The Rot Within

Corruption stories abound. No area of public life has been spared. Ketan Desai, Chairman of Medical Council of India (MCI) was recently caught for accepting 2,00,00,000 from a Punjab based medical college for allowing medical seats.

If MCI takes bribes for allowing medical seats, what is wrong with Medical colleges asking for huge fees and accepting bribes?

If Ketan Desai is accepting bribes, I am sure he must have paid a handsome amount to land the appointment as head of MCI in the first place.

The question is who appointed him as president of MCI?

If India has to make progress, the rot within has to be stemmed. Because corruption allows those with money and without any merit to corner opportunities and those with merit are deprived of those opportunities.

Another Update on Forest Land Issue in Mumbai

Recent reports appearing in newspapers suggest that the Supreme Court has called for a list of affected parties.

The Central Empowered Committee has arrived at a formula for allowing the buildings on forest land to stay.
This is as per four categories.

1. Flats constructed before June 22, 2005 @ Rs 8 to 12 per square feet.
2. Builders who have completed construction before June 22, 2005 but have yet to get occupation certificates @ 8 to 12 per square feet x 5, that is between 40 to 60 Rs.
3. Builders who have undertaken commercial/factories and residences for redevelopment @ Rs 8 to 12 x 10, that is 80 to 120 Rs per square foot.
4. Builders with pending construction plans @ 8 to 12 per square feet x 20, that is 160 to 240 Rs per square foot.
   

Once the data is supplied to the court, people can expect relief after paying afforestation charges as the government has already accepted the recommendations of the Central Empowered Committee.

Dirty rotten scoundrel

I can see him in my rear view mirror, riding his two-wheeler and honking away to glory. He zigs and zags through the traffic trying to cut through. As he draws closer, I notice his mouth swollen and filled with pan spittle. A large vermilion mark is sported on his forehead. Now I see him and now I don’t. But I can hear him honking some where behind me.

His helmet is safely locked at the rear of his vehicle. He tries to cut into a car from the right while entering the subway but gets blocked. The horn goes blaring, I am still ahead of him.

On the straight now, I notice that he has finally over taken me and stopped at the signal. A traffic cop stands below the signal, noticing not only him but a host of others who are not wearing the compulsory helmet. He chooses to ignore them and looks the other way.

Meanwhile he has taken the first place below the signal and is waiting to rush through. But what is this, he wants to go right and he is in the left most lane. I suddenly see him drifting into the left lane right under the traffic cops nose. A stream of spittle hits the ground as he empties his mouth and as the signal turns green, he scoots to the left virtually cutting across traffic.

Dirty rotten scoundrel and he is not the only one on the streets of Bombay.

BMC Officials run the Slum Racket

Recent report in Times of India points to BMC officials being involved in aiding and abetting slums in Bombay.

This should not come as a surprise to anyone, least of all the residents of Bombay.

In a recent conversation with a senior police officer, he remarked, that the Crime Department of the police is actually involved in Crime, similarly the Social Service Branch is involved in Gambling and Prostitution or giving protection to these rackets run all over the city. The Economic Offenses Wing extracts it's pound of flesh from White Collar crime reported to it. Often, case property is divided amongst the players at various levels.

The slum report goes on to detail how the whole racket operates. How migrants come to occupy the slums and live in sub-human conditions and how locations are later converted to commercial use by greasing the right palms.

What is the remedy for such crime?

Why do I call it a crime? It is a crime against all other residents of the city who pay taxes and contribute to the city. Slums on the other hand are a drain on the city. Electricity is stolen to light these houses, water connections are pilfered to supply water to people living in these slums.

All these slums are an encroachment on government or unprotected private land. Government officials along with local corporators, ward officers, et all contribute to mushrooming of slums. They hold more than 60% of the total population of the city pegged at 150 Million according the report published in Times of India. Therefore about 90 (9 Crore) Million people live in slums. If for each slum the average occupancy is 6 persons, then there would exist around 15 (1.5 Crore) Million individual slum homes.

If you take an average transfer rate of 40,000 for creation of a slum home, it would translate to 600 Billion (60,000 Crore) rupees that have been generated from these slums. All this money has been distributed amongst the players ranging from the ward officers, local corporators, local politicians, goons and the underworld.

No wonder no one wants to rock the boat.

These slums also serve as vote-banks for the politicians that have been instrumental in creating these slums in the first place. They provide protection from various government agencies to the residents of the slums who in turn use their votes to keep the leaders in power.

