Digital Administration in India: Pockets of Great Stupidity and Pockets of Wisdom!

In this blog article, I would be highlighting a contemporary aspect of developing India in the field of digital administration.

India's leap into the field of digital work space was rather late. Yet, India is presently one of the largest supplier of digital workers in the world. The majority of young Indian work force gain their incomes from computer related works in one way or the other. The numbers of Indian engineering graduates directly engaged in computer software coding and programming either within the country or abroad are also very large now. 

But when it comes to core computer hardware technology, Indian contribution is pretty low. India keeps importing computer and communication hardware from abroad. Manufacturing of computers in India essentially means assembling of hardware components obtained from developed nations! India is yet to make her footprint as a technology developer! Indian space is not-yet-so-good for original technological ideas to take root and grow!  

Indian political administration being with all the vices of democracy had not been very supportive of using advanced technologies such as computers for the general purpose of the masses from the very beginning. India's political leadership started realizing the potential benefits of computerization and digital economy only from the 1990's after the foreign dollar paying companies from the USA began recruiting technically qualified Indians in large numbers for filling up the massive shortage of lower level digital work force to offset the so-called Y2K problem.

Indian Political Leaders!

The large demand for engineering graduates from India to do digital works of the computer enabled fields  gave rise to the large scale mushrooming of engineering colleges from a few scores to over 10000 and the growth of digital work contracting companies  in a matter of just over a decade, in India.

Perhaps one of the main reasons for the advancement of digital economy related growth within India was the poor knowledge of Indian bureaucrats and political bosses about the digital economy business! Their lack of knowledge in the initial years prevented them from interfering with the natural growth of digital economy in the country. Indian politicians and bureaucrats were good in extracting money from conventional businesses in liquor trade, road transport, real estate, etc with their typical road blocking administrative techniques, but were yet to understand the business processes of the digital world! 

Gradually the wings of the government machinery began to learn about computers and computer aided communication technologies and their potentials in money making.

So they stepped in to grab their share of the digital economy cake directly and indirectly causing huge interference in the smooth growth of demand based digital economy in India. 

Then followed the era of various scams in India- the telecom 2G scam and the scams related with education and the like arising out of the imposition of draconian administrative controls and involvement in the smooth growth of legitimate businesses.

All these money scandals or scams kept happening in India due to the gradual success that unscrupulous democratic leaders got in diluting the efficacy of the bureaucracy. The former did it by promoting bureaucrats and technocrats who were good sycophants rather than good in character and competence, to key positions in the government! 

In all these, we also see pockets of human stupidity concurrently moving along with human genius!

And my intention is only a mild effort to create a little bit awareness among those who care for reading this blog, about the likelihood of human follies and stupidities that go hand in hand with human achievements, wisdom and genius.

And that happens because, we humans are not a homogeneous group of individuals with equitable physical and mind capacities- we are with varying degrees of perfection or imperfection. 

We are with varying levels of wisdom and stupidity!

And hence we reflect great achievements and great stupidities at the same time and that situation has not changed so far. Perhaps we need to progress to many generations ahead to reduce the ratio of foolishness to wisdom in our individual and group activity matrix.

When we look to our world as a whole, we see the uneven distribution of human stupidity and wisdom and its effect reflecting marked uneven distribution of  human development indices.

Though late, the Indian government was realizing the potential of digital economy. Apparently, lack of technological knowledge among the policy makers and the bureaucracy also caused them making great follies while they began planning big to make use of the great potential of computers!  

Prioritization of digitization or use of computers for all possible human activity for taking advantage of the great potential of computers is indeed a wise administrative decision.

But implementing it unwisely would make a wise decision appear as foolish or stupid!

When things move as a mixture of wisdom and stupidity, clever fellows (intelligent people with no character) get success in reaping selfish gains for them abundantly, though for short duration!

The acts of stupidities coupled with the acts of characterless people  enhance human sufferings and the nation as a whole gets affected adversely. 

India is a typical example of that at present!

