Review of Bhuvan

Bhuvan, the purported Google Earth killer, is out. But far from being a killer, as of now, it hardly has any legs to stand on its own.

A quick, dirty look at a familiar place was more than sufficient for me to convince myself on which mapper to use the next time I need to look up some India-related map. Below is the screenshot of Oasis Mall in Bangalore from the two mappers (I used Google Maps for comparison, which is the web-app version of Google Earth):

(click for larger image)

(click for larger image)

As can be seen Google Maps wins hands down. I know that some people will say that this is the early release and future versions will have even higher resolution images. I know that's true to an extent, but I am not very hopeful. ISRO already has the highest resolution data available with itself and doesn't need any funds to purchase it from others. If they indeed had hi-res versions of the images, they could have already put them online. The fact that they didn't makes me wonder if that's the best they could come up with. Surely the geographical surveying technology of ISRO will improve over time, but I don't expect big changes anytime soon. While it is still possible that Bhuvan has the hi-res images with itself, but doesn't share them with general public for reasons of national security, it hardly matters to the end consumer like me.

This brings us to the topic of national security. Apparently Bhuvan censors many military, government and aviation centres for reasons of national security. I find it laughable because Google provides those very things freely available. Google has also, of late, restricted hi-res images of some government/military establishments on request of Govt. of India, but even that is cosmetic. These images are still available at the public data sources from whom Google bought them. And banning them in India also won't be sufficient because the biggest terrorist threat India faces are from across the border.

The search functionality of Bhuvan also leaves a lot to be desired. In order to find a city, you should ONLY enter the city name, and can't provide additional details as qualifiers. For example, search for "Bangalore, India" and "Bangalore, Karnataka" all lead to 0 (zero) results. I hope they fix this issue soon.

The actual navigation window (I am pretty sure there is a technical word for it) is delightfully responsive and refined. Did I mention that Bhuvan uses licensed version of TerraExplorer (a commercial software) for it. Unfortunately it works in only IE6+. For a regular website, I would have expected a faster roll-out of browser support, but again, this being a government website, I am not too hopeful of early roll-outs. There is a tricoloured globe on the top left corner of the navigation window, which is kind-of neat, but clicking it makes the earth fall off the screen!

The registration process is also painful as they require to fill up a big form up-front with all fields mandatory, including your postal address, designation and company you work for. They don't require phone-number now, but going by their privacy policy, they have it covered just in case they start requiring it in future. And did I mention that neither their registration form nor login form is secure (https). They know it well and acknowledge in their privacy policy that such information may "pass through other countries". They do say that "DOS/ISRO/NRSC will take reasonable and prudent precautions to ensure that your personally identifiable data is protected against unauthorized access, use, or disclosure." Isn't providing secure access 'reasonable'?

And just in case you are not comfortable with any of it, you can mail them directly at bhuvan@nrsc.gov.in. Unfortunately they haven't mentioned what they can do with the personally identifiable information you provide them by email (just that they will 'store' it). They do use cookies, just like most sites, and suggest that "For more information on cookies, you can point your browser to http://www.cookiecentral.com." (Yes, they think that by writing in white on white background, they have achieved something smart). And just in case you want to provide feedback to them, you have to provide it for Website Design, services, Performances, Database (Quality, Content, Volume, etc.) -- All field mandatory!

The patriotic organization they are, they also have a Hindi version of the site. The Flash introduction is in English, and shows a Mercator projection of world map zooming past the surface of a globe which we are supposed to assume is the Earth! Even if you do count the English version flash as a working feature, apart from it, nothing works. Absolutely nothing! There are no links, and even the login form is dummy. Oh sorry, one link works: The one that takes you back to the English version of the site. Thanks-a-lot!

