Here is an interesting thing one of my bureaucrat friend did recently. A smart person (as most officials seem to be) he collected the relevant data and used it smartly.
It is not unusual for public agencies to indulge in firefights. Constantly, all the time. So not surprising that nothing really gets fixed, for any great length of time.
This official asked for data (location) of complaints his agency usually receives. It turns out that repeat complains were originating from only around 400 locations in the entire city of Chennai. They decided to fix these or make plans for these and saw the number of complaints fall.
Same official did something even more interesting. His agency analyzed hospital data for dysentery. (Where were most cases of dysentery occurring in Chennai?) They analysed the water quality along with the state of the pipes in those areas.
One main reason for dysentery is mixing of clean water with sewage when pipes break and leak. His agency fixed the leaks in these locations and there were supposedly not a single case of dysentery in Chennai during the past rainy season. If true, he and his agency should get some kind of public award and recognition.
Similarly, analysing the expenses and functioning of various pumping sites revealed very interesting insights. This can be used to further improve quality of delivery of services and also strengthen future tendering processes – thereby saving taxpayer resources and citizens’ headache.
There is another important point. Data when analyzed by experts or many people, especially when displayed in interesting visual ways, reveal a lot. Things that you missed earlier pop out since pics and maps reveal what your brain cannot conceive without. Also, there is a reason why the world is moving towards a more multi-stream/expertise/speciality model especially in prestigious universities.
It takes different outlooks and training in different subjects to solve complex problems. One man/woman or one team cannot do this. A very important reason to put all official data on public domain.
Put all bus, water, electricity, etc. data on public sites. Data how frequencies, finances, quality, breakdown …. and watch how others help you.
Just to add a point about open data and connect it to my previous post on MTC. Look at Wikipedia and the like. Lots have been written on crowd sourcing, open source etc.
I have been mentioning this to my few friends in the officialdom. Throw up your data (official data on buses, water, city, etc. that are not official secret) to the world. Chennai is a IT city. There are many young and old, IT savvy citizens who would love to use it to help other or use it to make money, by helping others.
San Francisco like many other cities have their bus data (routes, timing, etc.) on public sites. As expected someone has developed a script and site that shows you all the coffee shops on your bus route. Now that may sound frivolous. But what if the info were hospitals, day care, and host of other more useful info.
(Personally I think coffee shop info is as important as anything else. One of the joys of traveling around a good city is using their excellent public transport system and visiting interesting coffee shops. All this adds to the demand for public transport.)
So I appeal to all officials of Chennai. Put all your organisations data on public sites in usable format.
My friend Arun Ganesh has done a lot of work on bus routes and setting up websites to make it easier to navigate Chennai in a bus. Check out Chennai volvo routes and timings.
But does bus routes and getting around Chennai have to be this complicated ? On that page you will find the official MTC page. What is amazing is you can find out the timings if you know the route. If you know what 15G or 4E means, then you are safe. Is this how human beings think of traveling around the city. In terms of numbers and alphabets?
Compare with transport for London (tfL) site. They even made it easy for me to add widgets and tool to this post.
I have been meaning to take the A/C bus to various places, especially to Anna Nagar to visit my cousins. I love riding the A/C buses of Chennai when I can find one on time and at the right location when I want it. But I have been so lazy to go and search that I don’t usually bother. I take my car. What a waste!
For a long time my friends Daniel at Chennai City Connect has attempted to get the MTC to take his help in creating a more friendly website. Not only that. Do you know that many MTC buses have GPS in them. This means each of those buses can be tracked realtime. A simple process can display this valuable info on a map like the google transit map.
This opens up a world of possibilities. If the frequency of the buses are very high, say, every 2 to 5 minutes during peak hours, which is what advanced cities would offer, then you don’t have to worry about real time tracking. But that is not the case in Chennai. Especially if you want to ride in an A/C bus. Especially to and from work, during peak hour, so as to not get sweaty and dirty by the time you reach your workplace.
So there is a simple solution. Put the GPS info on google transit or similar mapping systems. This can be viewed on your computer or even on your mobiles. Which means that you don’t have to stand in the bus stop forever waiting for your A/C bus. You step out of the building and walk to the bus stand Just-In-Time. A strong incentive to take the A/C bus, especially during peak hour.
Why doesn’t Chennai already have this? I know the answer, but you ask MTC.
Going website to website I ended up at Rolling Stone magazine. There I discovered the 100 Greatest Singers collect. Went through the list, and checked out some of the singers and their songs on youtube.com
Nice to discover and rediscover amazing songs. Check out some of the history behind the songs and their era. Some of the notes on each singer is written by prominent singers themselves. Check out the one on Bob Dylan by Bono. Bono’s prose sounds lyrical.
Thank god for the internet. Probably the greatest invention of the 20th century. Nothing seem to help connect minds and knowledge, at an ever accelerating pace, like the internet. Even I am able to learn and write about diverse issues. Something impossible in pre-internet days, unless you have lived all your life, read and thought all your life. How many can claim this – Nehru, Churchill, ?
