Mistaken Identity

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Airtel, Lakshmana Kailas

A recent story that caught my attention , as I am sure, it did of many, many people was that of Lakshmana Kailas. This Bangalore based techie who works for HCL had to spend 50 days in jail because of mistaken identity.

The supreme irony was that two days after he returned to Bangalore, Airtel – the company responsible for the blunder -got in touch. But it wasn’t about the arrest. They sent him a text message reminding him to pay his bill. The text message was followed up by a visit from a collection agent. “I told them it’s all because of you that I haven’t paid,’’ says Lakshmana. “We can’t pay bills from jail.”

Shocking to say the least. Don’t large companies like Airtel have a sense of responsibility? Nothing they do can wash away the hardship and humiliation he faced.

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Silence Cell Phones

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, cell phones

Many years ago, in a Politics class, our Professor ( Clarence Motha) used to say: ” We live in a democracy. All of us have freedom. I have the freedom to swing the umbrella in my hand. But my freedom ends where the tip of my umbrella meets my friend’s finely-chiseled nose”.

An interesting article in the New York Times speaks of effective, though, illegal means of silencing loud cell phones around you. We see people speak loudly and forcing their conversation on others in all kinds of places. I have seen people almost shouting in to their cell phones in hospitals, in places of worship, in movie theatres and in airplanes even as they land.

You have the freedom to speak but must I be compelled to listen?

Indian workers and the Left

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Indian workers

There seems to be no one to take up the cause of Indian workers in the Gulf. For the most part, they seem to be exploited – by the recruiters who take them there in the first place and their employers there who treat them very differently from their own people. It can of course be argued that they should not have gone there in the first place.

What is particularly striking is the silence maintained by the powerful Left parties in India on such an issue. As the Times of India reported :”There was no reaction from any political party, nor from the Left. The Left, the most vociferous reciters of the Marxist slogan ‘workers of the world, unite’ were busy trying to fend off the looming imperialism in the shape of the Indo-US nuclear deal. Probably, they did not notice the plight of Indian workers in UAE. ”

The questions raised by the BJP President, Rajnath Singh to the Left are pertinent and thought-provoking.