But hey, I might have missed out on the 'true' purpose of the website. It provides a vast amount of data on temperature/rainfall/wasteland/watershed/soil/etc. I tried about half a dozen weather stations for temperature/rainfall data, and they resulted in no available data. I had better luck with wasteland and waterbody data where each reporting centre threw up a dozen or so numbers relating to statistical analysis of the land/water body. Soil erosion too threw up half a dozen numbers. One advice: Don't turn on Soil Erosion Layer if you ever intend to do anything other than check for soil quality. Apparently they have so much data that every pixel results in some soil data often shadowing other things you might have been interested in. The other layers (state/city/roads) have been pretty average but show potential for improvement. And while Bhuvan starts with the whole globe, there is hardly any data for non-Indian locations. This might have been intentional. They don't want anyone to use Indian government resources to learn about other countries. That said, they have gone extra length to provide artificially blurred images for non-Indian locations. Image quality would have been better from a handheld digital camera taking pictures from moon. I am waiting for their project manager to find out that Bhuvan engineer(s) wasted precious working hours blurring images about countries nobody cares about. They are sure to lose their seniority when the promotion-season comes!

Get offended

The last few years have seen numerous cases of people getting offended for weirdest acts of crime; be it the offense over Ravi Shastri eating beef, Richard-Shilpa kissing, Saching cutting tricolor cake, or even Narayan Murthy playing National Anthem musical. There are many more cases of these kind, but the ones listed above are definitely representative of the ones dominating public memory. While the first one was seen as offending religious sentiments, the second one was about culture and the latter two were about national symbols. What is peculiar about these cases is that not only is there no hint of intention to cause offense, but the offense reported seems to come more out of the insecurity and inferiority complex of the people getting offended. What else can explain people getting offended on a thing like cutting a tricolor flag. I love my motherland, and if I had independently come to know of a person cutting a tricolor flag, I would have admired his love for India.

But the people directly involved are also not the only ones to be blamed for this. Unfortunately, our socio-cultural upbringing lays more stress on looking up to the west than being pride of our own culture. So when we see a person aping west by eating beef, paranoia reaches its peak as we start feeling insecure that someone our own has deserted us for the west; ditto for an Indian women receiving a kiss in public. Also since we look down at our country's past when compared to the west, we are again quick to take offense at something remotely offensive. Something that happened in 2002, should have actually taken place in 1947.

Moreover, it should be the intention that should count and not the end result. There are many things we see and experience regularly that would technically amount to religious (or national) blasphemy if seen with a different perspective. When a potter or sculptor makes giant Lord Ganesh statues for Ganesh Chaturthy, they have to invariably step on the chest (or sometimes the head) of Ganesh to make it perfectly. When Diwali arrives, every other local newspaper publishes a full page Goddess poster which ends up in the waste paper bin or the raddi-trolley. Ever visited a primary school? Just see the children singing the National Anthem and you will start rolling listening to the mistakes they make. Think yourself as perfect? Just sing the Anthem yourself. If it is even a second longer or shorter than 52 seconds, it would be my pleasure to sue you. Of course, there is a good possibility that once that I have pointed these out, some people would have already begun their hunt to get offended.

The only way I see out of this to start taking pride in our own culture and stop teaching our children that we Indians are inferior to our western counterparts. What was started by the British to save their crown seems to have been dutifully followed by our countrymen even after independence. While nearly all developed countries do official business in their native language, India still clings to English.

Interestingly, I quizzed myself on what would come next: the BIG thing of taking offense. My search did not last long. Ladies and gentlemen, I present you this video to take offense to.



Needless to say, this video is an insult to our country. Not only does it distorts the way our National Anthem is sung, it even has regional dialects thrown in. What is more, this one has big names involved (Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle, A R Rahman, Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, and many more), enough to get you good publicity if that is your sole motive. Grab this opportunity before someone else does.

I can hardly wait to see a news coverage on this video controversy.

New India-Version 2020

Just a few days back, I get a mail from a Yahoogroup that identifies itself as a word that translates to "Developing India" and asks for me to join. It plans to make India developed in the coming 20 years and the groups mails are filled with action words.

This is something that almost all Indians who have web presence can identify with. We all are bombarded with mails urging us to join the crusade to make India a developed country within a fixed time-frame and asks to to contribute by joining their discussions. Just like in the past I have graduated from forwarding all forwards to judiciously deciding the relevant information mails, I believe for the last one year, I have also graduated from such groups.

Well, forwarding junk and spam mails is definitely wrong, so it is understandable that one should mature enough not to forward all the "Send this to 100 people and your secret heart-throb will propose to you tomorrow" mails. But achieving India's progress...isn't it good to participate in such discussions...and contribute to India's progress.

