Net Neutral

Net Neutral

It is raging.  It is concerning the access to the contents of the internet without strings.   You are in control of where to go in the net, what you read and do on line.  There is no restriction imposed on the content unless it is illegal - a place where, freedom to express, an unhindered choice and no discrimination, exist.  That is the norm.  Equality is the key.  More than a million emails have been sent to the Indian regulator, The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) last week in support of Net Neutrality.  TRAI wanted answers to 20 questions through a consultation paper spread over 110 pages on the subject of discrimination between different types of data, by telecom networks.  

 

Airtel launched “Airtel Zero” in the beginning of April 2015.  The company listed the benefits to the customers and marketers in their web site - Customers enjoy free data access to a variety of mobile apps signed up with ‘Airtel Zero’.  App providers will pay for customers’ data charges and hence it is toll free access to their mobile application.  Here would be customers are tied to Airtel and the app provider pays to the platform owner the usage charges.  In effect the users selectively get the benefit of free data paid by someone else but restricted to the dealings with Airtel and the app provider.  Airtel boasted of providing equal opportunities to all, big or small.  Flipkart which decided to join hands a week before with Airtel Zero platform for providing Airtel subscribers free use of its application through Airtel Zero backtracked and walked away from the deal.   Flipkart also issued a statement committing to the larger cause of net neutrality in India.  A flip flop by Flipkart!  As a business proposition it is still good, but discriminatory.  It can be called a restrictive trade practice.  That is, when you access Flipkart through Airtel, you need to pay no data charges, whereas you will have to pay for it to access Flipkart through other providers like, Idea, BSNL, etc. You are being influenced / forced to deal with Flipkart only through Airtel.  

 

Earlier this year Reliance Communications partnered with Facebook through Mark Zuckerberg’s initiative to provide free internet to the mobile users through internet.org.  This free access is restricted to a bouquet of services covered by 33 websites.  RCom will provide to its customers free access to these sites.  Here again the customers are tied to these companies and a trading practice not above water.  It did not raise a storm then as in the case of Flipkart-Airtel deal.  The trigger has been Airtel Zero-Flipkart.  In both the cases data used by the user is not charged.

 

In United States, Comcast’s bid to acquire competitor Time Warner Cable last year, for $45 billion, fell through last week.  Fears were expressed in many quarters that the merged unit would have control of more than 50% of U.S. broadband market and viewed the proposed merger as anti competitive.  Comcast Corporation, a Nasdaq listed company, is U.S.’s largest video, high-speed internet and phone provider (Xfinity brand) and cable networks provider,  whereas the Time Warner is the world’s third largest television networks and filmed TV & Entertainment company.  The merger of these two would have created a monopoly situation in U.S.

 

Though the concept of ‘Net Neutrality’ is a highly debating topic world over for quite some time, it has arrived in India only now.  The regulator, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has received more than a million mails through savetheinternet.in campaign for net neutrality.   Alas, the TRAI’s role in India is only advisory in nature and does not have the teeth.   And The Information Technology Act, 2000 does not have provisions that prevent service providers from controlling the internet to serve their business needs.

 

Unless the Government acts earnestly, the Indian users of the net will have in future only restricted access and will know only what mighty others want you to know.  As the word ‘internet’ has become synonymous with knowledge and the day will not be far off when your acquired restricted knowledge will not be ‘power’, when the normal saying is ‘Knowledge is Power’.  

Snuff out

Snuff out

 Killings!  It can be through the due process of Law meted out as a capital punishment for a heinous crime; by an individual or a group taking law into their own hands meting out as reprisal called in normal parlance as murder – either by themselves or through ‘contract’; or by occurrences, through natural causes like aging, accidents, by an act of God.   Apart from all, there is war.

Capital punishment is punishment by death ordered by a court of law for an act against humanity.   It is a subject matter of an unending controversy, for and against it. 

Judiciary attempts to give punishments commensurate to the crime.  Severity of punishment increases from fine and simple imprisonment to rigorous imprisonment to life imprisonment and in rarest of rare cases capital imprisonment, as harmful effect on the community of the crime increases.  The ultimate is the capital punishment in countries where it is still in vogue.

103 countries abolished Capital punishment altogether.  36 countries actively practice and about 50 countries have not resorted to it for at least 10 years.  If you look at demographically, China, India, U.S. and Indonesia which account for 60% of global population have death penalty in their statutes.  These four nations have voted against UN General Assembly resolutions abolishing death penalty.  With the exception of Iran, Saudi Arabia and Sudan, all countries do not apply these provisions on juveniles, i.e., below 18 years of age.  It is said that it acts as a deterrent for the potential or would be offenders.