The slums are also result of zoning rules and development rules created by the same ruling class. These rules create artificial scarcity of land by capping the floor to space index (FSI) and creating green zones, coastal zones and a plethora of other rules to reduce land supply. On the other hand they acquire land from their ill-gotten money and reduce to available land for housing. This drives up the land price and in turn house prices. Slums thus indirectly allow the political class to hoard land with the money made from slums.

One solution to the problem could be a radical re-look at FSI and DCR (Development Control Rules) imposed on the city. Another solution could be to dis-enfranchise the residents of all encroached land. This way the politician will not benefit from the vote-banks that they now depend upon and are instrumental in creating in the first place.

A more severe solution would be death penalty for corruption. But then who will bell the cat?

Your comments are invited.

Read the Times of India Report Here

Real Hustle

Yesterday, I went shopping in a mall near Mira Road in suburban Bombay.

My daughter had purchased a garment which she wanted exchanged. Once that was done, we entered Archie's a gift shop located on the ground floor. Here we selected a photo frame and as we were about to pay our way out we noticed a sudden commotion near the payment and packets counter.

On inquiry we learnt that someone had absconded with a bag belonging to another customer. Normally this would be a mistake and the customer would come back and take his right bag but this turned out to be a con job. Here is how it was committed.

The con artist was tailing the group of women who had made a purchase from Croma (an electronics store on the first floor). These women had purchased two mobile phones. The thief had made a purchase of a cheap headphone from the same store at the same time. He ensured that their packing bags were of the same size and type. Once this was done he started tailing his target. The target entered Archie's and handed over their bag for safekeeping and security purpose, the thief did the same. The shop provided both the people with tokens to claim their parcels on the way out.

This is where the con artist used his skills. As soon as he saw that the target group was exiting the store he rushed over to the parcel counter and presented the guard with his token at the same time as the target group did. He then confused the gurard by pointing to the wrong bag and claiming it as his own. As the guard was holding both the tokens and as was being badgered by the con artist to do his job quickly, he handed the bag containing the mobile phones to the con artist.

He disappeared in a jiffy leaving the target with a bag containing the cheap headphone.

You could be target of such a real hustle and may lose your belongings. Be aware and beware.

ICICI increases Home Loan rates

While RBI pumped 1000 Crores of liquidity into the banking system to prevent credit squeeze in the market, ICICI bank has quitely increased rates on home loans by 1% for old and new customers.

RBI's actions should have resulted in decrease in interest rates as key bank rates have been lowered to increase liquidity in the banking system. In effect banks have more money to lend now than before the rate cuts.

Some banks have lowered their home loan rates for loans less than 30 Lacs by 0.5%.

The question is Why is ICICI raising rates in a market where rates are headed in the other direction?

The answers (all speculations) could be;

ICICI wants to deliberately become less competitive thus pushing new customers to other banks in an environment where risks have increased due to imminent fall in real estate prices.

ICICI wants existing customers to close down their home loan accounts with them. This will serve multiple purposes.
One, it will make the bank earn money in foreclosure charges.

Second, the bank will get back it's money which is now at risk.

Third, falling property prices (estimated fall of 30 to 40%) will not hurt it's balance sheet in the mark-to-market norm of accounting.

All along ICICI bank has been saying that they are very liquid and people have no reason to fear of any problem. It's actions seem to suggest otherwise.

You be the judge.

Sachin crosses another landmark

Sachin Tendulkar overhauled Brian Lara's record of highest scorer in Test Cricket.

For a person who has been on the field for 19 years this is no mean achievement.

Critics abound and have often questioned Sachin's abilities of delivering under pressure. What ever has been said or written will never be able to over shadow the fact that Sachin is indeed one of the greatest batsmen who have graced the sport.

An Indian holding the record makes all of us proud.

May Sachin go on to conquer all the milestones that remain in record book.

My heart swells with pride to have witnessed such a great sportsman.

Living on borrowed time

If you had access to money at 2% interest per annum what would you do?

Borrow as much as is possible and enjoy your life to the maximum. Buy stuff that you don’t require and spend on cars, holidays, parties and purchases.

You would buy all the things that you always wanted to buy and hope to pay off the loan over a period of time. As you were a US citizen, you would be sure to enjoy the highest standard of life while being sure that you would have a steady job that would allow you to pay off the loans that you had taken. You would live beyond your means.

