Love Tracking

T1: But she was so hot buddy. Lets say it was love at first sight. I just want her name.
T2: I cant help you mate. I am sorry.
T1: Just this one time, plz. Count on me for your nxt two months' mob bills.
T2: Hmm... ok.. juz the name, right? Where did you see her?
T1: She was sitting in one of the cubicles in X1 cyber cafe. I even know the number of the system which she used.
T2: Brilliant! You made my task easy. All I have to do is get into the database of the cafe. There I will get details of every one who visited the cafe in the last one year, thanks to IT (Amendment) Act, 2008. Juz gimme a min...
T2: There you go. Going by the day, time and system id you mentioned, your new heartthrob's name must be Mansi.
T1: And..???
T2: What And?
T1: Is that all you can get? I thought you ll get me atleast her mob number as well.
T2: Dont challenge me buddy.... You wanna see what else i can get?
T1: yaa let see...
T2: Mob number is easy. Its already there in the cafe register. There you go 099xxxxxxxx. Let me see if I can get her UID from UID database. It should not be difficult. I have got thru their firewall like a million times!!
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T2: Yuppii....!!! Got it!! we have her UID. Now things are much more smooth man... Give me sometime and I will let you know how deep the rabbit hole goes. Let me see if I can take a peek at NATGRID using her UID. (National Intelligence Grid is a government initiative that targets to network 21 available databases across government and private sectors).
.......
T2: Buddy, take a look at this. Your queen seems to be having three bank accounts. She went to AA hospital twice in last one month but luckily the insurance cover took care of most of the expenses. There is another alternate number that she uses. And she has done a huge withdrawal yesterday using which she booked ticket for two to Singapore mate. So she is going somewhere. Lets see who she is going with. The airlines database link to NATGRID should help me there.
.......
T2: Yo, Yo... This is getting better. Hey man, do you want to know exactly where she is now?
T1: Wow, will you be able to tell me that?
T2: Ya dude. Looks like you are lucky. I can help you out in her case man. See the name of the person your Mansi is going with. It is Mohammad Hanif. The name is all I need man! I have a fake profile in CMS (CMS - Central Monitoring System is a centralised mechanism that can assist in lawful interception of communications from landline, mobile and Internet. Although it can be used only if there is a lawful interception law, it seems to have been tested recently without any lawful interception law in India). Using that profile, I will register Mohammad Hanif as a terror suspect. Adding Mansi as a co-conspirator, I can get clearance to track her as well. To hell with old methods of getting sanctions from the Home Minister and going to the communication providers for tracking. Now all i need is a reason to believe that one person is a potential suspect and her mobile becomes a virtual GPS for me.
............
T2: Gotcha!! Look at this place in google map. It seems to be the place from where the mob signals are coming. The location matches her address in UID. So this is where she is now. Hey, look her mob is ringing. You wanna listen to her?
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T1: I think I love her. Atleast I love her voice.
T2: Hey lover boy, that was not what I was thinking. Did you notice she said she was going again to the internet cafe?
T1: Ya, I was thinking of going there myself. I juz wanna see her one more time..
T2: What if I help you see her sitting over here?
T1: What:
T2: Yup. This cafe was covered under NTRO(National Technical Research Organisation develops technology capabilities in aviation and remote sensing, data gathering and processing, cyber security, cryptology systems, strategic hardware and software development and strategic monitoring) surveillance program. The whole cafe is covered with monitoring devices. Let me see if I can get access to those camera feeds.
......
T2: There you go! May I present to you, your own sweet, love at first sight lady.
T1: I was expecting a better clarity. I can hardly make out her face yar...
T2: This was installed by India govt. What did you expect??
T1: She is getting up. Hey, she is moving towards the rest room. Is there...
(T1 turns and looks at T2)
T2: (With a naughty smile)... Juz enjoy the show...!!!!
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 As you might have understood, i am a very bad story teller. I guess you might have also figured that telling a story was not my intention. Whatever i have mentioned here could happen to any of us. With so much of hacking going around, it will be a monumental task for the government to protect its database(its record so far is not very encouraging). 
It is an unfortunate fact that even in India, a muslim name could bring trouble to a person. Sad but true fact. 
There was a huge controversy in 2007, when one camera was found hidden in the restroom of NTRO office.

I hate Sainath

 Oh, I absolutely hate him. Every time I read an article by Sainath, it leaves in me a sense of anger, frustration and desperation. Anger at the blatant lies that he exposes. Frustrated about how the system is busy projecting a halo around itself while deep down every thing is rotten and festered. And desperation at me being just a mere witness, bawling a lot, yet doing nothing!