For example let us consider a scenario like this. Suppose a group of wise and intelligent governmental advisers who know much about computers and digitization, keep advising  the governmental decision makers about the need for fast implementation of digitization in the country for reaping its benefits, there is always a possibility of some stupid decision or law making when the decision makers are not with the level of knowledge in this field as their advisers. When there are stupid fellows in the governmental decision making system, unscrupulous, characterless but clever fellows within the system get good chances for making good fortunes for them as well.

When that happens, the nation will get  faultily  implemented digital infrastructure and digital governance!

In India, digital governance acts done by the government in a stupid haste with regard to money transactions, income tax return filing, goods and services tax administration, electronic voting etc are typical examples of stupidity arising out of pretty high levels of ignorance in the area of computerized  administration coupled with corruption in certain pockets.

No doubt, computerized administration can do wonders and the decision to adopt that policy is not any stupidity. Stupidity here is the level of misunderstanding or inferior awareness about the human effort, competency and time that are required for its successful implementation.

Is it not stupidity when the government desires that all its citizens who earn taxable incomes to pay taxes, keep accounts , file income tax returns and monitor their taxation interactions with the tax authorities only in a computerized manner. But this desire becomes absurd stupidity when the government declares it as implemented ignoring the ground realities, causing great hardships to the citizens and also causing great damages to the governmental systems as well. How can you declare a nation fully digital when the same nation has not achieved full basic literacy even?

Is it wise to assume that an illiterate person would not have income tax payable income? Is it wise to assume that all income tax payers find computers too convenient for all their tax payments, return filing and record keeping? If not, is it wise to have a tax payment system fully computerized?

When the individuals in the top decision making levels are themselves computer illiterates, there is all possibility that they leave everything to the hired system analysts and programmers for making the digital systems and processes as required for the digital administration. Faulty systems get introduced which need frequent changes. Frequent changes in an administrative system cause the people to lose confidence in the government! It is not a good thing for the nation.

The current problems related to e-governance of income tax, Goods and Serives Tax (GST) all reflect faulty implementation of digital governance.

Similar faults could be seen in the implementation of bio-metric citizen identity system called Aadhaar, e-voting, etc as being implemented by the governmental departments and organizations.

While some banks have implemented extremely reliable and good e-banking systems, some others, especially in the government sector are limping with faulty systems.

Some Indian private companies have very good e-management systems while several others are still with faulty systems.

All systems are as a result of peoples' effort, after all. When the individual capacities of the people with regard to knowledge and wisdom are widely varying from person to person, extreme care is needed to build organizations of people for  tapping the potential of the individuals for collective good.

That is where good leadership matters!

Fixed Doze Combination Drug Ban in India: An Unbiased Analysis!

In a surprise move on 10th March 2016, the central government of India has banned about 340 combinations of orally consumed drugs produced and marketed by modern pharma companies in India for various ailments such as cough, allergy, fever, cold, influenza, etc.(See this report) Many of these so called medicines have been in common use for quite some years and have been used by the common folks as over the counter (OTC) medicines without the prescriptions by any medical doctor.

The following gives the list of the banned  combinations- also called fixed dose combination (FDC) drugs - of medicines that are banned in accordance with the powers entrusted with the government under section 26A of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act 1940 and the Drug Rules 1945 of India:

 

  

  

I do not know whether this sudden action by the government is the right initiative or not. Apparently, the government has done this to safeguard the citizens health. However, all industry experts and users may not agree to this (Click here to read this!). I too am of the same opinion, as governmental decisions are mostly seen as governed by political or extraneous considerations and not always based on well informed and logical reasoning! (Also read my earlier blog on 'the politics and strategy of bans') 

The India government combination drug ban is estimated to cause the immediate disappearance of nearly 1500 popular prescription and over the counter English medicines from the medical shops across the length and breadth of India which is likely to cause much difficulties for the patients, doctors, the drug retail shops and the pharmaceutical companies. The problem would have been less severe, had the government did this in a planned manner with due diligence and planning!