The world would salute you as a consumer from a nation that makes the factories of the world run. The world would lend you its own money to sustain your consumption and spoil you for choice. You would not have to bother about saving any money as countries across the continents would be lending you their savings in the hope that you buy from their factories. When you want some more money, your bank would support you by in turn borrowing from the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve would just print the dollars that the banks needed to lend to you. The banks would in effect live much beyond their means too.

And to prop your habits of living beyond your means, the Government would float another scheme of printing more dollars. 700 Billion to be exact to start with and keep printing till your life was restored to the same level of comfort that you always enjoyed.

And one day the countries that were lending to you would realize that all the dollars that your government gave for purchasing the commodities from them were worth nothing but just pieces of paper that said ‘In God We Trust’. Your government would then never be able to prop up its own currency as even God would not have any trust in the paper that was printed by the Federal Reserve.

Is this the situation that you want to be in?

The young generation will shout Why the Bloody Hell not! Who has seen tomorrow anyway?

But the laws of economics have a strange way of catching up. When supply increases, demand increases. When supply of money increases, prices increase. Goods and services become expensive. There is unmitigated inflation. Bread costs millions and prices change by the hour. You see paper that is not backed by any asset has no value.

Do you see this scene repeating in India?

Well all the indicators point to such a scene replaying in India. Supply of money has increased by leaps and bounds. RBI along with the Government of India is doing the very same thing that US did; why not copy the model that is so successful at raising standards of living eh?

Property prices have increased by 300 to 400%. Commodity prices are on an upward march as are the salaries. But are savings also increasing?

Government of India is happy with the advance tax that it is collecting. It fails to realize that tax is being paid from the increased money supply that has hit the markets.

Till such time that people wake up to the problem, we are all living on borrowed time.

Time to switch to 10 Hours a Day 4 Days a Week Work Pattern

With rising fuel prices many organziations world over are thinking of switching to a 10 hour per day and 4 days per week routine.

Maybe it is time for India to do that too.

By compressing the working hours into 4 days, organizations can completely cut off the consumption of petrol and diesel. Government offices can remain closed during the weekend starting from Friday.

By changing the working hours, the stress on the public transport system will get more evenly divided. With the banks and other commercial establishments like the Stock Exchanges working only partially anyway, their working days and hours need not change. Therefore you will have government staff reporting to work at 8 a.m. instead of 9 and leaving at 6 p.m. instead of 5.

It will require some changes in the way the public transport system works but I am sure it will be well worth the saving that will ensue. There will be other benefits too, like cleaner environment with their being less pollution, better utilization of available resources, community development due to more time being available with people etc.

But the saving will come only if the burden does not shift from the corporations and governments to the individual. In the end if the individual ends up consuming the same amount of petroleum resources then no purpose would have been served.

But it is definitely an option worth pondering.

Are you ready to shred some money?

In 1976 when my father quit the Indian Navy to join Britannia Sea Foods, his salary was 1200 per month.

We moved to Malad, a suburb of Mumbai and bought a flat for 39,000 having an carpet area of 450 square feet. This worked out to 85 rupees to a square foot. In terms of his salary it worked out to approximately 3 years of salary spent towards owning a house.

Out of this 1200 rupees, my mother saved 600 every month after meeting all expenses of sending three children to school. We never had a shortage of anything in the house.

As we grew, prices and salaries began to rise.

Today it is common to meet a fresh graduate who is earning 20,000 a month doing a call center job in Malad. Property prices are in the region of 6000 to 9000 rupees per square foot. If he was to buy a similar property that my father purchased he would have to shell out 44,21,250 ruppes for the same house. In terms of salary this would translate to 18 years of salary going towards purchasing the property. Thus if price parity was to be maintained the call center employee should be receiving a salary of 120000 or property prices should not have exceeded 7,20,000 in 2008. Neither of this is true.

Therefore it can be safely concluded that either the property prices are in a bubble or salaries are much below par. We all know at if a call center employee was to receive a salary of 1,20,000 per month, then the job would not have been outsourced to India in the first place.

In the above calculation I have taken a median price of 7500 and multiplied it with 590 square feet (adding 31% for super built up factor which builders charge for now a days).

Even if I consider that the call center employee was married and had an earning partner with an equal earning capacity, it would still take 9 years of their combined salary to pay for the same house.

Why has this happened?

It would be interesting to read this article on www.inflationinindia.com to find your answer.

And after that you should be ready to shred all the cash that you have because RBI is not going to do it for you!

Mumbai is in Danger

Whether you call it Bombay or Mumbai, recent reports suggest that by 2018 most of the city will be under water on a daily basis as and when there is a high tide.

