A Shout For Change
Country Affairs
GHMC redefines “Rectified” Part II. Fixes after RTI.
Jun 29th
Update2: GHMC fixes it. See last image in this post.
Update: Filed an RTI as of today – 15th July 2010 regarding this.
This should get you rolling on the floor, laughing. GHMC recently replaced seriously dysfunctional traffic lights at the Jubilee Check post. However, one of the lights was installed in a way that it was blocked by Hyderabad Traffic Police’s own stand. See pic:
On 4th June, I filed a complaint asking them to take care of it. A few days later, it read “Rectified” and when I checked it, I was shocked to see nothing had changed.
The best part comes when I looked at the signal yesterday and noticed this :
Some genius actually let an advertiser put up a banner exactly in front of the traffic light, completely blocking the light now.
As a follow up to the great ‘job’ done by GHMC, I have filed another complaint just today, and if no one decides to respond, or if some great GHMC worker again “fixes” it, I’ll have to use my secret weapon (Right to Information) to get the job done.
It’s funny how Indians have to get government workers to do the work they are paid for.
Update2: After filing the RTI, GHMC fixes it:
RTI works!
GHMC re-defines “Rectified”
Jun 23rd
A few weeks ago, I had filed a complaint regarding a semi-functioning traffic light at the Madhapur Police Station. The issue was that the traffic light would display Red and Yellow perfectly but would not display Green at all – neither the traffic signal at the crossing, nor the one at the farther end. See pictures:
After waiting for more than a couple of weeks for GHMC to fix it, I finally lodged a complaint on the GHMC website : Grievance : http://www.ghmc.gov.in/ghmcparishkruthi/grievance_historypublic.asp?reg_no=10ENG1612
I checked on that about 3-4 days later and saw the comments from EE Electrical – Rectified. So, while returning home I noticed the work done and saw this:
Notice that only the signal across the intersection is now working. The signal at the intersection still doesn’t display Green. GHMC is either conserving money or somebody is filling his pocket by doing half-hearted repairs.
There should be more citizens filing complaints, or the government is going to stay in slumber forever.
Hyderabad’s new Bus ‘Bays’
Jun 4th
A new initiative by GHMC – Bus Bays- to keep buses out of the middle of the road. This initiative is really appreciated and definitely makes sense. However, the way it was entirely executed leaves a lot to be desired in terms of long-term feasibility and safety. Take a look:
^^ A neat way to separate bus from the rest of the traffic.
But one look at the iron barriers and you know the rest of the story. There are no radium markings or warnings to caution drivers of these. Initial days saw several of these being hit by vehicles and the barriers were lying flat on the road posing another danger. I personally lifted all 3 of them at one location into upright position. They are also movable making their position totally unpredictable (mischief).
(Note the protruding man-holes just after the barrier. Been there for ages without repair.)
The barrier is just metal in the middle of the road and can be fatal to a motorist especially in the dark. The paint used on the road is primitive paint and will certainly wash off with little rain. Mechanical markers (ex Cat’s eye) combined with non-mechanical (thermo-plastic) road markers are needed for safety(technical info from Wiki-Pedia).
When good quality non-mechanical markers was used on SP Road flyovers, the number of people crossing to the other side of the road was highly reduced. I’m of the opinion that properly marked bus bays and some driver-education will do better than using physical barriers.
Squeezing every Watt from your electricity bill.
Mar 1st
Summer is fast approaching, and we are all gearing up for power cuts for multiple hours. This is exactly when we also start running fans at full speed, water coolers, and air conditioners for several hours a day. While you get ready for huge electricity bills, here’s what you can do to reduce that pain on the wallet:
1. Stop using your water heater. Have a bath in the evening when water is at its highest temperature due to the afternoon sun. Let me assure you, you won’t notice a difference in body freshness the next day.
2. Insulate windows and doors, especially those facing the sun, and if possible add glass glazing. Glass glazing lets light in, while putting the heat out. An alternative is to add window tints, those that reflect sun away.
God didn’t create the Sun for nothing. Use the sun’s light to the maximum extent possible but make sure to keep the heat out. When building a house design it keeping in view to maximise daylight.