Not quite...and here's why I think that your patriotism is misplaced. These groups belong to one of the following categories:

The All Gas Variety: This is one of the most common type of group that you will find promoting India's progress. They will have a standard welcome mail that describes their vision and ask you to join them if you conform to their vision. But unfortunately, they will only serve as message boards where people will post latest political information by cutting and pasting them from well-known websites. Most of these groups' usual mail then slowly drifts from these issues to the new "mahamantra" of some obscure god/philosopher and how it can change your life. Occasionally, someone will try to revive the group by starting a debate, but as soon as the debate dies, they will go back to their usual self.

The Soapbox Variety: This is less common than the above mention one. These groups will also have a well defined charter and vision, but they will also have something more. They will have public speakers of the Uma Bharati's class. That is, whenever any new story about India comes up, they will start posting pages after pages of their dissection of what happened and what ought to happen. As such groups usually have more than one firebrand orators, debates start over who's ideas should be accepted. Seeing these debates, you will usually remember the husband wife joke that goes like this:

Husband says: "In my family, I take the major decisions while my wife takes the minor decisions. She decides which school my children will go to, what they will eat, how will we spend the budget, etc. while I take the major decisions like should India suspend trade ties with Pakistan, should US invade Iraq, etc." It must have been clear by now that they try to act like the husbands.

The Misplaced Patriotism Variety: This is the sort of variety that most of them try to reach. While some do, the logic that whem one wins a rat-race, one is still a rat holds. But why do I say that they have "Misplaced Patriotism"? The reason will be clear once we understand what these groups actually do. One of the most common features of these groups is the aggressive feature with regards to issues concerning India. Be it injustice meted out to someone, or some political parties political moves. First they will criticize them and reach a consensus on criticism, and then they will hold demonstrations in the capital cities for this cause. They also take on the system by organizing signature campaigns in their support and advertising them aggressively. Many a times, they do succeed in getting the attention of courts/media, etc. which result in a relook into the case in consideration. Upbeat by their victory, they become even more aggressive in their future campaigns. The story looks alright and seems like this has always been you idea of a dream group that will steer India ahead. Isn't it? Most of you will say yes, but I disagree.

There are two analogies that I want to draw here. The first analogy is that of a million drops filling an ocean. These groups are like one drop that will fill the ocean one day. But which day...it is not clear if it would be anytime soon. Just try and visualize that if a faucet drips water continuously, theoretically one day it will fill the ocean, but practically it will not. The second analogy is of bicycling on a muddy road. If you have got the experience, you will remember that for going ahead by them same distance, you will have to exert a lot of force to do it.

The India today is like this muddy road. By working hard to go ahead, though will make a progress, but that extra distance that you go ahead will not be worth the effort you have put in. So instead of bicycling, you ought to clear the mud first. President Abraham Lincoln once said: "If I were given 6 hours time to cut the tree, I will spend the first 4 hours sharpening the axe." This is the most important lesson that these groups forget. They have been trying to cut the tree with a blunt knife, they have been tackling the symptoms and not the disease. Do these people think that just because one person got punished for his bad deeds, others will get scared. The answer to this is overwhelmingly loud NO. These groups will continue to work on fever while there is no stopping of the virus.

What needs to be done is creating a consensus among people on what should be the direction they want India to proceed, and then educate the masses to work for that mission. This is not that easy as this sounds. Those of you who have been following my blog would remember that long time back I had written an article on my vision of developed India. I had named it part one because I thought that I will write more. In fact I did wrote more, but just before publishing, I found that all my writings have been targeting the effect and not the cause. Unlike the first one that clearly stated its aim to get the desired effect, the aim of my subsequent posts was doomed to be lost in the bureaucracy of modern India, even if being taken up. All my work clearly lacked a well defined and achievable goal, with stress on the word achievable. This is why I held up writing those posts, all of which I scrapped today as worthless.

So what needs to be done? Is there any way?

We all keep cursing the work of government offices and envision a developed India where there are a lot of competing private sector companies giving us best quality services. I will give you the shock of your life. In India, it is not possible for a elected government servant to favor capitalism. Why? Because our constitution envisions India as a 'socialist' state. A food for thought for all of you:

In order to change the way things happen in India, we have to counter laziness and abuse of office. The best way to fight is to privatize as much as we can (note that I am not saying completely). So why not start with our constitution? Don't you think that we should first privatize our constitution....first remove the clause that envisions India as a socialist state? Don't you think that this will sharpen our knives a little....by at least allowing us to think Progress.