  I have, for the past few years, always felt proud when the numbers on agriculture production were quoted. From 2006 our agricultural production has been on the rise, and for the last couple of years, we have been setting new highs in total cereal production. In spite of everything they say bad about agriculture, at least something is going well, I thought. The pulse village initiative and the efforts to bringing Green Revolution to East India are showing some results. And with the increase in production, we at least have the food we need to feed our people. We should be much better off than the pre-reforms era, when we had neither food nor a way to distribute whatever was available, I kept thinking until this guy comes along with his numbers.

  With his uncanny ability to read between the lines and uncover hidden truths in the flashy statistics projected by the government, Sainath has once again come up with a beautiful article. He shows us how those records set by us in crop production are decreasingly getting translated to food at the hands of poor. Would you believe that at an average, a person living in the pre-Green Revolution era(1956 - '60) had access to more food grains than someone who is living today(2006 - '10)!!! No mate, its not the population growth that should be blamed here. Our food production has grown at a faster rate than population growth, meaning, per capita net availability of foodgrains should have increased, irrespective of the population growth. But we are witnessing a reverse trend.

  What is more disturbing is that this trend of declining net availability was not always the case. Till a certain period in Indian history, we saw an increase in the net availability. The Success of Green Revolution had made India a food excess state. And the increase in food production was indeed impacting the net food grain availability in a positive way. More food was now reaching our people and its rate was increasing. But then, come a particular land mark in Indian history, there is a sudden reversal! And ever since, quantity of food that reaches the people declined steadily; sorry fact is that it continues even today. No points in guessing the historic land mark; it is the economic reforms of 1991.

  We have all been made to believe that pre 91 era was a period where the policy aimed at 'distributing poverty'; where the burden of the poor was borne by the rich. And post '91 represents a period when the government allows the rich to get more rich, but a part of that richness will be utilized in up lifting the poor. 'Let the rich get richer, but the poor also should get better' was the thinking. Everyone knew that it was a folly. But even the most pessimistic would have thought that with increase in production and wealth, at least some of it would 'trickle down' to the poor. What better way than quoting the great journalist himself to show how wrong we were.

 "If production is rising, which it is; if the upper classes are eating a lot better, which they are; and if per capita availability keeps declining, which it does- that implies three things at least. that foodgrain is not getting to those who need it. That the gap between those eating more and those eating less is worsening. And that food prices and incomes of the poor are less and less in sync" - What a statement, sir! Ladies and Gentlemen, The king of Indian journalism- Take a bow

  The situation is to get a lot more worse. With the new policies on PDS, more poor will be kicked out out of the PDS.(It is a relief that the planning commission, after much 'research' found out that 2200 paise a day was sufficient to live king size. People who got kicked out are actually rich! They just don't realize it. Its more of a physiological issue, you know).  A universal PDS with a structured exclusion criteria is the need of the hour. Example of states like Andhra and Tamil Nadu stand testimony to this fact. But Indian think-tank decided that we are already spending too much on subsidies and so a universal PDS is not economically feasible. It is another matter that the cost for Universal PDS will be only a fraction of the concessions enjoyed by the corporate sector!! In a system where the policies are under corporate control, what else to expect?

  The government has started to realize the importance of agricultural sector. You cannot ignore the helplessness of the corporate sector here. If government want to project India as a 'destination-next' state, Indian economy must grow at a steady pace. If agriculture is neglected, then for GDP to grow by 7-8 percent, both manufacturing and services sector will have to sweat their heart out. At the same time, if there is even a 4 percent growth in agriculture, some 10 percent growth by manufacturing and services would ensure the targeted 7-8 percent overall growth. Hence government helping agriculture is a bitter pill that the corporate sector is forced to swallow. But is it too late?

 In the last decade ('91 -'01) close to 7.5 million people quit farming. This decade, the figures will be more disastrous for sure. Government has neither done enough to make farming profitable nor implemented any policies to attract youth to take up agriculture. It is important to increase the productivity and profitability of small farm agriculture. Attracting and retaining youth in farming is the greatest challenge faced by the sector and even in the present budget there is no provisions for the same. With the poor getting more poor, and government policies are only accelerating that trend. This is the grim picture of rural India that Sainath presents before us.

 A journalist becomes successful when he is able to convey through his words, the very raw emotions that he felt while writing them. The frustration and anger that I felt reading the article would have been first felt by Sainath when he wrote it. I am sure that millions out there felt the same way as I did. Even though it makes him one of the best journalist I have had the honor of following, I hate him still!!!