Bye bye 2010 - Welcome 2011

I don't want to start new year with pessimism, but the event in 2010 are yet to conclude, which will keep the excitement going into 2011. We may see more new promises from Congress, to fulfill in 100 days (it was a movie too b.t.w.). On the other hand they may be hoping that no other new scam should emerge. On personal front I hope that the banks like Standard Chartered, which boasts having 150 years presence in India will actually fix their malpractices of befooling Indian citizens. We saw some action happening on education front and Right To Education finally became law. But what are we doing to reduce the burden on kids, who are already loaded. Mr. Sibbal will anyway focusses on larger initiatives, getting more educated teachers is not on his priority list. More later... 

Never..Since the European and US markets are going to be down for at least next 8-10 years, Chinese know that if they have to make revenue through exports, India is the market where they can dump anything they want to.
Due to internal politics, we are not able to promote our own industries & Chinese know this fact very well. That is one reason, we Indian citizens can not afford local made costlier products, and have no options but to go with the cheaper Chinese products. Many of us even don't know the ingredients, chemicals mixed with them. We should only accept relationship offer from Chinese, when they stop their acceptance of PoK (just like they want Indian government to recognize Tibet.

China wants to become 'mutual friend' of India, Pak: China Daily

Who had stolen my idea

I had posted an idea on Learning Management System (LMS) being hosted a SaaS offering as LotusLive [http://rishibhargava.blogspot.com/2008/02/integrating-lotus-learning-management.html] - but apparently, some senior folks had other thought and they had converted this as BizTech projects and I was not even informed and again as usual, it comes to only YOU as an individual in an organization and others will just ride on you.

FixMyRoad.in - Idea of a social website for citizen's grievance about Indian Road infrastructure

Every Indian citizen knows that Indian Road Infrastructure is 15 years backwards than most of the advanced economies. Two years back, I came across a Web Site titled : FixMyStreet (Great Britain) and I liked that idea and concept. I know, many readers may feel that it is local municipality, corporation, state governments, central government, national highway authority of India's responsibility to fix the road. But imagine how much private sector and to a large extent public sector companies will benefit from the good and drivable roads:

1. Public opinion is alert to find fault but, since it finds fault with almost every-thing, public criticism fails to count as it should. A sharp, clear discussion in our schools, at least once each year, of what constitutes a good road, of what material it should be made, and what it should cost and who can build it most economically, would in a few years give us a public opinion that would do much to insure efficient road makers and efficient use of public money in building roads
2. Motor Vehicle and Life Insurance Companies will have to shell out less as claim amounts (which currently run into several crores or rupee/year (because of lesser accidents)
   
3. Lesser bio fuel consumption (hence oil marketing companies may not like it)
4. Lesser wear tear of the vehicles and that may actually bring the cost of vehicles down.
   
5. Good road will also allow lesser traffic congestion, good public health (dust free - hence lesser breathing related diseases)
   

I have even started educating my son on the importance of having good roads. Now, when my son sees a bumpy road in Bangalore - he tell me that road construction folks have taken all the money and did not fix it.

I also want to implement the similar citizen portal where people can contribute the following:

1. It should be available to all the citizens of India.
2. People can register themselves (via some verification mechanism)
3. They can upload photos of the roads in their locality along with the details like when the road originally constructed (if known), last time it was repaired, material used during road building, phone numbers of Junior Engineer (PWD), Assistant Engineer (PWD), Contractor's name, phone numbers, photo etc.
4. The locality/town/city wise reports will be sent to district magistrates for their review and copies of hte same to state PWD and central PWD, road & transport ministries.
5. Allow people to discuss the problem
6. Get the updates from respective authorities on tentative dates, cost of the road/patch work etc and post it on the site
   

Now, I have the idea and many more (which http://www.fixmystreet.com/ is not offering) - is it worth patenting :-) ). Probably not..It is a social cause. I want to make it happen, but I could not get help from my organization (as such social causes does not come under their purview). In that case, how can I go about doing it..I just don't want to start it as a blog - but want to roll out as citizen's portal, which represents Indian Public. I liked Jaago Re's campaign during 2009 assembly elections in India and I want to emulate them..but, I lack the funding, infrastructure and team to do it...Any volunteers, please contact me @ 9008176536.