Transparency and Corruption

India completed 61 years as a republic. The main news in the news papers today is on corruption. It varies from smaller ones to mammoth scales.

Some of the recent news are disturbing.

* Newly elected CVC faces an old corruption charge and Supreme Court is considering if he is eligible for such a post.
* Former Chief Justice of Supreme Court facing grave accusations of corruption and he is currently Chairman of National Human Rights Commission
* The Dust of 2G scam still ongoing and scale of it is mammoth.
* Chief Minister of one state in India may get prosecuted for corruption.
* One state's Chief Information Commissioner suspended being part of corruption (Link Here)

But on the same time we read the news.

*Finance Minister saying Government cannot reveal names of people hoarding black money.(Newslink Here)

And some of the other news are affecting those who fight corruption.

* Dr Amar Nath Pandey, a Right To Information (RTI) activist, was fired at and injured in Uttar Pradesh yesterday Jan 27th (Newslink Here)
* Yeshwant Sonawane, Additional District Collector of Malegaon was burned alive while trying to act against oil mafia.

Think of those who are on the side of poor and afflicted.

* Dr. Binayak Sen sentenced to Life Imprisonment on very flimsy grounds and ignored his impeccable service to the poor in Chattisgarh (News here)

This calls us to be vigilant and to fight more to expose corruption and to work towards bringing more transparency everywhere. I do believe technology coupled with RTI especially websites and Web 2.0 technologies can drive it more.

Let us not forget

* The sacrifice of Manjunath Shanmugam, an upright officer who lost his life in fight against oil mafia in 2005.

* The sacrifice of Satyendra Dubey who paid with his life two years ago when he blew the whistle on corruption in the Bihar stretch of the Golden Quadrilateral project.

Yes, it is time to resolve that, we will be on the side on transparency, truth, poor and against corruption whatever be the cost. Also let us resolve that we will continue expose darkness and light a candle to spread light wherever we are. Be willing to say that we will not pay a bribe whatever be the cost. If you like to involve, I would suggest report cases on bribery or to upload your city/states 'citizen charters' for various departments to 'I Paid a Bribe' website.

LibreOffice and Republic Day

Happy Republic Day to all of my fellow Indians! As we celebrate freedom and remember the day Constitution of India came to effect, let us remember multiple aspects related to this freedom.

People like Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, the father of Indian Constitution who later decided to exercise his freedom to practice any religion of his choice and converted to Buddhism. He reminded us that no one is born in to this world with a religion, but accepts one religion or other when he/she grows.

Selfless service of people like Graham Staines who left his home land to serve poor people of India and cost of such love to a forsaken people.

The Supreme Court of India, which expunged some remarks relating to conversion and Graham Staines work and upheld the essence of constitution

The freedom of religion we have here in this land when many other lands gone through numerous challenges to freedom.

Just a day before we celebrate Republic Day, The document foundation announced LibreOffice 3.3, new fork of popular free OpenOffice.org, thus declaring freedom of choice in matters of software options outside the grip of software corporations.

New features of LibreOffice

LibreOffice 3.3 also incorporates all the new features of OpenOffice.org 3.3, such as new custom properties handling; embedding of standard PDF fonts in PDF documents; new Liberation Narrow font; increased document protection in Writer and Calc; auto decimals digits for ‘General’ format in Calc; 1 million rows in a spreadsheet; new options for CSV import in Calc; insert drawing objects in Charts; hierarchical axis labels for Charts; improved slide layout handling in Impress; new easier to use print interface; more options for Changing case; and colored sheet Tabs in Calc.

Yes friends, let us celebrate freedom in the world of office suites!

Securing Linux/Ubuntu system

Happy new year to all.
The above article deals with securing Ubuntu. (Click on the title or here)

Father, Son and His Friend

Again ..from CSF email list..Please do read

After a few of the usual Sunday evening hymns, the church's pastor slowly stood up, walked over to the pulpit and, before he gave his sermon for the evening, he briefly introduced a guest minister who was in the service that evening.
In the introduction, the pastor told the congregation that the guest minister was one of his dearest childhood friends and that he wanted him to have a few moments to greet the church and share whatever he felt would be appropriate for the service..
With that, an elderly man stepped up to the pulpit and began to speak. 'A father, his son, and a friend of his son were sailing off the pacific coast,' he began. 'When a fast approaching storm blocked any attempt to get back to the shore.
The waves were so high, that even though the father was an experienced sailor, he could not
keep the boat upright and the three were swept into the ocean as the boat capsized.the old man hesitated for a moment, making eye contact with two teenagers who were, for the first time since the service began, looking somewhat interested in his story. The aged minister continued with his story, 'grabbing a rescue line, the father had to make the most excruciating decision of his life: to which boy would he throw the other end of the life line.
He only had seconds to make the decision.The father knew that his son was a believer and he, also, knew that his son's friend was not. The agony of his decision could not be matched by the torrent of waves. As the father yelled out, 'I love you, Son!' He threw out the life line to his son's friend.
By the time the father had pulled the son's friend back to the capsized boat, his son had disappeared beneath the raging swells into the black of night. His body was never recovered. By this time, the two teenagers were sitting up straight in the pew, anxiously waiting for the next words to come out of the old minister's mouth.
'The father,' he continued, 'knew his son would step into eternity with Jesus and he could not bear the thought of his son's friend stepping into an eternity without Jesus.. Therefore, he sacrificed his son to save the son's friend. ' How great is the love of God that he should do the same for us. Our heavenly Father sacrificed his only begotten Son that we could be saved. I urge you to accept his offer to rescue you and take a hold of the life line he is throwing out to you in this service.'
With that, the old man turned and sat back down in his chair as silence filled the room.
The pastor again walked slowly to the pulpit and delivered a brief sermon with an invitation at the end. However, no one responded to the appeal. Within minutes after the service ended, the two teenagers were at the old man's side. 'That was a nice story,' politely stated one of them, 'but i don't think it was very realistic for a father to give up his only son's life in hopes that the other boy would become a believer.'