One my pet peeves is indirect subsidies. They distort the economy and ruin the environment. It is nothing but robbing Paul to pay Peter. But since Peter also gets robbed to pay Paul, no one really benefits. Well there are some Pauls and Peters who manage to get the tax man to rob and not get robbed. Exhaustive Get the Energy Sector off the Dole article by Jeffery Leonard is an excellent read.
Why ending all government subsidies for fuel production will lead to a cleaner energy future—and why Obama has a rare chance to make it happen.
We can be sure that the same arguments is applicable in India or pretty much any country.
My article Vision 2011 in Times Property Chennai edition of Times of India. I will be writing a weekly Sat column on infrastructure with examples around the world.
Listening to historian Ron Chernow talk about Alexander Hamilton (the clash of two visions – rural vs urban to put it simplistically) and the America of his times is like listening to conversation in India and about India. Resonates well today …
City expert Raj Cherubal on why Chennai should set the bar even higher.
To improve, Chennai has to learn from cities such as Paris, Tokyo, and others The mayor of chennai, M. Subramanian, recently recalled that some MPs from North India visited Chennai and were amazed by what they saw. Though heartening, the city could not rest on its laurels. To improve, Chennai needs to compare itself with advanced cities and ask how they got there, he said.
Interesting what a google chat with my friend Daniel does. He sent me the following video, lamenting “how would our leaders react to something like this?”
My take on great leaders is that national crisis produces, or brings forth, great leaders. People in general, and leaders are no different, rise to the occasion. During “normal” times there is nothing much to rebel against, or fight for. Yes there are always issues to worry about. But how many would dharna or do satyagraha against everyday pettiness and stupidity of our societies. This is why we resort to internet petitions which is to be sent directly to the PM’s office for immediate attention.
So may be, if you believe there are no great leaders in India today, it is a blessing in disguise. We are having a good time, relatively speaking. We can sit in front of the TV and snicker at the CWG, Adarsh or some other scam. Tchch, Tchch under our breath. Shake our heads if there are others around so we can show how concerned and disgusted we are about the state of affairs.
Or if you are like me, I switch channel often. From “Shimmy” where beautiful, skimpily clad women do yoga. Or go to Star World to watch some fantasy detective show. Or BBC to see what is happening in Moscow. Or TLC to see what some outrageous chef is up to while traveling around the world to exotic locations. Or what the genius Brigette the blond bimbo has to say about some faraway exotic beaches. Or watch how to kill someone who attacks me on Discovery or National Geo. Or live vicariously through Bear Gilles. Quickly skip through NDTV, CNN-IBN or TimesNow to make sure I am not missing any of the circus. Enough about my shameful existence.
With all that is happening in Pak, I wonder will the next great leader like Martin Luther King come from Pak or the Islamic world ? They and we badly need one.We because Pak has nukes. Otherwise Pak, as Cohen points out, is not very relevant. I am not a very belligerent man. But in this case I say thank the people in the Indian Defense and Foreign policy establishment who allowed Pak to get nukes. Great strategic blunder for their sake and for ours’.
Indians who care about India should show great empathy towards Pak, unlike pseudo-Patriots. Pak is a deeply divided society, not a monolith. If we don’t lend a helping hand and more (let your imagination be your guide as to what more) to the liberals of Pak while they sink, there will be no one on the other side to talk to.
One more point on this subject. I made this to the Takshashila friends when we met at the Bangalore conference. Extremists and terrorists are not logical and rational people. They don’t think like us. (We may be irrational in other ways. Not to give too much credit to our side). The war we have going between us and them (the crazy irrationalists) is going to be a very long drawn out one. We have to be prepared for the long haul. (cliches, cliches ..)
From what I have read into the minds of the Crazies, if I were one of them, I would be very actively, day and night, without sleep or hunger, looking for a nuke or two. And delivery systems and all the shiny objects that goes with it. (Think outside the box friends).
The day I get one, I will surely use it. Where to use it would be part of my planning. If he was a smart Crazy, which I think is rare and not possible, and I will explain soon, he would use it strategically. To achieve some long term goal like building a nation-state that is of my liking. But Crazies being Crazies this may not be the case. Killing millions would be the only result.
Not using the nuke, after having laid my hands on it, would make me crazy in my sane world. (This is like the movie Inception.) A Crazy’s world is sane to him. So him being crazy in his world makes him sane in our world, which would make him a traitor to his Crazydom, etc. Get it?
Why can’t the Crazies think strategically? This is a long topic. But here is a question for all of us. Can a leader of the Crazy achieve what US achieved after they dropped the nuke on Japan? Ask yourself what it takes to do what the US has done in Japan in the last many decades after WWII. Can Osama or someone like him achieve this? My gut tells me – NO. Something to think about.
It is a long war. There will be blood. And plenty of it. Death, destruction, and worse. But in the end Crazies will fade away and will be replaced by another set of Crazies. They are fighting against nature and they cannot win. That is the nature of Craziness.
