Wake up Call

Wake up Call 1: One of the first impression, you get when you go to any tier 1 city in India, is how congested it is. Ease of doing business, made many big companies of India choose these cities. These companies lobbied with the government for rolling out policies, which brought in allied industries to the same place. Government policies made more companies to opt for the same place. With each companies being opened, more and more people started migrating. These cities have reached a stage wherein life in these cities is choking, but people here don’t have much choice other than to live with it. Government on its part is trying to enhance the living conditions but I always feel these are temporary solutions. Many past events have exposed the structural problem of these cities but unlike Covid, they were not successful in breaking the resilience of the people. Covid, has brought these cities to standstill forcing the migrant workers to go back to their hometown. I feel, this is a golden situation for government to correct many of the past mistakes and even out the growth across cities, thereby reducing the burden on tier 1 cities in India. Today India has better infrastructure and capital which can be made available for companies to flourish from tier 2, 3 & 4 cities. Without touching the agricultural lands in India, government can make available lands for industries to cater to the demands of India and the world. I sincerely hope, industries wake up to utilize the opportunity being provided to have a sustained developmental growth.

Wake up Call 2: Everybody wants a good return on the money they spend. We would opt for a product/service if it is one rupee less. Chinese companies provided us products which was seen as value for money. China flooded markets including India first with products which didn’t have durability but was cheap. Upon capturing the markets, they quickly cemented their supremacy with their engineering capabilities. Quality products still at a cheaper rate are being provided by these Chinese players, which pushed local complacent players to the periphery in their own markets. Local players kept complaining and influencing government to hold on to the market without much focus on R&D to match the Chinese competition, but these didn’t have any effect, as Chinese players were able to provide product at cheap cost despite paying higher duties. Common people, who were not affected by disruption of their local industries preferred these Chinese products, as they were getting value for their money. The recent border dispute and unfortunate loss of our soldiers life, has brought in a change in mindset and there is an emotion prevalent across the country to boycott the Chinese products. Government, which is already faced with reverse migrations of people to the Hindi heartland, is seen to be taking steps to create employment by rolling out beneficial policies for Industries which wants to set up their units. Global companies which are having units in China are being wooed to move their business to India. The local players, who were sidelined have to grab this glimmer of an opportunity to produce goods in India which gives value for money being spend. It is easier said than done, as this is huge battle to be won against the superiors and capital rich Chinese companies. Government tough stand coupled with strong sentiments of the people should be the nitro-booster used by these companies to catch up with these companies. There wouldn’t be a better time than this.

My Covid Katha

This photo is of significance. This father and son photo was taken after me adhering to 14 days of room quarantine (not home quarantine), after I had to travel from Mumbai to Chennai.

I had to travel to Mumbai in the month of March for a short duration engagement. I was supposed to be back home well before my son’s 1^st birthday, but supreme power had different ideas. Towards end of March, with covid cases increasing the government decided to impose lockdown across the country, forcing us all to be confined to our homes. I had an opportunity to travel back to Chennai, but I decided to stay put in Mumbai considering the risk of carrying the virus back. I didn’t expect the situation to worsen further and looking back the decision to not travel was a poor one.

As days passed, the count of people getting affected by the virus was exponentially increasing and Mumbai was leading the pack. This brought in lot of tension at home. I would be asked on a daily basis on the plan to come back, for which I didn’t have any answer. The frustration level at both side grew to an extent, I decided not to speak to my family members.

Government went about with its lockdown measures which along with the increasing cases had telling effect on the people of this country. People were desperate and tried whatever possible ways to go back to home and seeing those on TV was painful, least to say.I too tried few safe options like applying e-pass to travel by private car but couldn’t get the approval. Desperation from my family members were passed on to my relatives, who started contacting me , their opinion were also tried by me, but there was no improvement in my situation and I continued to be struck in Mumbai. I was in peace with myself and knew that I would have to wait for the lockdown to be lifted to join my family back.

As expected, government came up with measures to ease lockdown as we all started to accept the fact that, we have to live with the virus. Train services were announced but to my dismay, the trains were operated from Capital to selected cities. I had to continue staying in Mumbai and continue with the work, wait for further relaxation of travel. After a wait of 2 more weeks, government decision to allow flight travel brought much needed relief.

Covid cases were continuing to raise with newer highs being reached across the country. My managers cautioned and advised me to stay put in Mumbai and avoid travelling, but I was stern in my decision to travel back as I didn’t see Mumbai curbing the rise in the spread of infection. I through my office admin team, booked for an 11 am flight, as this allowed me time to be prepared for the new procedure to be followed at airport. 2 other roommates in my PG had also booked to travel their home town. There was a sense of relief and elation amongst us. Mine and another roommate’s elation though were short lived, as our flights got cancelled. I was not going to sit dejected, without wasting much time I booked for late evening flight for the same day. I slept a nervous sleep not knowing if this flight will also be cancelled. My fears, came true as this flight also got cancelled. Through my admin person, I understood that there was lack of patronage for Mumbai-Chennai route and airline operators were forced to cancel these flights.  What more could I do, I didn’t know. I informed my family about the flights being cancelled and went back to my work, I again went into radio silence , only person I communicated was my admin guy, whom I kept bothering to book the travel back to Chennai. Travelling from Mumbai to Chennai was now like travelling to any European state, with travel time being 17-18 hours and it was an overnight journey. I had to ensure that I don’t get infected during these travel and avoided such itineraries. Opening up of Hyderabad sector proved to be the turning point, as this route allowed me to Chennai with shorter time period. A nervous me, undertook the travel not knowing what more hurdles I would need to face. I took this travel by not informing my family, as I didn’t want to make them more desperate. All sign favoured me, and thanks to   Indigo airlines, the travel was safe and smooth.

