e-Nagar

While watching Shrek, I was just thinking: “Aren’t the online life exactly like living in a animated fantasy?”
“Is internet for real, or is it some dream world?”

You type ROFL all the time on internet, but when was the last time you heard of someone literally “Rolling on the floor and laughing”?
In the safety of our cyber cafes, how often do you use expressions and words which you know you would have never said had you have met the person face to face in real life?

When you meet someone on the internet, exactly whom are you meeting?
1) the real real life him/her,
2) the person which the other person thinks he/she is,
3) the person what your acquaintance wants to be?
4) or what that other person wants to be?

I think Internet is a place which is similar to a dream, because you are what you want to be. Yet it is unique because now a dream is one man’s fantasy… while internet is a collaboration of the fantasy of a million souls.
What do you think?

image source

Technology is an enabler. It changes lives and enables a person to undertake feats which seem impossible. Who would have believed that:
1) Poor Fishermen in Kerala have increased their earnings by as high as 35% by checking the latest prices on a cell phone.
2) This poor illiterate daily wage earner can find a second job by just pressing a few buttons.
3) You no longer have to go through traffic jams because u can telecommute.

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We have seen similar trends in Banking, Insurance, Postal, Airlines etc… the rich man’s luxury has become a common man’s necessity. The day government allows private operators to operate, there is a revolution. However, when the government operates, it screws the public by providing sub-standard service, it screws the tax payer by pissing away our hard earned money. The best thing the government should do is allow private operators, impose Social Obligation Norms (serving the poor and underdeveloped regions) and charge huge licenses fee, Income tax and use that money for social development.

All around the globe people have started throwing off their copper wire and switched to fiber optics. It allows the operators to sell a wide variety of services like Gigabit broadband, video telephones, IPTv etc etc. But no, Government won’t allow these services in India because the official reason is: “Indian Masses are not prepared for VoIP and digital telephone technology”
Who are you to decide what is good for me?

But then logic and government do not go hand in hand. Thanks to Government, we still rely on Morse Code and have a Telegraph network. Telephone is very important for a nation…. It connects and unites the nation, but why would the government care. If the masses got VoIP access, who would use its outdated BSNL services?

If a private company uses unfair to control the market and kill the competition MRTP (monopolies and restricted trade practices) Act is invoked. I wonder if a similar thing exists for government?

“The balance of trade (or net exports, NX) is the difference between the monetary value of exports and imports in an economy over a certain period of time.”

Like RBI and Ministry of Foreign trade recently published
“The trade deficit for April- March, 2007 was estimated at US $ 56738.77 million”

A reader’s first First Reaction would be:
At one time 70% of India’s population was in agriculture, yet we had to import Wheat to feed to masses.
Today the rising negative balance of trade and fiscal deficit prove that Indian population cannot make their both ends meet.
So in spite of all the India Sining hype, actually are our trade deficit (in USD terms) and our trade Deficit is rising. India is squandering off its future incomes… and robbing its next generation.

But these statistics are misleading…. One thing I love about Indian Babu’s is that they systematically and deliberately remove the relevance out of every statistics they publish.
eg: The entire calculations conveniently omitted out India’s 2 largest export categories:
1) Export of Human Labor (Remittances accounted for $23 billion in 2004… and government was too lazy to publish any statistics after that)
2) Export of Services (IT/BPO story)

All I am saying is “let us not compile numbers just for the sake of statistics but to derive some meaning out of it.”
1) Tell me for a nation how does it matter whether its citizens earn their foreign exchange by shipping containers through our already clogged ports or by transmitting photons via data cables?
2) When will we accept the fact that the family makes a considerable investment in rearing a child for 20 years, and remittances is a genuine payment for these services (I agree that no kid can ever payback for the trouble he gave to his parents, but by sending money home the guilt gets mitigated)

eg: China accounts for potato consumption whenever it publishes its statistics on Per Capita availability of Food Grains. The logic is simple, a large percentage of population living living in harsh weather use potato as a source of carbohydrates esp. starch.
Similarly why can’t we make our trade deficit figures more meaningful?