Earlier this scenario had been predicted for the year 2090 but recent measurements of increase in sea level from global warming effect suggest that the flooding will happen much sooner than expected.

Wanton destruction of mangroves, reclamation of land and thoughtless development will ensure that most of the prime property will be under water in the next 10 years or so.

High tide measurements suggest that water levels during high tides have risen rapidly by 30 cm in just 3 years. If this trend continues Mumbai (Bombay) will be under water every day beginning as early as 2012. Strom water drains that are designed to take water away from the city are already flowing in the reverse direction. And if it rains, water will continue to remain on land flooding it because storm water drains will need to be closed to prevent sea water entering the island city.

But the powers that be will continue to sleep over this problem till it becomes impossible to manage. Vinod Khanna's of the world will continue to buy property at 1,28,000 per square feet oblivious of the fact that the building they are buying property in is soon going to be marooned.

Politicians will continue to flout all environmental protection laws to fill their own pockets.

And then one day, all will be lost under water.

But we will continue to live till that day in collective amnesia of the impeding problem. We will find comfort in the fact that there are almost 20 million of us who are facing the same problem and someone will definitely do something before the issue becomes unmanageable.

Well good luck to all of us.

How ABN Amro and Other Foreign Banks including Indian Private Banks cheat customers

When you take a personal loan from any Foreign or Indian Private Bank including ICICI, HDFC, Kotak Mahindra, please be sure of the fact that they have decided to cheat you right at the very outset itself.

When you take a loan, you are given a cheque which is normally dated for the second or the third week of the month. By the time the money is in your account, it is the end of the month.

And as per agreement executed by you, the bank is now ready to take back the first installment. This is where the cheating happens.

First, the bank does not give you the full amount of the loan, deducting the processing charges at source along with the service tax and all other levies.

Secondly, the bank takes back the first installment in the first week of the month that follows the disbursal date. Therefore in effect you are paying back the bank interest on the entire amount within 7 to 10 days of getting the loan.

This is a standard sharp practice deployed by all the banks other than nationalized banks.

With nationalized banks you may face a delay but they will never cheat you. Do you know why? Because promotions in Nationalized banks are not linked to returns generated by an individual. Whereas in MNC and Private Indian Banks, fresh MBA's are hell bent on increasing the profit of the bank in the hope that they will be able to climb the ladder of success faster, and they do!

KV Kamath takes home 10,00,00,000 per month as salary, how is that for success! He also holds stock options in the bank that he is heading. Do you think the owners of these banks pay these salaries?

If you said yes, you are completely wrong. It is the customers of the bank that make it possible for the company to pay Mr. Kamath the salary quoted above. And what does Mr. Kamath and his team do? Find new ways of cheating the customers that are paying for his salary!

The Loot is over

For 24 Years, Private and Foreign Banks such as Citibank, Standard Chartered Bank, ICICI, HDFC, HSBC, Kotak, ABN Amro, GE Countrywide, IndiaBulls, etc. have flouted interest rate regimen and looted the people of India in the guise of giving soft loans at exorbitant rates of interest.

These rates have ranged from 20% to as high as 80% all in the name of unregulated interest regime allowed by the Reserve Bank of India.

As an association of people utilizing credit from these banks, we have been petitioning RBI to stop this practice of giving usurious loans to unsuspecting people. We have staged countless demonstrations in front of these banks and have maintained constant pressure on the RBI since 2003.

Under the able leadership of Mr. Vijay Kamble and the hard work of his team CCAI has been finally successful in getting the monolith RBI to take note of the problem plaguing the system.

RBI has now pegged the maximum rate of interest at 18% per annum diminishing. What this means is that if your loan is at any other rate, you can have it reduced to this rate as anything more than this is considered usurious by RBI.

We are seeking a similar reduction on credit card rates too and very soon you can expect relief from high interest rates there too!

CCAI has been working tirelessly since 2003 for protecting the exploitation of the general public at the hands of MNC and Private Banks. Join us in our fight against the heavily biased banking system that favors the bank and penalizes the common man.

Call us now!

Credit Consumers Association of India
3/141, M.H.B. Colony, Ram Mandir Road,
Kher Nagar, Bandra (East), Mumbai 400051
Tel: 91-22-26474857, 26471908, Email: ccai.mumbai@gmail.com

Flat Buyers Unite...

