Dr Rebello: A crusader or crank?

Whether he is a crusader against corruption or a crank would depend on what Team Anna  and our TV channels make of  Dr Leo Rebello , of  Kandivili East  Mumbai.  Must confess I hadn’t heard of him till this morning,  when I happened by in my Inbox  a chain-mail that I had neglected to delete the night before.

I notice that among other recipients of the mail , addressed to the chief election commissioner, were the President, PM, the chief justice of India, the law minister, and the cabinet secretary.
Subject matter:  voters right to reject candidates,  and recall elected representatives.  Something that is close to Anna’s heart.

I wonder if,  and when,  Team Anna  gets re-constituted  Dr Rebello would find a place in it.  After all,  he is as much a constituent  of  civil society as  Ms Kiran Bedi and Mr Arvind Kejriwal are.  I am sure Mr Anna Hazare  wouldn’t reject Dr Rebello merely because he happens to have  a mind of his own (however disagreeable) on the right-to-recall issue ;  and because, he  thinks that its enforcement would be a costly and meaningless exercise.  But as crusader against corruption Dr Rebello’s credentials appear indisputable.  He has a combat record spanning over two decades.  His turf,  like that of Anna Hazare, has been Maharashtra.

Anna, I reckon,  could use all voices that he can mobilize,  in  getting the govt. turn their hearing ear (as distinct from the deaf ear) to the plea  for enactment of a Lokpal Bill. As for  his crusade against corruption  Dr.Rebello’s  reputation is best summed up in Outlook (Oct.2, 2000) – The corrupt might Have the run of the town until they catch his eye.  It might be of particular interest for  RTI activist Kejriwal and his Public Cause Research Foundation to learn that Dr Rebello made effective use of MRTP Act to bring to book a gas distribution agent who gave LPG connection only to those who bought accessories from him.

Dr Rebello’s current concern is to counter Anna on the right-to-recall issue.  In his e-mail Dr Rebello seeks an invite  to make a power-point presentation before ECI and an all-party conference on electoral reforms.   I guess it takes much, very much,  more than a chain-mail circulated through ‘SBIcitizen’ Yahoo Group to mobilize public support for Dr Rebello’s plea.  I don’t know how photogenic he is,  but he can be given a try at a TV talk-show. With help from  Arnab,  Rahul,  Rajdeep and their likes,  Dr Rebello  too can become the flavour of drawing-room chats, as Ms Bedi and Mr Kejriwal have.

‘Jai ho’, Jairam, but will he survive Adarsh ?

I don’t see it coming down -  the 31-storey Adarsh block of flats in Colaba,  Mumbai . Chances are,  the building would survive the minister who has ordered its demolition. Not because the environment minister Jairam Ramesh is not right in ordering the demolition, but because he is not being  politically correct in doing what he did .  And the way he has gone about doing it – ordering demolition – without apparently consulting cabinet colleagues or the high command isn’t going to endear him . with even among many of his own party people.   Snag is doing what is right is not necessarily the correct thing to do.

I don’t know why Mr Jairam Ramesh has to be so damn right ; why he should be so obsessed with rules and procedures.  Who  does he think he is, Mahatma Gandhi ?  I reflect here the sentiment expressed  by a  NCP leader  and Adarsh beneficiary  who said,  “Ramesh is trying to be the new Mahatma Gandhi “, adding  “it seems there is no bigger scam in the country than Adarsh’.  The man is right. The environment minister has  to look no farther than the in-tray on his office desk . He would find a file marked  ‘Lavasa’ .  And, in the box-office of scams  CWG and 2G Spectrum promise to be mega serials.

Adarsh symbolises Mumbai’s tallest scam,  with the distinction of having flouted virtually every rule in the book.   The 31-floor  residential building wasn’t meant to be so tall, in the first place. It was flogged as a welfare project for allotment to the Kargil war widows. But, as it turned out,  the beneficiaries included  the mom-in-law of the then CM of Maharashtra, the then urban development department secretary,  several other state government officials, politicians, and senior defence personnel.

The Adarsh apartments are located on the same streatch in Colaba as the Taj at Cuff Parade and the Ambanis Seawind building.  It is a locality  where a two or three bedroom apartment costs anything between Rs.6 crores and Rs.8.5 crores.  And the Adarsh allotees paid  no more than  Rs. 60 to 85 lakhs  for a sea-facing apartment. What is more,  many bureacrats paid for their flats with housing loans generously advanced by some nationalised banks.

‘Adarsh’ , a Hindi term meaning  ‘ideal’,  hasn’t violated legal provisons ;  it has defied the law.  The authorities who processed the files at various stages of land transfer, construction and completion of Adarsh housing unit aparantly did little to ensure that the housing society got the clearance from the enviornment ministry. Did they try to get the clearance and fail ? It appears they didn’t even try; nor, it seems,  did they consider such clearance  necessary. Compliance of rules and procedures are for lesser beings, not for the Adarsh folk.