The following are some of the very common medicine brands that would disappear:

Anti diabetic drugs : Tribet, Gemer P, Gluconorm, Triexer
Cough syrups : Phensedyl, Tossex, Ascoril, Zedex
Fever, cold, pain relief: Sumo, Vicks Action 500, Zerodol-P

There are hundreds of others for other kinds of ailments!

The governmental action is reportedly on the basis of several research studies which suggest possible adverse effects of using such fixed combinations of more than one drug. However, all these research findings are debatable issues as there are other research studies which support alternative views.

The authorities have been telling the pharma companies and the medical community not to use brand names while prescribing medicines. Instead, they were advised to use the original chemical name (generic name). However, the pharma companies and the medical doctors have just ignored these guidelines for quite some time now.

The pharma companies have been making huge profits from the medicine business. Most of the medicine suppliers are not original manufacturers of the basic drug. Many of them import or buy the basic medicine in bulk fro original drug producers from India or abroad and convert it into very small tablets, capsules, injectables, oral syrups, etc containing few milligrams of the original drug and market those in various kinds of fancy trade names. 

The sales representatives of these pharma companies, called the medical representatives, go to the hospitals and the medical doctors and educate them about the method of use of these so that the doctors remember these names to prescribe them to the needy patients. There exists an unholy nexus in this business and this is known to all concerned. The companies have devised their own systems wherein the prescribing doctors and the medical shops get good rewards when a particular brand of medicine gives good sales returns to the company.

There is nothing very surprising in this. Doctors, hospital managements, the medical shop owners and the pharma company people are all humans and they are all in this business for making some profits or earning a livelihood. 

But the markets operate in a competitive environment. The government allows so many drug makers to start business and operate. They simply cannot exist, unless they make profits. So they too are compelled to device marketing techniques of various kinds.

Fixed combination drugs are essentially a kind of marketing technique. In this method, more than one drug combination allow the pharma company to market a drug combination product under a brand name different from that of its competitors and reap better benefits and returns commensurate with its own marketing efforts.

While the law of the land has been in existence for decades, the drug enforcement authorities have never been publicly against any pharma company as the pharma companies know pretty well how to take care of the statutory authorities. It has been a win-win situation for every one. Even the poor patients too benefited to some extent as many had the choice of buying the medicines over the counter without actually being in the crowded lines in front of the hospitals and the medical doctors for small ailments like cough and cold that is so common. Their experience with the drugs have been better than many of the doctors!

And India is no USA, Canada or the European Union. In the latter, the prime responsibility of the citizens' health vests with the government and the government and the medical systems reportedly work pretty well unlike in India.

So India has been different so far and we call it as the Indian way of working. Even the foreign companies understood how to work in India. They work differently in India as compared to their own mother nations. So they make and market drug combinations that they do not make and sell in their own countries.

When we consider all these, the sudden ban of the combination drugs looks a bit absurd and perhaps even motivated with agendas other than citizens' health. What will happen when all these common remedies vanish from the medical shops? What will the common man do? Rush to the already overcrowded hospitals for seeking alternatives? Will our doctors be competent to prescribe non-combination alternative medicines to manage an ailment in such a short notice? We should consider the fact that they have been in the practice of remembering mostly trade names of common combination drugs!

Will this cause a sudden shortage of all kinds of life saving drugs and medicines when the pharma companies retaliate with their own methods?

Muhammad-bin-tugluq thought of many good things to give better administration to his people of his time. But all those good ideas became miseries for the people and this ruler has never been admired for his good ideas and deeds!

Is the present government doing such a thing by the many bans that it has initiated in the name of good governance?

Only time will tell!  

Do You Expect Prime Minister Narendra Modi Resolve the Address Proof Crisis of Indian Citizens?

Have you ever experienced the address proof crisis of modern India? If you have not understood what I meant, either you are the real permanent resident of India or you are one of the invisible kinds for whom such proofs do not have any relevance!