Today a report in Times of India talks about Builders uniting and forming a cartel to keep real estate prices artificially inflated till Diwali. The reason being citied for such a move is that the builders have purchased their land at very high prices and will suffer losses if they chose to reduce prices.

What a lot of horse shit! Who told them to go and buy land at such prices? Property prices have risen by 300% all over the city making it extremely difficult for a middle class family to own a house. Coupled with very high interest rates ranging between 11.5 to 12.5% per annum, the middle class can only dream of owning a house.

A 800 square feet flat costs 24,00,000 in distant Mira Road. On top of this the stamp duty and registration charges further inflate the price. Builders are illegally selling open and covered parking spaces too! For a final price of 27,00,000 you will get a loan of 23,00,000 and at 1200/- per lac per month the installment would come to 27,600/- This should be 40% of your take home salary, meaning that you should have a salary of 45,000 per month. You have to pay this installment for 20 years and if you opt for floating rate of interest, it would mean that the 20 years can easily stretch to 23 or 25 years.

It is therefore time for the buyers to unite and boycott purchase of any property that is expensive.

How do you decide what is expensive? Typically the best of construction costs 1200/- per square feet. Given the variable of land cost and allowing decent profit of 30% a 800 square feet flat in Mira Road should cost about 2300/- per square feet. Therefore a fair price for such a flat should be around 18,40,000 and not more. Please be aware construction costs vary between 550/- per square feet to 1200/- per square feet, therefore for a unscrupulous builder there is still a very big margin to play with.

Buyers should decide to wait out the sellers and only purchase flats when prices become reasonable. For example a flat is Vadodara is being sold @ 1275/- per square feet. Obviously the seller there too is making money! Why such high costs in Mumbai? Reason being greed of the builders who have bought land left-right and center in the hope of selling the same at a hefty profit but now their plans are coming undone. It will be very interesting to watch as the situation develops.

Relief for Forest Land Flat Owners

People owning flats on so called forest land can heave a sigh of relief.

According to reports appearing in most of the newspapers today, Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh has assured the flat owners that the state government will be filing an affidavit in the Supreme Court accepting its mistake of not notifying the forest lands acquired by it and delaying the mutation of the land records.

The Chief Minister has assured that flat owners / builders will have to pay a fine of .70 to 1.40 rupees per square feet of their flat area as penalty to regularize the flats. Therefore, if you have a flat measuring 1000 square foot you will have to pay a minimum penalty of 700 and a maximum of 1400 rupees to regularize your flats.

This money will be used for creating forests at an alternate location.

Also other plots that were acquired for forest purposes will be allowed to be constructed upon as relief to those plot owners who did not benefit from the errors of the government.

Mumbaikars can travel to these forests to breathe fresh air!

Such a peaceful day...

Yesterday (22nd April, 2008) the Auto Rickshaws were off Mumbai's roads. It was such a peaceful day driving around. It almost felt that the city had gone to sleep.

I could get from home at Mira Road to my office at Dahisar in 10 minutes flat. There were no traffic snarls at the Octroi Check post, no traffic at the toll naka and absolutely no waiting at traffic signals. In fact the traffic signals were put on the blink as there was practically no need to control the non-existing traffic!

All this was in protest against the State Governments decision to implement Electronic Meters in Taxi's and Auto-Rickshaw's. The drivers and owners do not want to have anything with this scheme. They say it is an unnecessary financial burden. The real reason may be that they will not be able to tinker with these meters once installed. I am sure there must be a host of companies that would stand to benefit it the decision was to be implemented.

I am also sure the common people would also stand to benefit it this decision was implemented. The Government is tasked with the responsibility of protecting the interest of common people, but then which government has actually done this!

It would be such a relief if these ugly tripeds were to disappear for ever, but that is wishful thinking. I am sure, bus travel would be cheaper, safer and environmentally better if the scrounge was to be removed from the suburbs of Mumbai.

People complain about rising prices but when it comes to them, they do not think about walking to a nearby destination but chose to jump into a waiting auto-rickshaw.

Anyway, other than Mumbai, Pune and some other parts of Maharashtra, the auto-rickshaw's and taxi's do not follow any meter system at all, therefore it makes no sense to insist on electronic meters in the first place.

Dear Chief Minister, please ensure that people charge by meters first before thinking of taking the next step of going electronic!

Why buildings on Forest Land in Mumbai should go.

In 1956 Government of Maharashtra reserved land in Mumbai for forests and acquired private lands adjoining the National Park from private parties. What it failed to do was to amend the land records changing the user and purpose of the land so acquired.