3. Add heavy drapes or curtains of a light color to prevent any sunlight in during the day.
4. Close all doors and windows when the sun rises. Open up all possible doors and windows after the sun sets to let the air in the house cool down.
5. Lighting: Replace all bulbs in the house with Compact Fluorescent lights. Modern CFLs also come in yellow so you don’t have to compromise on that. Install 5W CFLs in bathrooms, because, believe me, they are bright enough for the job. For night lamps, don’t make the mistake of buying the so called Zero Watt bulbs, as most often they draw around 10-15W. Get a 1W LED bulb available at many electrical stores nowadays. These are nearly as bright as their bulb counterparts at a fraction of the drawn power.
Your job is only half done. Make sure you switch off any and every light when not using that room. Contrary to what rumors say, modern CFLs don’t lose their life with regular on/off cycles.
Turn off unnecessary lights. Avoid lighting the entire room and more for simple tasks. Do you need three 25W CFLs to watch TV? Use targeted lighting when working at a desk or on a kitchen platform or for a sink/basin. LED based target lights are very popular and save big on electricity and pay for themselves very quickly. Get a USB LED light for your laptop and avoid lighting up the entire room when working on your laptop.
6. Traditional PCs consume 200W – 300W during regular use along with a monitor. Laptops consume around 35-50W for the same processing power, and are also mobile. Get a second hand laptop if a new one seems expensive. For those that don’t require extensive processing power, an option is to go for Net-Tops that are stingy on electricity use.
If buying something is not an option for you, make sure you apply aggressive power settings on your PC like switching off the monitor when idle, powering down hard disks and switching into standby mode after a set time. Reduce the brightness on your CRT monitor to decrease power drawn. Switch off monitor when not at your desk. Shutdown the PC when not using it. Standby mode also keeps drawing some power from the outlet.
7. Completely switch off all devices like your TV, Set-top box, DVD Player, Music systems, microwaves, airconditioners, cellphone chargers, etc when not in use. Turning them off, and leaving them in Standby Mode without flipping the switch will continue to drain power and burn a hole in your pocket. Standby losses of one device can be as much as 10-15W (according to WikiPedia), and sometimes more. Beware.
8. In the summer, if only using a fan, do not start it with a full blast. Instead, start from the least speed setting and slowly increase it to a comfortable setting. If using an evaporative cooler, get a modern energy-efficient branded appliance as these are optimized for effective utilization of both electricity and water. Non-branded coolers tend to draw very high electricity, thus reducing the cost benefit over an air conditioner.
If using an air conditioner, make sure to follow points 2,3 & 4. It helps to cool down the house by opening doors and windows before switching on the air-con so there is lesser hot air for the air-con to cool, thus reducing load and the electricity consumption. Most Indians are used to heat and hot summers, then why freeze yourself at 22′C ? Instead, take off your rugs and increase the temperature to 26′ or 27′C and use the ceiling fan or a targeted table fan to remove hot air pockets around you. Remember, you only want to keep your body cool but you are cooling the entire room, furniture and appliances for this purpose. Air conditioning is the most inefficient way to keep cool. Just remind yourself that your ancestors lived without it for centuries, and didn’t go extinct.
9. Avoid stuffing your refrigerator with items that don’t need refrigeration. Some of us throw in everything at a refrigerator, ranging from ketchup, flours, dry masalas and powders. Don’t store half of your kitchen in the fridge. An over stuffed fridge runs at reduced efficiency.
Get the right sized refrigerator. Remember, a frost-free fridge needs more electricity to keep the freezer frost-free. Avoid repetitive opening of the fridge door. Avoid opening the door and then wondering what to take out. Use a clay-pot to cool your water and reduce that extra bit of load on the compressor. Water from clay pots are reportedly tastier. New clay-pots also come with a fitted tap to improve hygiene.
9. Buy energy efficient devices. The Indian government has come up with the BEE ratings that define the energy consumption of that particular appliance using a 5-star system. It is mandatory for several appliances to carry the rating. Energy-efficient devices may be expensive, but pay for themselves in the long run in electricity savings.
10. LCD monitors typically consume 1/5th of a comparable CRT monitor and newer devices also feature better viewing angles.