Let me make things clear, if you have not understood what I meant. This blog is of some importance in your life if you have to shift your residences in India on a few occasions on account of any one of the following reasons:

1. You have to change your residence because your employer keep transferring you from place to place and you do not belong to the special privileged category of the ruling class of India such as the Ministers, MP, MLA, Judge, IAS, IPS, IRS, IFS, Political Leader, Prominent Media Personality, Celebrity of India or any one enjoying the government security cover and the like.

2. You are a businessman who needs to change your place of residence for various reasons but neither one holding much influence on the ruling class nor having your own agents to resolve petty headaches that require interactions with any one of the ruling classes.

3. You are a self employed person who needs to change residence occasionally.

4. You are a student staying in hostels and keep changing your residence in connection with your studies

5. You are an young professional who keep changing your job seeking better options.

6. You  have been a non-resident Indian but have come back to India to live here.

7. You do not have your own home and live with some well wisher for some time 

8. You have to live in rented home or room and have to keep shifting for various reasons.

9. You are a Public Sector company executive who needs to change the place of residence for various reasons.

10. You are unemployed and is in the look out for a job and keep changing your place of residence in your job hunting pursuit.

11. You live in the rural area in a temporary hut or in an urban slum.

12. You are land less and homeless.

13. You had a job, but now jobless and no need to stay in the place where you lived in connection with your job.

14. You have retired from active service and now wants to settle down in a new place in a new residence, either rented or purchased or leased or to share the accommodation with some one related to you.

Now for availing the basic minimum services in this country, you need an address proof. But from where you get the address proof? Who is the authority who attests your place of residence? The stupid government authorities who keep drafting the rules and procedures do not foresee this.

The government of India do not have a law which stipulates the procedure to make an address proof by a citizen. Only recently they have come up with the idea of making an identity proof based on bio-metrics called the Aadhaar. But this in itself has no statutory relevance. Our law makers do not see any benefit for them to spent time to draft and pass such laws. Instead, they leave it to the officers to make rules and procedures the way they understand the things only to be challenged by the courts of law.

Now how to get the damn address proof in India? (Click this link to read the anguish expressed by an Indian citizen and the responses in the social media)

The manner in which the stupid Indian civil servants have worked out the rules clearly shows the lack of intelligence in the Indian bureaucracy. The so called Indian civil servants who join the service by passing the most difficult selection tests for the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) cadre seem not so intelligent as we the common folks used to think. Otherwise how could these stupid rules in India? Else, these IAS bosses never bother to read the rules that keep getting issued in India that determine the day to day Indian governance system. Perhaps, these are the brain work of lesser order officers of the government and there is no one who bothers about the bad impact these have on the overall well being of the country as a whole!

When the new Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi ji, keeps talking about good governance, we wonder why such small things are ignored. It is the prime duty of the government to make rules that are practical and workable. It is the right of the citizens to get an address proof document without any hassles. If the government cannot think of a good system, they should simply get rid of the rules that insist such documents for availing simple services such as making a bank account, purchasing a vehicle, getting a mobile or telephone connection, getting a gas connection, etc.

The government should review whether its rules in this context reflect governmental stupidity or not. Why do the government needs to have these so called bureaucrats when they fail to evolve proper rules that helps to achieve good governance?

When privatization is an acceptable principle of the government, why do the governmental systems still try to cling to the pre-independence bureaucratic practices even today? For example, why don't the governmental rule makers do not allow a recent private bank statement from even the most reputed banks such as the ICICI, IDBI, Axis etc as a valid document for address proof? Mere stupidity or irresponsibility? Remember, they had been clinging to the age old practice of attestation of documents by gazetted officers so long. Only very recently, the Modi government could issue a circular that allows the citizens to self attest their own documents!

If good governance to really happen in this country with deep rooted systemic rot, the top boss needs to be an assertive task master. Not only he does that, he should have some real systems to know the real pulse of the people. Often, people fail to respond with their real problems when responses from them are solicited in a formal manner!