Think Developed India.

Economics for Idiots

Till the time I passed out from my CBSE affiliated school, Economics was taught as a compulsory course for two years. But looks like in the good old days this was not the case. I am discounting the fact that either none of the policy makes of CBSE had ever studied in CBSE affiliated schools or they never took their economics class seriously, and am hoping that this is not a blunder. But the fact remains that the recent CBSE directive that requires all CBSE affiliated schools to provide free education to a single girl child and equivalent concessions to multiple girls without any provision of compensation to the schools does not make any economic sense. Moreover, it is all set to hurt most whom it was meant to help, that is single girls.

While the schools have already formed a group and filed petition seeking to quash this order, it will be interesting to note the implications of this order, if it gets implemented.

The first option that many schools are contemplating is to switch either to ICSE or some other board. I believe that only those schools will opt for it for whose students fees is a major concern and a marginal increase in fees would mean changing schools or dropping off, i.e. loss of business (as after all, establishing schools is also an example of entrepreneurship and money matters). This is because such a switch would be a blow to school's reputation and credibility.

Let us now have a look into the schools that will stay with CBSE and implement its directive. Let's first get rid of the trivial case of boys' schools that will continue to function as usual. Now let's consider the case of co-educational schools. These schools will definitely conclude that in order to retain its students, they will have to keep a higher percentage of risk-free students, namely boys. They would also have to counter the psychology of boys' parents that making them studying in co-ed school will be costlier as compared to an equivalent boys school (considering that the cost of education is proportional to the quality of the education in the absence of such economic incentives/disincentives). So the co-ed schools will have to do more than enough to tackle this problem. Hopefully for them, the plight of girls' schools will offer them a way out. This will become clear after we take a look into the economics of running a girls school.

The girl's school will unarguably be the hardest hit. It will be highly foolish to think that the schools will try to absorb the deficit owing to their already premium fee structure, as some sections of the society feel. Even a simple hand calculation shows that the cost per student will show super linear growth and for moderately high percentage of single girls, it is a rectangular hyperbola. For example if in a girl's school (urban), there are 35% equivalent single girls studying, it will translate to a 54% increase in fees that will have to be paid by the rest of the students. From a girl's parent point of view (those who will not benefit from this scheme), the economic implications would be drastic and they would be forced to admit their wards in co-ed schools, which will openly embrace them owing to their own economic considerations. The reluctance of such parents to allow their children to continue in girl's school would mean the problem of girl's school compounding as the quality schools will be flooded with admission applications from girl's parents cutting across economic spectrum.

In plain English, girl's school will have an economic disincentive to admit or to continue with single girl students. One doesn't have to be an expert in Economics to conclude that if an incentive exists, it will be exploited. Consequently girl's schools will device ways to keep off single girl child students. On the admission front they would be discriminated heavily against. The most effective way would be to introduce interview basis of selection, as the decision on the basis of written tests can always be challenged owing to the deterministic nature of written tests. Even those students already inside the school will face discrimination, enough to force them out or provide some 'defense'.

Imagine you are a father of a single girl child and are seeing your child being discriminated against. Naturally you would want to provide some protection for your child. This logically would be an undertaking that you will not claim the aforementioned benefit from the school if your child is admitted/allowed to continue in the school. Definitely this will be implied not explicitly asked for by the schools, as doing it openly would invite prosecution on the basis of discrimination. The schools will also not forget to add a little milk to the coffee so that it doesn't get too dark. The schools, of course are not idiots and don't even need an article like this to implement such decisions.

Let us now talk about the lower economic strata of society for whom this directive is originally meant to address. Most of such girls study in government schools, which will definitely not discriminate against them. But in such societies, the proportion of single girls is nominal. Even most of the single girls are so by chance as their parents get prepared to welcome another child in their family. Incidentally having another child won't affect them. If the next child were a girl, they would still get an equivalent of one girl's education fees waiver. On the other hand, if 'fortunately' it is a boy, it will not be reported to schools. Even if the school authorities find it out, which teacher or principal (whose priority is education of the masses) will cancel such waiver knowing that the parents are already burdened by the expenses of another child and an additional burden of a girl's fees may result in her dropping out. So in most of the cases, they will also remain mum. In reality, all this economics won't even reach out to the rural population for whom, an additional child means an additional working hand. Education unfortunately has a trickling down effect, not a trickling up effect. Whom does this directive propose to benefit is unclear, as it is clearly against single girl child. Boys on the other hand have nothing to loose if they keep safe distance from single girls (i.e. join boy's schools).