The same land was then sold once again by the owners to private builders. Therefore logic says that the land owners were very much aware that their land has been acquired and classified as Forest Land by the government of Maharashtra. They thus committed a fraud on the builders and developers who acquired these plots of lands. It goes without saying that most of the so called builders and developers must be aware of the status of these plots as it is their profession's calling to ensure that they develop on land that is free from all litigation. But, because they had a pliant bureaucracy at their disposal and the cost was peanuts, they decided to take their chances.

Today more than 500,000 families risk losing their homes due to the sharp practices of builders and acts of omission and commission of the local governing body. This is because of the ruling against such buildings given by the Bombay High Court.

The question is should these buildings remain or go. As this directly affects the future of 500,000 families one would take a sympathetic view of the situation and seek some kind of regularization of the buildings. But does such an approach do justice to the other residents of the city? Should the government not punish the original land owners who committed a fraud on the builders and developers? Should the builders and developers not be punished for constructing even when being completely aware of the fate that awaited such development?

My take on the issue is that all these buildings should go. The builders and developers who constructed on such deemed forest land should be penalized by asking them to provide free housing of the same size to the affected residents. Government should provide land at alternate place for such development free of cost and residents should not be asked to pay for the cost of construction.

Forest land should be restored. If the government takes the above route, it will send a strong message to all people concerned. Builders and developers will be forced to take a hit on the massive profits they have made at the cost of the state and no one will ever dare to break the law.

The suggestion of the government of date of creating forest elsewhere in the state is a futile suggestion. Then why not use the entire National Park for housing and create forest some where else Mr. Chief Minister?

One good deed begets another

Yesterday while returning from Bombay Central on a local train home I noticed a gentleman standing next to me who was holding on to one packet too many.

Often I have been in a similar situation and have regretted consolidating my belongings into one handleable package before boarding the train. And I have always ended up with pain in my arm and shoulder.

I decided to help him out by giving him a plastic carry bag from the collection that I normally carry with me.

He was pleasantly surprised and in a gesture of his appreciation he gave me a pack of two DVD's. I told him that he need not do that, but he insisted.

Neither of us knew each other nor it is likely that we will ever meet again. I don't even know his name nor does he know mine, but the simple act of doing good does still yield good results.

In school, we learned that in our day and on a daily basis we should do a good deed. Boy scouts would do their share of good deed and add a knot to their scarf leaving us in an envious position.

But we don't need to be boy scouts to help anyone.

So, go ahead, do your daily good deed and life will often surprise you.

Woman V/s Woman

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times (with apologies to Charles Dickens) for women in India.

For the first time in the history of independent India, a woman was about to be elevated to the post of president of the country. After a bitter fight to this high office a woman was elected to the office of the president of the country. The main opposition did not spare any effort to tarnish her image in the press and went to town about how this person was not at all qualified to become the president. The main party stuck to its guns and it had numbers in its favor thus they cooked a snook at all the slander that went around and ensured in a typical give-n-take (with the Communists) managed to bring a woman as the 13th president of the country. It was the best time for women of India.

Parallel to this was the sad development of a highly decorated and capable women officer being denied her due as the top cop of the capital city. Here was a women who is not only most decorated but has succeeded in every position that she has been assigned to but also has one of the cleanest image in the annals of police history. She was conveniently passed over by the same party that went to town about promoting women power. And what did the opposition do, it just sat there and twiddled its thumbs. It was the worst time for women of India.

Tragically both the stories unfolded almost simultaneously in the capital of the country.

What answer do you have to this Madam Sonia Gandhi

A building comes crashing down

In a recent man made tragedy, a seven floor building came crashing down in suburban Bombay. This happened essentially due to the shop owners allegedly tampering with the load bearing structure of the building in an attempt to increase their floor space of jewelery showroom.

The tragedy led to the death of 30 residents and left more than 20 grievously hurt. The death toll may increase as some of those injured lie comatose.

In Bombay, most of the buildings are co-operative societies where the ownership of the building is jointly held. Members carry out renovations and modifications to the structure without taking proper permissions and without doing mandatory structural stability test prior to their actions. They forget that they may be renovating their own homes but when the building comes crashing down, they too will meet the dust.

The need of the hour is for everyone to understand that 'We may have arrived on different ships, but we are in the same boat now" (quote from unknown source).

Wake up ye people of the city before it becomes your final sleep. Wake up ye local governments and other regulatory authorities before the city is reduced to a heap of rubble.