Nandan's Chronicles - from an INFOSCION to a POLITCION -6 - Teething PC problems

Hi All,

It has been quite sometime that I have not blogged about the happenings in the Yojana Bhavan and UAID. Was quite held up in the operational duties over the last couple of months. Even in our IT industry - after all the powerpoint tom tomming - deliverables and timelines need to be complied to!!!! Nothing different in Government either.

My Italian classes are going damn well. I have always been a quick learner and no different here as well!!!!

Oh, by the way - last week I met up with one of the new MPs to join the RS - Sachin Tendulkar. I have been his fan for many years but never had the opportunity of meeting him. This was such a pleasant surprise!!!! Such a humble man and so soft spoken!!!!Aailaa!!!!

All is not well at workfront. Like the life before Yojana Bhavan, life now has also thrown up some professional challenges. It all began with a to-the-point curt mail from Manmohan asking me to meet up with him in his office. When I entered the room, Manmohan was sitting with Chidambaram. Now, Chidambaram has always been very cordial to me ever since I came onboard. Manmohan was looking quite pensive, Chidambaram quite calm and a benign smile on his face.

Manmohan asked me whether my team was ignoring the data provided by National Population Register being headed by the Home Ministry. I told him,"With all due respect Manmohan, the data provided to us by the NPR was incomplete. This data did not meet the criteria set for UAID details and hence it was decided not to be used".

Manmohan looked at Chidambaram who was still smiling silently. I am not so well versed with face reading because in Infosys and in life, we believe only in Data and God. Here, it started appearing that I was the only one in the room who did not know something.

Manmohan asked me,"So Nandan, what was missing in the NPR data? ". I told him that the data included only for one half of the requirement - the finger prints were only for five fingers and biometric retina was done for one eye only!!!! The entire project is rendered redundant if only half the information is processed.

Manmohan was about to say something when his secretary came in stating that Montek's Planning Commission Toilet revamp had run into some rough weather. Manmohan, before leaving to address a press conference,  told Chidambaram to explain things to me and that the data provided by PC's NPR should be used.

Now, I was alone with Chidambaram and he was still giving that SriSri Ravishankar smile to me. I finally broke the silence,"Chidambaram, can you please explain how I can use this data and still ensure that a fool proof security is maintained? Duplication will arise when same person brings one more set of data with the other hand and the other eye". I tried to reason with him and I got a bit carried away with my gesticulations until Chidambaram told me to stop.

The next couple of minutes were just - like going back to school again. That day, I realized why our finance ministers are so astute and smart that they are still running the finances of the country.

Chidambaram explained to me what is known in Economics as - The Necessity of Corruption to run the Righteous Wheel. It works on a simple principle that -

• Corruption is the single biggest measure of efficiency and capability.
• Absence of corruption renders a scenario of equal opportunity to all.
• This leads to complacency and inactivity in milieu.
• An ideal economy is the one where the parallel economy just hovers over the actual economy. The parallel economy is a democratic way of nullifying bureaucracy.
• Corruption in identity provides a more-than-one identity to one person rendering him capable to initiate economic actions which otherwise would have been constrained by archaic laws.  
• More benefits would entail more prosperity which otherwise the Government laws do not provide for.
• A situation will reach where everyone will try to be corrupt. That point in the economy is what the Economists refer to as SCAMPOINT. This is the point where innovation takes the lead.
• Multiple identities for the same person opens up unlimited avenues of multiple bank accounts, buying property etc but it is vastly rendered ineffective against the Government given the poor quality of services and goods provided by the Government.
• This increases the purchasing power of the common man leading to progress.
• One of the undesired outputs also includes terror and violence but that also nullifies the population spurt and acts as a trigger towards systemic improvement.

I was stunned. Such a great economic concept explained to me in such simple terms. I had some reservations about this concept as we have strong ethical procedures in Infosys but here I guess, I would be forced to accept this data. I made  a mental note to report this matter to the

GHOOS committee (Group of Honesty Oriented Operations in the Senate) headed by Sri Sharad Rao Pawar. This is something I need to tell Krish - get the ethics committee in Infosys to be headed by a person least expected to be in charge of it and it works damn well!!!!!

As I came out of the room, with mixed emotions, like always - I texted Murthy, Remember our earlier days when PCs were a big problem in Delhi... well PC is still a big problem in Delhi. Guess, somethings have not changed with time.

Uploaded from Aakash!!!