Apart from judicial process, we have khap panchayats or katta panchayats depending on areas, which do not have sanction of law but dispense justice pushing down the throat.  Governments world over have built in machinery to effectively curb such extra judicial dealings. 

This brings us to occurrences which cover death by aging or accidents.  The concept of welfare state ensures improving longitude and quality of life through various measures.

All this boils down to the fact that there can never be a right for anybody to snatch away the life of anyone for whatever reason.  Reinforcements to this school of thought came from plenty of instances in almost all countries where it was found decades later, to be one of wrongful conviction and / or execution.   This is miscarriage of justice.   These things could never be undone.

Trigger happy law enforcement personnel have their due share.  From recent media reports two instances merit mention.

On April 4, 2015, Walter Scott was running from a police officer and he was shot to death in North Charleston, South Carolina, U.S.   A video shot by a bystander had gone viral on the net last week.  Of course, US is now grappling with the consequences.

The second incident around the same period across the world on April 7, 2015 took place in the forest of Seshachalam (near Tirupati) in Chittoor District, Andhra Pradesh, where 20 people were gunned down by the Special Police team and foresters for alleged smuggling of Red Sanders - a banned and endangered item.  Both Hyderabad and Madras High Courts have independently ordered second autopsies.  Allegations were thick and fast that the killings were stage managed by Police.  The Andhra Pradesh is in the hot spot over this.    In any case, conviction rate in such brutalities is very negligent. 

Law is applicable to all equally and only vigilant public is the solution.      The thought that efforts should be directed towards correction and rehabilitation should get momentum and transform into action.

The "TIPS"

The 'TIPS'

It is said that TIPS is an acronym for “To Insure Prompt Service”.   A myth has it that a coffee shop patronized by Samuel Johnson in London sported small bowls on the tables marked with – “To Insure Prompt Service” into which customers would throw a few coins.  The practice of TIPS evolved into one of unsavoured item at the end of a transaction.  There is no guarantee that Tipping would ensure good service; for the receiver would not know whether you would give one or not.  There is no connection between the quality of service received and the unwritten consideration given in return.  It is not a quid pro quo.  Wikipedia terms Tipping, as an over payment made as a recognition to those who provide service beyond the expectation.  The problem here is to know whose expectation.  In most cases you feel compelled to give one even without any service.

In United States, you are looked down when you do not leave behind something for the waiter.  There you are out of box when you do not give.  It is anything above 10% of the bill depending upon the level you want show off.  It has become customary and feels obligated though not obliged.  Tipping is not native of America.  It appears that this practice found its way from the taverns of Europe, particularly England, where drinkers started, probably in 17^th Century, leaving money to the waiter before leaving.   Though this practice is inevitable in US nowadays, it was not welcomed in the beginning.  According to a professor at the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration, tipping began in US after Civil War through the wealthy Americans who traveled Europe and brought the aristocratic custom with them to show off their elevated status.

There were reports that many Americans believed then that tipping would create a servile class.  Further, reports in newsprint revealed that this was considered as the “vilest of imported vices”.   In 1915, there was even an attempt to pass an anti-tipping bill that would have made leaving tips unlawful.  This attempt did not pass the muster.  There was a book by name “The Itching Palm” written by William Scott in 1916 wherein he had raised the subject of paying twice for the service rendered – once to the organisation that provided the service and second to the person involved in reaching the end customer.  He termed it as a “democracy’s mortal foe” and that creates “a servile attitude for a fee”.

For Japanese, it is an affront on their dignity.  The moment something is received as a gratis he loses his standing in society; the dignity is lost, because it is a one way transaction where there is nothing in return.  They do not TIP.

In India the story is completely different.  Many restaurants charge as a percentage of the cost of the items served as service charge.  In addition, the waiters also expect the customers to pay them.  It is a peculiar case where the customer has to bear 3 point brunt – Services Tax collected by the Government at a predetermined percentage on the value of services, Service Charges collected by the owner of the joint again as a percentage of the value of items provided though there is no legal sanction and the ubiquitous doling out as a parting shot.  The first one is by the government through legislation and hence no escape; the second one by the employer, though meant as a discretionary -  to be there you need to pay; and the third one, you are reluctant but do not like to picture yourself awkwardly before others and hence felt inescapable but to give in.  Except the first one, the other two definitely are for nonexistent additional services and should attract Income tax / service tax.  God knows whether due process is followed. 

Where else you will find this predicament, first a sovereign body, the private body – the organisation, collects twice for the same service – once when selling the goods and again during billing, and lastly when you leave you are made to pay for having visited!  In fact one has to pay four times by whatever name called for the same transaction.

What a situation?  Last but not the least; can corruption be called as a TIP to ensure service? – Why double standard?