Desicritics Author: DeeptiA

Under-age Drinking and the Family

DeeptiA — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 00:38:03 EDT

I read this article in a newspaper, and was shocked (and shocked is a mild word for what I felt). Read a few excerpts, and then we can discuss further:

Dr Harish Shetty, however, doesn't buy the logic. "Drinking with dad is just as bad as it can sow the seeds of alcoholism in adult life.'' He feels that there are some parts of the big bad world that parents should not get inside the homes. It's not just at house parties that alcohol is 'on the house. 'A Congress MLA's son from an elite school in the western suburbs celebrated his birthday party at Taj Land's End, where booze flowed freely until the wee hours of the morning.

For several city children, "beer and breezers aren't really alcohol.''Kids have often sneaked miniature bottles of vodka into the classroom and downed liquor in the loo. Some have even been caught for it, after falling asleep at school. Students at one south Mumbai school have openly gulped down vodka in Bisleri bottles during the school socials.

This is downright scary. Alcohol is not just a party drink; when drunk in moderation and under control, it can be accepted. However, there are many dangers to alcohol drinking that most people know about (and are outlined briefly). Please add more such stuff if you know about this:

1. Alcohol can be pretty harmful to the system. Regular drinking of alcohol leads to damage of the liver, and a craving to have a regular session with the bottle. Damage to the liver (enough to cause lasting damage) increases in probability due to the intake of alcohol.

2. During the formative years, children (or young adults as they would like to be called) are susceptible to peer pressure, and may be forced to join even when they would desire not to.

3. Similarly, in today's world, even with so many other careers available, the need for a good education is a significant factor in moving ahead in life; if children start to discover alcohol and spend time in such parties during this time, there will be a percentage of children who will be actually affected by alcohol.

4. Once a parent allows children to start consuming alcohol, it is one major moral point off; it will be much more difficult for a parent to try and prevent more 'social' drinking at parties / clubs.

5. Nothing comes for free. With an increasing proportion of population becoming obese, and coming down with the 'lifestyle' illnesses, such as diabetes, increased alcohol content just ends up causing more damage to the body.

6. Consider the case where you have given you almost adult child the keys to a vehicle (bike / car). He / she ends up at a friend's party where alcohol is served (you can maybe control going to clubs or other such places (how!!)), and drives home with a fair amount of alcohol in the bloodstream. Accidents happen, and in Mumbai, you stand the chance of having to get your child out of jail (where people caught drinking and driving are sent for atleast a day's imprisonment).

You can add many more reasons, and you could argue that this is a trend that one cannot stop, and you may be right; that does not mean however that one should accept this kind of behavior as normal. Out of readers, how many have faced such a situation, and do you know of things that will help out in this regard?

Idol Immersion Increasing River Pollution in India

DeeptiA — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 11:30:29 EDT

There are a number of areas where modern science and problems clash with traditions. In such cases, a reasonable expectation is that there is a compromise between traditions and the needs of today; in some cases, there is a need that the tradition changes. Why did I suddenly think of this topic? Well, I came across this article that describes how idol immersion, a joyful and integral part of many religious festivals, is actually helping in killing the river systems of the country. Now, there are many reasons why our river systems are getting killed - there is too much flow of effluents (both domestic and industrial), not enough cleaning of these effluents, not enough flow of fresh water to do a cleanup of the pollutants in the river. No one doubts that in many cases, the conditions of our rivers as they move past major cities is that of a sewer, with the water having very high percentages of pollutants.

For those who have taken part in Durga Pooja celebrations or those celebrating Lord Ganesha, the immersion of idols is an important part. This is repeated across the country. But how many of you have read the news articles that describe the dead fish found floating days after a major festival, with these fish poisoned by the chemicals form the immersion ? Read this article in more detail:

Elaborately painted and decorated idols are worshipped before they are taken during mass processions to rivers, lakes and the sea, where they are immersed in accordance with Hindu faith. Environmentalists say the idols are often made from non-biodegradable materials such as plastic, cement and plaster of Paris and painted with toxic dyes.

After the statues are immersed, the toxins then contaminate food crops when villagers use the polluted water for irrigation, said Shyam Asolekar, science and engineering head at the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai. Statue remains from festivities last year still float in rivers and water tanks in Mumbai, where the annual "Ganesh Chaturthi" festival culminate in the immersion of some 160,000 statutes -- some up to 25 feet high -- by millions of devotees. Traditionally, idols were made from mud and clay and vegetable-based dyes were used to paint them.