Coming to the address crisis of India: Whom do the governmental bureaucrats think as the best person to certify where he or she lives? Is it the person concerned or some babu sitting somewhere? For that matter, how many babus personally know the people other than their households and their offices? 

Some years before, the best address proof document accepted everywhere as the most fundamental has been a self addressed post card posted and delivered by the most people friendly national level government office- the Post Office. Why is it not so now? Why do some of the babus try to belittle one of their own departments? The government which cares for good governance should feel ashamed of this! What is the harm in accepting such a post card as the primary address proof for opening a bank account? When banks can handle and recognize a person for the most important function involving money transactions, why banks should not be entrusted with the task of certifying a person with regard to his or her identity and address?

The first and foremost requirement for good governance is the coordination and inter departmental trust the various governmental functionaries have to develop. If they function with malice towards each other, no one can ensure good governance. Government officers and staff can and will perform well towards good governance when they honestly feel that their political bosses are reasonably good people who could be trusted! But when this trust is broken, they could also work in such a way that peoples' anger is directed towards the political bosses!

When the government employees work in that fashion without any logic or justification, it would be better to remove such a person from government service. He or she is just not fit for the good of the nation! In the long run, it is not the politicians that ultimately brings good governance! It is the millions strong government staff that is government for the people. If the peoples' representatives cannot make the government machinery to work for the people, no good governance can come in to effect!

So, what is your opinion? Will our PM succeed in achieving good governance? 

The Twelve Essential Safeguards to Ensure Progressive Democratic Governments!

Democracy is by and large the best form of government for all progressive peoples. But this system could also cause degenerative governments to come into existence when the majority people who exercise their franchise are either irresponsible or do not have the basic mental maturity to discern right and wrongs.

It is the responsibility of the people to create their systems of government. They should not expect that there would be some divine intervention or help for them to create their system of governance. Whenever the governments cause extreme distress to the people, it has been natural for people to expect some divine help. But what they fail to understand due to their own immaturity is the ability that they have to set things right within themselves. Often it is their own stupidity that cause their miseries!

Humans in large groups often fail to evolve collective wisdom for their own good because most of them do not use their divinely bestowed intellect to analyze situations wisely.

Humans do have abundant freedom of choice and that is a divine endowment. However, it is also divinely mandated that they take the responsibility of all their acts and decisions. Wrong acts and decisions by the individuals and the groups could cause miseries to the wrongdoers and also to their innocent fellow beings.

When it comes to the selection of their leaders and their governmental systems, it is the responsibility of the people to use their intellects properly. If they fail to do it, they will face the consequences.

They should chose the wise men and women among them to create the most appropriate constitutions or guiding principles of their governments. If they fail to judge the wise among them, they will face the consequences.

Wise men and women are not those intelligent fellows with the least character. These are the clever ones and not the wise ones on whom they can trust. When the clever ones are entrusted with leadership, they would definitely take them for a ride!

So it is essential for the people to use their utmost available brains to find and select the worthy among them as their leaders. 

For representatives in the legislative branch they should elect only those who are qualified intellectually and morally to fulfill such sacred responsibilities. As judges of their high and supreme tribunals only those who are endowed with natural ability and who have been made wise by replete experience should be chosen.

If people want to live under good governance, they should prevent the following 12 things from happening:

1. Gain of unwarranted power by their elected leaders.

70:12.8

2. Machinations of ignorant and superstitious agitators.

70:12.9

3. Retardation of scientific progress.

70:12.10

4. Stalemates created by the dominance of mediocrity.

70:12.11

5. Domination by vicious minorities.

70:12.12

6. Control by ambitious and clever would-be dictators.

70:12.13

7. Disastrous disruption of panics.

70:12.14

8. Exploitation by the unscrupulous.

70:12.15

9. Taxation enslavement of the citizenry by the state.

70:12.16

10. Failure of social and economic fairness.

70:12.17

11. Mixing of religion with governance

70:12.18

12. Loss of personal liberty.

[ Adapted from the Urantia Book]