A Juhu mechanic and Shekar Kapur’s Blackberry

I have a grouse against  Shekhar Kapur.   He hasn’t named  in his blog the hole-in-the-wall mechanic in Juhu, Mumbai, who fixed his Blackberry.  Those accustomed to the gadget can’t live without it.  Mr Kapur, unable to find a service centre that could repair his handset, was on  way to buy a new one when he spotted a fading signboard that read – ‘Cellphoon reapars’ -  at Juhu Market.  On impulse,  he stopped the car in front of this 6′x’6′ hole in the wall,  to ask the boy minding the store,  ”Can you fix a blackberry ?”

‘ Of course ,  show me. What’s wrong with it ?”

‘Well, the roller track ball does not respond.  It’s kind of stuck and I cannot operate it”

He grabs it from my hand and looks at it – “You should wash your hands. Many customers have same problem. Roller ball get greasy and dirty, then no working”

To cut a longish post short,  the film-maker had his Blackberry fixed  within 10 minutes, while an authorised service centre guy had reckoned it would take a week – his Balckberry had to be sent to Bangalore for fault assessment and repair.

Mr Kapur’s post evoked  97 responses .   Col. Hanspal, Bangalore,  had this to say -  ‘In my restaurant I have an uneducated19 Year old Buhari dish-washer, who can strip any Nokia Phone,  make all sorts of download arrangements, very conversant with blue tooth and thorough with the Applications…”

Anshuman Acharya who blogs at  Bland Spice : ” Reminds me of the  makeshift electrician who repaired my inverter in an hour,  after the  company gave me a quote ten times higher and a time-line of few  months ;  still running after a year”.

Subhash Bhojwani recalled his road trip in 1972 when  “the broken gear lever retaining cap in my Fiat 1100 was fixed by a roadside  mechanic in Chitoor, while I was on way from Madras to Hyderabad . . .the young man re-engineered the …broken part within an hour, including the screw threads, …. (with)  well worn electric lathe and a hand held file. …it worked  till I sold the car 3 years later”.

Vivek Mundkar referred  to Bunker Roy’s Barefoot College in Rajasthan  where they teach the unlettered rural folk  skills in dentistry, solar engineering, computer repairs…. They get no degrees , but what they learn helps  improve their lives” .

Gaurav :  “When  my laptop’s power adapter broke down all the  well known dealers said there was no solution ; asked me to buy an adapter. A mechanic at a local repair shop used the jugaad technology to fix  my adapter..”

Rohit Mishra, computer engineering student in Vellore, and  blogger -  Moving Ahead :  ” If only we can get our  infrastructure right and provide  opportunities to compete,  to all, all sections of India can flourish”.

Murugan,  a Sydney-based finance professional , and blogger – Theta @ 4Hz :  “Around 30-40 million entrepreneurs –  a huge majority of them financed by their friends and relatives –  not through the regular financial  system. …. Now that you have written about him , Mr Kapur, how about going back to him and help expand his business? “

IPL semis shifted to Mumbai

IPL chief Lalit Modi (statement on the change of venue for IPL semis to Mumbai):  Current environment in Bangalore prevents us from continuing with our original plans.

Karnataka home ministe V S Acharya:  It’s wrong if the shift was for security reasons…some forces did not want the matches to be held in Bangalore.

DGP Ajay Kumar Singh:   Saturday’s blasts at Bangalore’s Chinnaswamy stadium were not terror attack….no need for public to panic or heed to rumours.

Chief minister B S Yeddyurappa:  Blasts outside the stadium and subsequent detection of crude bombs were minor ones….Bangalore is a secure centre…our police are capable of handling any eventuality.

(Police claimed that 3-tier security was in place ; and anti-sabotage check had been done (prior to the blast). They had deployed a 1000 cops, and 600 more came in  after the incident.)

Karnataka State Cricket Association president Srikantadatta Narasimharaja Wadiyar cited BCCI president Shashank Manohar as saying,  ‘IPL forced to shift venue as an extraordinary measure keeping in mind the players and public safety.

Varied voices confuse,  rather than clarify anything.  The photo on top of this post, though meant to reassure us, wouldn’t encourage me to go anywhere near the cricket stadium for the next few days,  let alone join a crowd to watch a match there.  They may make the stadium secure, cent percent.  But at what cost ? My sense is that such heavy police bandobast  for IPL  comes  at the expense of the overall policing of the city.  Wouldn’t it  send a signal to mischief-makers ?  Make some other parts  of  Bangalore city vulnerable ?

Question is : Can we afford to lock in so much  policing resources in a city on a single sporting event ?  IPL isn’t exactly a non-profit. Being a multi-millon dollar enterprise ,  shouldn’t IPL spend some crores on upkeep of its own security force ? IPL can’t justify  police deployment on a significant  scale by saying they pay for the police bandobast .