This is a tricky issue. Issues related to religious festivities are treated with care, with efforts being made not to offend the religious. However, there is no getting around the facts of a matter, and this is not an issue that has sprung up suddenly. Even on TV, you do see many times news articles about the importance of making statues with eco-friendly material, but somehow these items do not sink in.

Sometimes, direct action needs to be taken, as for example, when the courts ordered the installation of tall fences on the bridges of the river Yamuna in Delhi in order to prevent people from throwing in flowers or complete garlands.
Rivers are the lifeblood of this country (or any country), with dependence on water requiring that water sources be protected. People know this, but somehow the relation with water pollution does not sink in, or maybe many people do not care. How does one ensure that such a message sink in? You cannot use force to ensure that such a change happens across the breadth and width of the country.

John Edwards Admits to Affair

DeeptiA — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 00:24:43 EDT

The United States has this obsession on a certain amount of moral purity among its politicians. They can solicit all sorts of funds from lobbyists who push for all sorts of things (including from the tobacco lobby, for people who want to spend over $200 million to build a bridge for 50 people, and other pork barrel projects that take away money from poor people who really need money), but the very admission of any sexual impropriety means that the politician could be looking at a career ending. In the past, this has reduced the number of people who are eligible to apply for public office (in case you forget, Gary Hart (wikipedia) had to drop out of the 1988 Presidential poll after his affair with Donna Rice was revealed). We all know what happened with President Clinton.

And now, John Edwards has done it. In public, a happily married man and one of the contenders for the Democratic nomination for this year's Presidential poll (until he withdrew after coming in third), it is now revealed that he had an affair in 2006 with 42-year-old Rielle Hunter, who was hired to make documentary videos for his campaign. This is an absolute no-no in American politics, and could destroy his career (he was after all, a Vice-Presidential candidate). The reasons he gave were to the effect that he felt his career had given him such a high, such an ego that he felt that he could do anything:

John Edwards, who campaigned throughout the 2008 Democratic primaries alongside his family -- and made his marriage a central part of his overall message -- was dealt a political blow Friday after admitting to having an extramarital affair. He denied, however, being the father of the woman's child, as tabloid reports have alleged.

The former North Carolina senator, who was often mentioned as a possible candidate for Sen. Barack Obama's vice presidential pick, does not believe his admission will have a long-lasting impact on his career.

Democratic strategist and CNN contributor Paul Begala said Edwards' affair will result in a "larger loss of faith in institutions." "But keep in mind, you know, John Edwards did not order that anyone be tortured. He did not violate the Geneva Convention. He did not forge a document to lead us into a war. He cheated on his wife," he said.

This is part of the truth. There is a version of the truth that implies that having an affair or some other 'perversion' is something that shows that you cannot be relied on. There is also another version of the truth in which whatever you do in your personal life is not relevant to your abilities to run the country. In the US, it is the first one. In many other countries, it is the second version of the truth that counts (for example, the newly elected President of France divorced his wife and married a much younger model).

The people most happy at this development would be the senior leaders of the Democratic Party. A nightmare for them would have been if Edwards had indeed won the Presidential nomination, and then this news would have come. Imagine delivering the Presidential election and control of Congress to the Republicans.

Supreme Court Acts Tough on Non-Filing of FIRs

DeeptiA — Sat, 9 Aug 2008 14:51:35 EDT

Most people have their own story about their interactions with the police force, especially in their stronghold (police stations). Let me give an instance of what happened in a police station when I made the mistake of losing a draft (actually the draft did not reach the destination when it was sent via courier, but for the bank, I had lost the draft). I had the counterfoil of the draft, so approached the bank for how to reclaim my money. And this started the adventure.
Given that the draft was sent to an education institute, we did not know that the draft had not reached till it was around 3 months later, since that was the last date of the money to be received; and the institute contacted me. After some back and forth, they convinced me that they had not received the money and things would be terminated unless I sent them the money.

I contacted the bank, and guess what? They told me a whole lot of things to do - get a notarized affidavit for having lost the draft, get a note from the institute acknowledging that the money was not received, and ... get a FIR from the police station about having lost the draft (since a draft is different from money; more importantly, RBI regulations apparently require it). So, I managed to convince the bank that the institute will not give me a letter; affidavit was made. Now for the police station. That was fun.

First, where was the draft lost? "Well, it was sent by courier and never reached". I knew I should have made up a story about having lost it at home, or somewhere else that was definite and that did not cause any jurisdictional problems. The police station totally refused to cooperate, since they did not believe it to be their problem. Beaten, I managed to convince the bank after around an year of discussion and got my money back.

