WEEKEND LIGHTER: Budget 2017-18
WEEKEND LIGHTER: Budget 2017-18
(February 4/5, 2017, No.5/2017)
Weekend Lighter is posted every Saturday
@mgwarrier.blogspot.in
Section III:Impact of Social Media
I
Opening remarks
In-House conduct*
From Rajyasabha (Upper House of
Indian Parliament) to Gram Panchayats, normal functioning is being regularly
obstructed for one reason or the other. The elections and having democratic
institutions will serve public interest only if legislative functions, in which
debates in legislatures have much to contribute, are allowed to proceed without
let or hindrance. These thoughts come to mind today in the context of
withholding of debates in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha on days following the
address to the joint session of Parliament by President and presentation of
Union Budget by the Finance Minister.
There is no denying that the issue
raised, namely inadequacies in handling of the situation arising after former
minister E Ahmed’s collapse in the House and later demise in hospital needs to be debated by both the houses of
parliament as similar situations in future can be handled more appropriately in
future, if lapses have occurred in this case.
What is objectionable is a pattern in
the functioning of legislatures which gives an impression that there is no
effort on the part of legislators themselves to ensure that the house
proceedings are not ‘skipped’ in the name of protests. Why not a Parliamentary
Committee go into the issue of conduct of business while parliament is in
session? The Committee could examine the possibility of:
(i)
A
consensus on completing the day’s business before other matters
are taken up for
discussion (Emergent issues or condolences could be exempted from this).
(ii)
Other matters of importance, like those now
raised through
adjournment motions or calling attention
motions could be taken up immediately after the business scheduled for the day
are over
(iii)
To
begin with, through consensus, give a gap or holiday for
running into the ‘well of
the house’ and walking out of the house as protest and use the entire time and
energy for debates on issues that come up for discussion.
M G Warrier,
Mumbai
*Copied below, the version published in The Hindu Business
Line on February 4, 2017
House
rules
Elections
and other democratic institutions will serve the public interest only if
legislative functions, in which debates have much to contribute, are allowed to
proceed without let or hindrance. There is no denying that the poor handling of
the situation after former minister E Ahmed collapsed in the House and later
passed away in hospital needs to be debated by both houses of Parliament in
order to learn how to handle such situations appropriately.
The
impression is that there is no effort on the part of legislators to ensure that
proceedings are not ‘skipped’ in the name of protests. Why doesn’t a parliamentary committee go into
the issue while Parliament is in session?
MG Warrier
II
Recent responses
Understanding the other side
This refers to your
editorial “Unfair demand” (Business Standard) January 31). The role of hard
cash in electioneering is again in focus. This time, unfortunately, a statutory
body responsible for monitoring abuse of cash in elections is openly coming out
making a plea that 'cash' should play a greater role in elections.
It needs to be clearly
understood that GOI or RBI are not standing in the way of candidates spending
'money' within the allowed ceilings. The limits for withdrawals are applicable
to cash withdrawals from single savings bank accounts and not on 'expenditure'.
These limits are, as rightly pointed out by you, to all citizens in India
across geographies.
A section of the media
is celebrating as if there is a tussle between EC and RBI, while both are just performing
their assigned roles within their legal and policy constraints. This was an
avoidable episode, if only the Election Commission had followed the practice of
consulting with the stakeholders (which RBI has been practicing religiously for
the last several years), before issuing ‘instructions’ using the constitutional
authority.
If statutory bodies
like Election Commission assert authority selectively and embarrass government,
problems they create will get resolved, but the wounds such actions inflict on their otherwise
creditable performance record will leave unforgettable scars. Mutual
consultations and effort to understand the constraints of the other side make
democratic processes more graceful and acceptable.
M G Warrier, Mumbai
III
leisure
Effect of social media on today’s society
M G Warrier
View : “Erasers are made for those who make mistakes.”