Vision For A Developed India-Part 1

This is the first article on the series that I will be writing on my ideas of progress for India.

In this first part, I will concentrate on the Tax Regime.

As we all know that the Income Tax Regime in India is a failed regime. On the first hand, not even 10% of the people who should come under the net pay their taxes. If I remember correctly, the figure was in fact 4%. Apart from that, even for people paying the taxes, things have never been easy. First is the outrageous feeling that what they earn is being forcibly taken from them. And second is the hassle of filing an Income Tax return, and the guilt of lying for many. But when it comes to hard-earned money, who wants to part with it. So as it is a problem for both the government and the population as a whole, it should be scrapped!

In the first look, it seems like an outrageous idea. A big part of government revenues is generated by the Income Tax. Doing away with it will cripple the government's finances. So we must have a way to keep the balance, and in fact for being tempted to change over, the new regime should be at lest twice as better. What I propose as solution is: only indirect taxes should be levied. Here's how it will work.

The biggest problem for the government is that many people who should pay their taxes don't do it honestly. Either they grossly under-value their earnings or not even pay their taxes. The way the judiciary works, people know that its very easy to come out clean. Instead of this, if there are only indirect taxes, those who should, will be forced to pay it. For example, the government can have very little (or naught) tax on agricultural goods like, wheat, rice, sugar, etc. This way the daily laborers who earn only to get a square meal a day can be exempted very easily. On the other hand, the government can adopt a differential taxing policy for different products. For example a higher tax for the lesser basic needs like common electrical appliances (bulbs, tube lights, etc) and a higher for bigger luxuries (mobile phones, TVs, etc.). It will be up to the policy makers to decide what is more luxurious; And mind you, debating this is far more easy than debating whether a particular person needs the subsidy or not. This way, the poor people, with lesser purchasing capacity (for example those living on rotis, onion, milk, etc.) can be exempted while those living on McDonald's French Fries can be taxed suitably. If this system is put into place, more than 80% of those who should pay taxes would be paying accordingly. The rest 20% (a guesstimate) will be those who either by some means will get their products for lower prices or the industries which will not report their profits completely.

Once this system is put in to place, the workforce of the Tax department can be deployed more effectively to look into the industries making it difficult to fake the figures. Also, there would be no hassle for the government for keeping track of tax benefits like purchase of NSCs (as there will be no tax on their purchase) and to those extended to poor farmers, widows of army personnel, etc. Obviously a person who goes to multiplexes won't need tax exemption for it.

Also, there can be differential taxing policy for different regions depending on the need (like air-fare can be taxed less in the north-east).

Another big advantage would be that this system would be psychologically easier to handle. People don't make too much fuss when the many goods are taxed even over 100%, but cry if 2% educational cess is levied.

So far so good, but this system also will have its faults. Let's take a look into them. Firstly, we run the risk of losing the grip on black money. As there won't be any income tax return to keep track of how much a person earns, the amount of black/illegal money will increase in volumes. For this, what seems to be a viable idea is that people should fill in their income returns (please note its NOT Tax returns). This way the Tax Department will have a knowledge of how the money is flowing if they want to conduct raids, etc. Also, for the general population, it won't be a big problem as unless they have black money, of which they can't report the origins, they can fill the returns very easily and honestly. They would rather use their minds on choosing the lifestyle that suits best their need.

The next problem will come from the corporate world which would fight to make its products as less taxable as possible (to boost the sales). But a panel of economists won't have much problem in arriving at conclusion as to what level of taxes are suitable for the particular product. As the number of industries is far lesser than the number of individuals, they can be brought easily under the tax net and taxed for their profits. Any ambiguity can be resolved as and when encountered and even media can play a big role in highlighting whether their is any discrepancy in the taxing policy.