Well, you've got a point there,' the old man replied, glancing down at his worn bible. A big smile broadened his narrow face. He once again looked up at the boys and said, 'it sure isn't very realistic, is it? But, I'm standing here today to tell you that story gives me a glimpse of what it must have been like for God to give up his son for me.
You see... I was that father and your pastor is my son's friend.

William Wilberforce, A Role Model

William Wilberforce ( 1759 – 1833): I am sure this name may not be familiar with many today. He is my role model as a politician. He was a British parliamentarian and is credited to be behind abolition of slavery in entire British empire including India in 1833. He became a Christian in 1785 and sought guidance from John Newton, former slave trader (who decided to follow Christ by then). As per Newton's advise Wilberforce continued in politics and took up causes like fight for the abolition of slavery based on his Christian conviction, His conviction was so indepth, so that spent his whole life for that purpose.

What a model to follow?

When I look at corruption all around in India, I feel we need politicians of this caliber and conviction. I wish more evangelical christians in India to have entered politics. I never heard many names apart from Vishal Mangalwadi who worked with BSP for some years.

Pirated to Free - Way to Ubuntu

If you consider switching to Ubuntu (Linux for Humans!) which is ofcourse free (free as in free salvation, some one else paid the price with their time and effort), be sure to read the switching guide from Microsoft Windows. The link for the guide is here.

Advantages of Ubuntu over Windows

• You save money as Ubuntu is free
• Ubuntu is stable (Think of virus in windows world and understand there is no 'reliable' virus in Ubuntu....Free virus vs. Virus free world)
• Ubuntu is open
• You can make copies of CDs and give to your friends too
• Community will help you
• Open office which will replace Microsoft office is free too!
• And many more..

But it needs one thing...Your willingness to try out and learn little bit :)
Wish you happy linuxing..and freedom from piracy

Corruption In India - I Paid A Bribe

View image | gettyimages.com

I was in US for a short time and surprised how straight forward the system works there. No one dares to bribe a DMV officer who is checking vehicles on road, but willing to pay $100, $525 or even double the amount in double fine zones. I thought about it and then read "Truth and Transformation : A Manifesto to Ailing Nations" by Indian philosopher Vishal Mangalwadi and understood what made western countries different and how even they are losing that differentiator over the years.

I was thinking about my country, India. Beloved former president Abdul Kalam made many students take pledge 'to say no to corruption', but I do not see changes in ground over the years. Then I came across 'ipaidabribe.com' and liked the initiative, though it may be limited to few cities and now in Bangalore. Yes, it is a very good start, let us give thumps up and try to clean-up our little backyard and our own influence circles. What we can do ? Decide not to pay bribe. If possible, question policies, Put in internet the actual process to follow, expose corruption, use licensed softwares, encourage upright officers and many more.

IT for India - UIDAI

When it comes for IT for India, that is the real India (note that most of the times that India is not shining, but goes hungry or neglected to die in winter cold), it is imperative that computers can bring transparency in systems or bureaucracy. UIDAI (Unique Identification Authority of India) attempts that. Here is an article quoted from Forbes (click here) describing how the worlds largest data management project taking shape. I hope more patriotic Indians will join to help these kind of initiatives instead of wasting their time to increase the profits of western billionaires or billionaire companies by another few more million or billion dollars.

Fruits

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law." Bible

Ubuntu - A alternative to Windows. Thinking Loud!

IT in India (and thus IT for India) was always a concern for me. After about 7 years, so it was exciting to come back to work in that area. Yes, I do believe that time to work and improve productivity of companies outside my homeland come to an end at least for now. In this new role, one thing which striked me was the extent of pirated softwares in Indian homes and small offices. That set me thinking if there is any alternative. Many says TINA (There Is No Alternative). Microsoft softwares is too expensive and my next door computer vendor is happy to install pirated software and advise me to forget it then.

Is there any real alternative? Yes, is the resounding answer.
Linux is the open source implementation similar to rock solid Unix operating system. Over many years, Linus's effort to make a free alternative is reaching the maturity in terms of ease to use for the common man. One of linux implementation is Ubuntu (supported by Canonical) and the latest version is 10.10 (released in 2010, 10th Month).

Over a month I am using Ubuntu and very happy with it and I hope more people will switch over to Ubuntu over time or pay for (as against pray for not to get caught) their softwares to Microsoft. Any one serious to switching over to Ubuntu, I am ready to help as well :). Happy spread of IT in India for India. I believe that rural india yet to completely enjoy the advantages of technology.