Get a steam iron instead of a regular iron so you achieve a similar ironing experience using lesser heat.
Use exhaust fans and chimneys to keep kitchen and bathroom heat off the house.
Energy efficiency shoots two birds in one shot. You not only pay lesser, every unit of electricity you save helps light another home somewhere else in the country. Report electricity thefts to your nearest electricity distributor, and spread the message of power saving to your friends. As proof, throw them a party using some of the energy savings. 
Why a separate state?
Dec 10th
If you’re an Indian I’m sure you have been reading and seeing what’s happening around the country, specifically, a region called Telangana. K. Chandrasekhar Rao, TRS Chief, apparently went on a ‘fast’ unto (an illuding) death and his rowdy supporters disguised as OU students wreaked havoc across Hyderabad, breaking and damaging several public and private property – buses, cars, malls, not sparing hapless commuters getting a fill at a petrol bunk. For several days, the very powerful (not) Rosaiah, AP’s CM apparently seemed to have the situation under control, by arresting TRS members and other potential protestors in advance. However, nothing was done to stop the ridiculuous amount of damage being done by crazy agitators across Hyderabad. Finally, the army was called in, ready to get into action from the next day, when another weakling named P.Chidambaram and his co-weaklings – Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh, our PM, gave in to the demands of a separate state of Telangana on 9th December (09) night-fall.
So, there we have it. A separate state of Telangana in 11 days of indefinite fasting at the NIMS hospital! We all know how the mighty get away from arrests by staging heart attacks and such at NIMS, and I’m 200% sure this was no different a case. After the death of our ex-CM Y.S.Rajasekhar Reddy, time was ripe for KCR to raise this issue, since it was evident that K.Rosiah did not have what it took to be CM. Will power. With yesterday’s events however, the atmosphere in AP has gone haywire. Politicians opposed to the idea have been resignating left, right and center. TRS and his rowdy janta are having a gala time celebrating its ‘victory’ (and how they can start robbing this region’s coffers soon). On the online front, communities on websites like Orkut are seriously divided over this issue, with some shouting (not really) Jai Telangana! and some mourning the separation like losing a brother just because he spoke differently. Twitter has seen massive amount of responses in relation to this issue and there have been thousands of Tweets every hour. Many polls online, like those in the Orkut – Andhra Pradesh community show that the majority of citizens still prefer a united Andhra Pradesh. Some of us have also been signing a petition at- http://petol.org/1andhra for a Unified AP and has almost 22,000 votes as of the time of this writing.
This is not going to be the end of the pain and agitation, yet. The Congress government is infamous for making very slow decisions (as evident from their Common Minimum Plan, or their ridiculous budget in 2008) and any delay in regards to this issue will fuel and spark more agitations across the state. This separation is going to have a serious implication across AP and India. A domino effect is in waiting, wanting to make more bits of India. Now, politicians from the Rayalseema region demand a separate statehood for Greater Rayalseema, if Telangana becomes a reality. Hyderabadis demand a Union Territory status and do not want to be part of any state. It is a wise demand, as including Hyderabad into any of these new states will mean a resentment among citizens of other states, because Hyderabad is a very high-revenue generating city and having it as your state’s capital will mean lots of global attention to your state. However, if Hyderabad is not declared a UT, it would be wise to predict violent agitations and bloodshed over who gets to have the city, and will turn into a dog-fight over a bone. These apart, it is heard that Gorkhas in the state of West Bengal have taken a cue from TRS chief. KCR’s fast and 21 activists are planning to start an indefinite hunger strike for a separate Gorkhaland. What we’ll be seeing in the coming months will be an increase in agitations like these, and the dilution of the Indian state into infinite bits and pieces. Our Union minister of Home affairs, hon’able (not) P. Chidambaram has these words to say ‘The US has one-third of our population still it has 50 states.’ Incredible. I had respect for PC before this. India is one-third the size of the US and has 29 states and soon 30-31 states while the US has 48. His statistics, are also wrong, because US has a population of 304 million people as against 1.2billion people in India. With the passing of every year, the words of the British, in this case Winston Churchil’s seem to make sense : “Independence for India!! They cannot rule themselves, they are destined to be ruled”. Sad.