Counter view: “Erasers are made for those ‘willing to’ correct mistakes”
Quoted above is from the first mail I
read today and that was from my good friend Badri. Badri has a special skill to
select quotes which are not ‘controversial’. Here, the counter view doesn’t
reject the first view that erasers are made ‘for those who make mistakes’, but
just sends out a message that the ‘use’ of eraser is for those who correct
things the moment they realize that something has gone wrong. Badri says it is
all about ‘attitude’. Same thing about social media, or any media for that
matter!
All along, media, print, audio (you
have forgotten ‘Aakashvaani’, I
can’t!) and visual have been playing a positive role in educating society,
correcting policies and entertaining people. Side by side, there was abuse of
media for spreading rumors/scandals, destroying institutions, bringing down
governments and so on. We have heard a lot about ‘paid news’, leaks, use/misuse
of Right to Information by media for different purposes (both positive and
negative) and so on. Then what is ‘new’ about social media?
The present position of social media
is like, every individual who can use a mobile having a ‘political party’,
‘government’ and media (audio and visual) under her/his control, irrespective
of the person’s age, maturity, literacy level or even ‘soundness’ of mind. This
is an alarming situation. Think of a five year old using his grandfather’s
mobile and transferring funds from the old man’s bank account to an unknown
person’s account by just following the instructions coming on the mobile. Or I
getting a call from an insane person telling me that I should transfer a
particular amount to a particular account to save ‘X’ whom I know, but have not
been in touch for some time. It’s not just monetary. Abuse of electronic media
at various levels by miscreants for several anti-social purposes is on the
increase. And, believe me, we are not going to get law or regulations in place
which will provide a blanket
insulation from the harms this
monster can do in our day to day life. Still, there is hope and before
discussing options to minimize the possibility of our becoming the ‘victim’ of
frauds, let us examine the modus operandi of fraudsters in a couple of other
situations.
Till the end of last century, duping
people was a time-consuming activity. Remember the chit funds,
Multi-Level-Marketing schemes (MLM), IPOs, various discount offers,
installment schemes and other
money-multiplying activities in which some of us or our friends have lost
money. By and large, the cheats were identified fast through word of mouth and
losses were restricted to certain groups of people or some geographical areas.
But, crores went down the line in the recent ‘mobile phone for Rs251 offer’
several people across the world are losing money every day by responding to
phone calls or mails offering huge amounts against payment of ‘handling
charges’ or ‘initial expenses’. Most of the offers come through messages from
‘unknown’ entities. In the recent past, quickly following some reports about
fraudulent transactions using debit/credit cards, bank account holders started
receiving offers over the telephone to ‘insure’ card transactions against
payment of a ‘small’ fee. The promise from the other end of the phone was, once
‘insured’ any loss incurred by using debit/credit cards will be made good. It
turned out that there was no such real scheme.
Through social media, many things are
offered free. Use of WhatsApp for several purposes, I am told, is free
(Disclaimer: I don’t have a WhatsApp account yet!). When I am using a
mobile/internet connection provided by ‘Service Provider X’, a caller on behalf
of ‘Service Provider’ calls me and asks
me about the last monthly bill I paid for the mobile/internet services. First,
thinking that the call is from ‘X’, I answer some questions. Then, I am told
that the call is from ‘Y’ who will arrange for shifting my account to his
company, ’free of cost and without change of number’ after which I will be
paying much less for the same services I use. That is ‘marketing’ in the
digital world.
I have just keyed in some thoughts
that came in mind when I thought of social media. I know these are disconnected
and perhaps not relevant in many contexts. Perhaps I may try to edit this and
make something sensible when I am somewhat free. Till then, my request to those
who spend more than 2 hours a day accessing ‘social media’ (for this purpose,
traditional print and electronic media excluded) is: “PLEASE CHECK AND ENSURE
THAT YOU ARE USING COMMON SENSE THE SAME WAY YOU WERE USING IT DURING THE LAST
DECADE!”
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