Okay, why this long story? Well, people have faced problems in getting FIRs filed for far more serious stuff - for fraud, criminal assault, modesty / molestation / rape, etc. The weaker you are, the more difficult it is for you to get the police to file an FIR. Having more FIR's filed is liable to get you in the dock when a starred question comes up in the assembly / parliament about number of unsolved cases, so easier option is to try and reduce the number of FIR's filed. Well, the Supreme Court has jumped right in:

Commoners, often harassed by the police's refusal to register FIRs (first information reports), have turned the tables on the men in khaki, thanks to the Supreme Court. Stating that officials in India understood only the "crack of a whip", the apex court on Friday ordered that a policeman turning away a person without registering his complaint could face contempt of court charges and cool his heels in jail if he failed to justify non-registration of the FIR.

The court has provided a detailed mechanism to citizens to make the police accountable. The bench comprising Justices Agrawal and G S Singhvi said if the police refused to register an FIR, the aggrieved person could move the area chief judicial magistrate with a complaint against the concerned officer.

In addition, most states did not even respond to the notice by the Supreme Court, making the court even angrier.

Movie Review: The Gold Rush (1925)

DeeptiA — Fri, 1 Aug 2008 06:55:56 EDT

I had the chance to watch this classic Charlie Chaplin movie recently on TV, and was pretty impressed, hence writing about it. As you move along this old-movie review, you will find the story start to show up, so you can stop reading at any point further if you don't want the whole storyline.

The Gold Rush is a silent-era movie released in 1925. As with many Chaplin movies, the movie was written and directed by him, and starred him in the lead role. It was another of the 'Little Tramp' roles. As per Charlie Chaplin, The Gold Rush was a movie that he wanted to be remembered by. The movie also starred Mack Swain, Tom Murray, Henry Bergman, Malcolm Waite, and Georgia Hale. Georgia Hale got the role by chance, since Lita Grey was originally selected for the role, but Lita then got married to Charlie Chaplin in 1924, and hence was no longer to be the lead lady for the role. However, ironically, during the making of the film, Charlie's marriage to Grey collapsed, and Hale (who had idolized Chaplin from the beginning) was much more intimate with her leading man by the end of the movie.

The movie was a huge commercial success, earning more than $4 million at that time. In 1942, Chaplin took the movie into the talkie space, re-releasing the movie with a musical score (that was nominated for an Academy Award), adding a personal narration in his own voice, and doing some more editing to reduce the length of the movie by a few minutes.

Chaplin's previous movie A Women of Paris, had failed, and Chaplin was looking to see how he could recoup from that. He wanted to make a great movie, something that he would be remembered for. And then he came on the stories of some of the tragedies of the Great Alaskan Gold Rush; with tales of hardship, struggle and tragedy. The movies takes The Tramp in the Yukon, along with many others like him, heading over the Chilkoot Pass (some spectacular shooting on Hollywood sets). He gets stuck in a remote cabin with little supplies, along with another prospector and an escaped fugitive.

In this setting occurs one of the most iconic scenes from the silent film era - the eating of a leather boot by a starving man. Another iconic shot from the movie is of the cabin tottering on the edge of a cliff while the inhabitants struggle to get out. You also have the betrayal of The Tramp and the other prospector by the fugitive (who in turn meets his end at the hands of an avalanche).

The Tramp becomes very rich after finding gold. Once he reaches the town, The Tramp thinks that he is falling for a dance-hall girl (Hale), but why would she notice him ? She initially snubs him, but they have a happy ending. The movie is now considered an iconic movie, and is surely worth watching.

Shooting Civilians and Defending It

DeeptiA — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 01:49:57 EDT

In a retraction, the US military in Iraq announced that 3 people shot in an incident in June (June 25th) were actually innocent, and it was an accidental shooting of the car by soldiers who stated that the occupants of the car in the high security zone of Baghdad Airport did not acknowledge calls for the car to stop, and hence were fired upon. The situation of firing on people who do not acknowledge orders is a risky proposition, but what makes this situation troublesome is that the initial reports of this incident at that time blamed the 3 civilians in the car; the position was that they opened fire on the military which took the necessary defensive action and killed them:

In its statement on the June shooting, the U.S. Army said its soldiers had felt threatened when they saw a car speeding up a road toward them, and the driver did not heed warnings to stop. The military said its June statement describing the dead as criminals was incorrect. Initially, some soldiers thought that someone in the car was shooting and that Iraqi police had found a weapon in the vehicle, the military said. However, no weapon was found and the passengers turned out to be a man and two women who worked at the airport bank.
Some Iraqi officials have demanded that U.S. soldiers not on combat missions face Iraqi courts in cases of violence against Iraqis. And the June 25 shooting looks likely to bolster their case. Parliament member Haidar Abadi, from Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's Islamic Dawa Party, said, "This would increase the Iraqi insistence about the issue of American soldiers' immunity." Abadi said Iraqis were angry about the false accusations against the shooting victims.

