stock market, turn into flashlights, create your presentation and even wake you up without that cup of coffee!
These ‘Weapons of mass Destruction’ are like psychological props – like pets, these make their owners feel truly wanted. I see people walking around like mindless zombies everywhere from airports to malls, holding the thing close to their ears, whispering empty nothings. If their fingers are itching for something to do, they pick up their cell phones and caress them, much like a baby seeking out its soggy thumb.
Pressing buttons randomly they check their e-mail, invoke the weather man or text someone just for fun. The way these things are shaping to be our lifelong companions, one day flip phones may also double up as stress busters, nutcrackers or even aids for a holistic massage. These gadgets have other real uses today. For instance it is common practice to call and bore someone when they are stuck in traffic. There are also subscriptions that let you schedule interruptions in the middle of a meeting. It could be your cousin in ‘dire need’, if you wish to be excused immediately. I hear my cell phone ringing- Sorry, need to take this call…
Kritika Malhotra

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"Annapurna": The Grain Vending Machine

Be it ATM machines, mobile phones, digital cameras, wrist watches or any of the latest launched gadgets. All these technologies have made life easier, mostly, for people who belong to the middle, upper-middle and elite class i.e., the class which has a purchasing power of some degree. Naturally, people who are deprived from even the basic necessities of life, have not benefited from the technological advancements that we have been making. But soon a technology is about to be introduced which is for the people below poverty line (BPL) and the other ration card-holders.
The machine, ‘Annapurna’, was unveiled by Chief Minister of Delhi Sheila Dikshit. A team of Delhi Technological University (DTU), formerly called Delhi College of Engineering (DCE), headed by Dr. Visuals Verma, Assistant Professor, Electrical Engineering in close association with Designinnova has designed automated vending machines to be placed at public distribution system (PDS) outlets.
Once machines are installed at ration shops, the ration card-holders will simply have to ask the shopkeeper the amount of ration they need. And shopkeeper’s task will be confined to just press the button and grain will automatically come out of the machine. The machine has been made on the model on ATMs machines.
The technology will help combating the high level of corruption and exploitation prevalent in the PDS system. It will also help overcoming the chances of weight tampering which has kept diluted the whole purpose of PDS.
In the later stage, instead of ration cards, smart cards will be issued with which card holders could themselves swipe the card and get the amount of food-grain they need. This technology will also lessen the role of the shopkeeper to very extent.
The dispensing machine requires only 15-18 watts of power supply. It can even be powered by a solar panel and has little or no maintenance requirement. The accuracy of measurement of this machine can differ up to +/- 1 gm.
The Delhi government hopes that this will drive away the adulteration of grains with stones and tampering of the weighing machine. The implementation of this project is soon going to be a boon for the poor man’s belly.
Kusum Kanojia

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Jan Lokpal Movement:: The Poster Boy of Middle Class India

In a country as diverse as India, with a political class that has till date deftly managed to evade any accountability whatsoever, the middle class has borne the major brunt of all its failings. The rich have been able to bulldoze their way by dint of their wealth, flouting it to negotiate any hurdle on their way to more riches.
The poor have always had to grapple with something more basic than corruption. Corruption begins to affect one when the basics are in place – food, clothing, shelter and water in Maslow’s hierarchy. The shrewd political class realizing this, has successfully orchestrated a subsidy culture to give illusory and momentary happiness to the poor. By playing on their emotions and sentiments, they have also nurtured vote-bank politics, thereby bidding accountability goodbye.
Alas, now the real backbone behind India’s growth stories – the IT engineers, the bio-technologists, the research scholars and the parents who toil hard to make sure that their sons and daughters make it to the IITs and the IIMs – they have woken up and are demanding accountability. The real taxpayer is finally standing up! This would not have been possible without an able leadership – people who stands for middle class values – in Anna Hazare and his team.
Let us look at what is now core team Anna –
Arvind Kejriwal – Business today calls him a clean-up crusader and fittingly so! His life, his brainchild – Parivartan – the locality he lives in, exemplify a middle class upbringing, values and lifestyle. With an IIT background and a Raman Magsaysay award against his name, his experiments with grassroot level local governance models gives him a lot of credibility among the middle class.
Kiran Bedi – “Kiran’s father, a talented tennis player, and her mother, a brilliant student wthose schooling had been curtailed by early marriage, were determined that their daughters would have every opportunity to achieve their own life goals. One inspired her and her sisters to be tennis champions and, more importantly, to be people who had dreams and sought to achieve them. The other ensured that they would be healthy and fit to achieve those dreams.” – led a life that is inspirational to this day for all middle class Indians, one in which she grabbed every opportunity to become the person she is now.
Prashant Bhushan – “On the rights of minorities and the dispossessed, on judicial accountability, on civil freedoms, on environmental concerns, he has prised open new spaces where earlier there was only opacity. He has helped keep democratic institutions responsive.” – through his impeccable conduct in public life has endeared himself to the middle class by standing for what they hold dear, ethical conduct.
The middle class see themselves in these fellow citizens and are no doubt drawn into the movement in large numbers because of this fact. Anna Hazare is that figure, the middle class would love as a leader. By donning the Gandhian cap, what Anna has made possible in today’s age and pace is that, practices that are deemed impractical and ineffective – peaceful protest, fasting – can actually yield results. These practices, curiously, are not ones in which action is immediately tangible.
Paradoxically, in making the youth rally behind these, what Anna and team have demonstrated is the resilience of Gandhian methods.
Democracy – really?
As Santosh Desai points out in his book, Mother Pious lady (replete with insightful analysis on every attribute of India’s middle class) – “It can be successfully argued that India is an election-o-cracy more than it is a democracy, in that the primary quest of the democratic process is to allocate power. The exercise of that power, once gained, is subject to much looser standards of performance. The key idea of elections in India revolves around power and not mandate, patronage not policy.”
He actually asks the question: “Instead of seeing ourselves as a democracy, what if we really are a distorted form of elective and distributive monarchy?” When self anointed intellectuals talk of Indian democracy and constitutional methods, they should perhaps reflect a bit more on these.
Given that we are not really a democracy in the true sense of the term and that the middle class has been ignored by the political class, the facts that have come together in staggering numbers to rally behind a cause that matters most to them, is something that should be taken notice of.
Whether all the clauses of the civil society’s Jan Lok Pal get accepted or not, what the movement has very successfully done is unite the middle class of India across caste, community and regional identities. The weight of their numbers has for once been made obvious to the political fraternity.
As the middle class gains more and more clout thanks to the opportunities that are expanding, in a globalized world, they will continue to draw inspiration from other movements and revolutions world over. A political change that is radical can only be brought about by a revolution at the grassroots level. Be it the one that swept the streets of Cairo not long back or the one that is sweeping the small towns of India currently, both share a common thread – the people who ignited them are serious about it and will keep at it until they see their wants realized. If the political class cannot read the signs staring at their face, no amount of sloganeering can save them when they stand at the altar!
Sivaraman Natrajan

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