This incident will give a fillip to the push by Iraqi lawmakers to try US soldiers involved in incidents like these. This is a demand that no US administration will ever agree to, and will continue to be a bone of contention. Overall, this incident does not reflect well on any of the parties involved; the only redeeming feature is that the US military is probably the only military that seems to investigate incidents impartially and release these findings even if they reflect adversely on itself.

The Importance of Usability Testing

DeeptiA — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 01:34:48 EDT

Suppose you are in a tight development cycle. You have to deliver either a new product, or the next version of an existing product. Getting the features of a product right is always a touch task, given that there are a number of competing features that seem important, and prioritizing the features is something that is very important. This decides the priorities that the engineering team (the feature development team) will follow during the development cycle.

How is this priority actually decided? If the company is in in the business of defining an absolutely new product that has not been conceptualized as yet, then getting some feedback from prospective customers is difficult; however, if there are already customers using an existing product (from the same company or a rival company), then it is absolutely essential that these users be polled for the features so that there is a good idea about the features that are most critical (it would also help to identify features that customers would be willing to pay a premium for).

Now consider that we are in the development phase of the project lifecycle, where the UI team works along with the engineering team to define the workflow for the feature. There is a lot of discussion around what the feature should be like (with a possibility of the discussion getting heated as a regular part of feature discussion), and eventually most people agree to what the feature should be like. The UI specs of the feature are drawn up and the feature implementation is based on the spec.

At this point, everything may seem settled, but it is critically important that this final implementation be evaluated for usability issues. At this point, the team needs to find a set of people who would adequately represent the final set of users, and get them to see the feature working in the actual product. Such usability testing will help determine whether the determined final feature is actually something that the users can accept, or whether there are problems that need to be modified.

The timing of such user testing is most critical. Typically, such workflows reach a final form close to the end of the cycle, and this is the form in which users can actually exercise the workflows. However, in a contra effect, this time is also very late in the cycle, and the team will be hesitant to accept changes that are significant, since the amount of time required to make these changes may not be easily available.

What is the solution? The solution that seems to work is to have a much more active involvement with users, starting with showing them mockups as the workflow gets more concrete, active question and answer sessions about what they may be looking for, till the time that they can review the actual product implementation. Further, if a workflow is very new and contentious, then it would make sense to try and complete it earlier. And finally, there needs to be time built into the schedule to take such changes.

Project Management - You Can't Have Your Cake And Eat It Too

DeeptiA — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 14:48:54 EDT

This is a true example from around 6 years back when I was working for an IT software solutions provider (the firm did software projects for different customers). This was a decent sized company that had something like 12000 people on the rolls, doing everything from development to testing to requirements analysis, and so on. I was more into the area of a business analyst, translating the requirements document into a form that the developers working on the project would understand.

This was a new project with a new medium sized bank in the Midwest, and the hope was that we would be able to do this project well enough and give them a system that would work so well for them that they would continue with the company and be the start of a long and serious (and profitable) relationship. Sounds good, right ? Well, read on.

Around this time, our company, which was a publicly listed company was getting on just like the other service companies of that time, doing okay, but not generating great figures. Management was getting hit by analysts, and passed on a directive that every project needs to meet the company defined margin. Exceptions only when pleaded before the executive committee, and not otherwise. Implicit was the expectation that anybody who does a project that does not promise enough margin would need to explain the project.

Now, since our project was with a new customer with whom we had high hopes for the future, we could not charge our expected rates; after all, why would the customer then select us? So, our account manager along with the Vice-President of the unit went ahead and quoted a rate that was at least 20% lower (getting fewer people assigned to the project than necessary). Guess what? Pretty soon, the strains and missing people started to show.

Ego also plays a part. For a Vice-President to go before the committee and plead for more money (a reduction in margin) would reflect adversely. The members of the committee, who might be expected to provide an experience of being able to handle these kind of situations and offer some latitude did not do so since they were never offered this project for review. Pretty soon, somebody senior in the team had the bright idea that weekends could be converted into work hours (maybe 1 weekend in 3 could be off), and this idea was implemented with gusto.

You can guess the rest. People from outside the project did not want to join, quality reviews of the project were hesitant because of the many exceptions, and eventually the customer could make out that the quality was not as desired. Project over, account over, and pretty soon the project manager and other senior team members quit and went to other companies.

This was a disaster caused by the management reacting adversely to poor numbers, and unwilling to exercise the due diligence in doing a project (after all, the first criteria for a project should be to make it successful).

How many of you have had similar experiences?

Uttar Pradesh Police on Cleanliness Drive for Gomti River

DeeptiA — Sun, 6 Jul 2008 10:54:45 EDT

Indian rivers are extremely polluted, and have been so for a long time now. It is all the more horrible since we consider many of these rivers as holy and worship them; the waters of the river Ganga find a very holy spot in Hindu culture. And yet, the waters of most of these rivers look hideous (unable to support aquatic life, unfit for human consumption, and so on). Various Governments claim to spend a lot of time and effort to clean up these rivers and have drawn up plans over the past two decades with big sounding names (all ending with the words of 'Action Plan') and the rivers remain dirty.

Over a period of time, even the courts of India have been unable to push the Governments to prepare an effective plan that is also executed well. All you get in the end is a lot of discussion about which method is the best for river cleaning (for those familiar with the discussions, the endless discussion in Delhi around where the sewage treatment plants should be, and how to stop the big drains from throwing their filth directly into the river would be funny if it was not so critical to public health). Otherwise, you would not get cases whereby drinking water to a city became critical when the filth content of the water available for drinking became too high.

What is required is for Governments to set up dedicated action plans that will ensure proper treatment of sewage (whether industrial or residential) so that no untreated sewage flows into the various water bodies that we have. Industries that violate this dictum need to be severely fined and punished (and that means that corruption levels in the environmental inspection area need to come down). Else we will end up with more cases such as the one in Punjab where millions of fish in a canal suddenly died due to release of untreated industrial waste. What we don't really need is for this kind of publicity generating measures such as this one:

With the state police coming to the fore to free the Gomti of pollution, now those caught red handed throwing garbage in the river will be severely dealt with. This announcement was made on Saturday by the director general of police (DGP) Vikram Singh, even as along with other senior officials of the department he took it upon himself to clean the city's lifeline.

In the morning the officials arrived at the banks of the Gomti for the cleanliness drive that is on to clean the river for the past few days. During the drive, the DGP made an official announcement that one company of river police will be deployed on all the banks of the river.

How will they prevent people from throwing trash into the river? Will it stop if they patrol a few kilometers? Would it not be more effective to have a proper education drive along with ensuring that people get a proper garbage collection facility? Or am I hoping for an ideal world?

Old Parents Left Behind

DeeptiA — Tue, 1 Jul 2008 01:40:52 EDT

Recently I came across a situation that was terribly distressing. There was a school friend of mine (we are talking about the late 80's) with whom I had lost contact some years back. During the time that I remember spending with him in school, he was a good friend. However, as happens many times when you leave school, and then go to different colleges, we lose touch (even though he was in the same city).

Then, while browsing through the friends list of a friend in Facebook, I came across his name. I promptly added him to my friends list, and within a couple of days, we had regained contact. In email through Facebook, I got to know what he had done after school. He had an interest in going abroad, and so, he did the usual software engineering route, joined a services company, and within a year got the chance to go abroad. He jumped at the chance, and moved with the software company to its US office; and after a year or so, jumped jobs and joined an American company.

All the time, his parents were at home, here, along with his younger daughter. Soon, when the daughter finished her education and became a doctor, they found a good match for the daughter (another doctor settled in London) and the marriage happened; the daughter soon left with her husband to London. Now, the parents were left only to themselves in the house. Within a year, they found a suitable bride for their son, he came for the marriage, spent some time at home and then left back to the US. He was still devoted to his parents, coming once every year to visit.

However, and this is now the issue. I visited the parents a couple of days back, and found them to be in a bad position. They are growing old, and have only themselves to take care of each other. They are so used to the city and the circle around them that they are not taking up their son's offer to take them with him to the US, worrying about what they will do in a strange place, whether they will get along with their daughter-in-law (she is used to running the show in that house). The son is not willing to relocate back; he has a cushy life over there, children who are more American than Indian, and so on. And so, the have money (sent by their son), but do not have the moral support that is normally required. They also get testy when you talk to them about going abroad with their son, and I did not raise the issue again in visits. What is a good solution in such cases ?