There are plenty of stories filled with agony and in comparison, you may not see my katha to be no way closer to those stories, but let me remind you that I and my family had to undergo anxiety for no reason of ours. My intention with this blog is to re-iterate the commitment each one of us have towards the safety of our family and our society. Government is in unlock down phase, wherein they are allowing opening up of required workplaces with necessary safety measures.  They are also allowing religious institution to open. Like the decision taken by government to enforce lock down, these decisions are also being heavily criticised. Friends, there are people who violated the lock down decision and there are people who are staying in home and only venturing out when the need is of utmost importance when the government has relaxed the conditions. I have decided to adhere to the safety measures and request you, who is reading this to post to adhere also. This will help the government and medical people to protect us from this pandemic situation.

Better me, Better us  and together let us build a better living world.

Who Mugged him?

“How Secure is contactless payment? 4 common misconceptions”– An article in money control. I read this article 3 day back and from that time, I have been itching to write this post.

Banks have robust systems which can track every single rupee being transacted using its systems. It has different department to take care to monitor it. Despite all this, you could be like my friend, who could lose money through the cards provided by the bank and find not much help from the bank in recovering the money. Yes, this post of mine is about the ordeal my friend underwent when he was mugged in Paris, France.  Yes! such petty crime does happen in an advanced society like Paris.

January 2020, would never be forgotten by my friend or me, as I was with him through this difficult time.

Paris was undergoing one of its worst transport strikes, thereby making our commutation difficult. We couldn’t go and visit many historical places and have a pleasant memory of this trip. We ended up with a bad memory. We had stayed close to 2 months in this place and we started craving for authentic south Indian food. We heard about this place which housed many famous restaurants from our state and decided to try. There were many good restaurants in this place and nothing much else to do, we decided to try these restaurants for the remaining weekends we had. The first Sunday it went well and we were relieved to have our style food. The disaster struck us in the next week, when we decided to hit this place on a Saturday afternoon. To reach this place, we had to change trains, these trains were being operated for limited time due to the strike. Owing to the strike and being a Saturday, there was a huge crowd in the transit station. My friend kept reminding me to be careful with the wallet. As the train halted at the station and after lot of people getting out, we along with the huge crowd tried our luck to board the train. After trying and realizing that it is difficult to board, we retracted, only for my friend to realize that he lost his purse.

Within minutes of he being robbed of his purse which had multiple credit & debit cards along with identity proofs, and we realizing what to be done, he started getting sms of money being withdrawn. We both started contacting the customer care numbers to block the card to avoid further activity on the card, but couldn’t get through as we were getting automatic response saying the numbers are not valid. By searching the internet and repetitive calls, we were only able to block 1 card and during this time, my friend had already lost close to 4.5 lakh INR(21000 AED plus 15000 INR). One Indian bank had put a temporary block after one withdrawal, we also got some time to successfully block the other cards due to greediness of the fraudster, who was trying bigger denominations. After multiple attempts we managed to block the cards.

All our excitement of the day turned into gloom and we decided to go back to our room and decide the next course of action. On our way back, we reluctantly called a client side person to seek suggestion, she advised us to register a police complaint.

We as common man, have apprehension in going to a police station, blame it on films and news we hear and see. With such apprehension, my friend visited the police station and had to experience a long queue to register the complaint. He understood that many in this queue were unfortunate people like him who were mugged at various metro stations. He also saw one Indian, still frantically trying the customer care number of his bank to block the cards, this guy had lost close to 10 lakh INR. My friend's experience with the police was good, wherein they took his complaint and help him with multiple copies of official documents, so that he could use it for substantiating his story with banks and government departments (he had lost government issued proofs also). Police also told him they will check with the metro station video feed and if they nab the culprit, they will call him and suggested him not to frequently visit the police station. The last statement, brought back the apprehension and when checked with client, our fear was substantiated. We were told that; this is the best you can expect from the police.

 Armed with the police provide documents, we contacted the banks from India and Abu Dhabi to register the fraud claim on the money swiped from the cards. Abu Dhabi bank, had a bot to guide us on registering the fraud and after that case was registered, the call was transferred to the customer care representative, who further advised us to email the soft copy of the police complaint along with the claim form which had details of transaction which we wanted to dispute. Bank from India had also advised us to follow the same steps.

 We are quality assurance professionals, who have worked for such bank project implementation and know what happens during such dispute process. With this knowledge, he waited for the banks to respond.

Bank from India (15k INR) were the first to respond positively and acknowledged the dispute. The money was returned to my friend. The bank from Abu Dhabi, took time and had to be followed up before they responded. There was no positive response from the bank and we couldn’t reach the right team to reverse this decision.

From the day of response till mid of march, my friend had to run from pillar to post to make the Abu Dhabi bank to reconsider his case and reverse the decision. In meantime he had to arrange for the money and pay the bank to avoid penal charge amount. Our manager in Abu Dhabi was also helpless, as bank didn’t entertain the complaint from him and wanted my friend to visit the branch and lodge the complaint. After lot of explanation and follow up, bank finally relented to refer the cases to VISA, this gave my friend a ray of hope. VISA also took time to investigate the case, but didn’t give a positive response. Bank has also categorically refused to further investigate the case.

The reason given by bank and VISA is that, the transaction had happened by entering the PIN and hence the claim for dispute can’t be entertained. The fraudster, we believe had sophisticated simulators which helped him crack the PIN and withdraw the amount from multiple shop POS machines, which otherwise is impossible.

My friend during this time also tried to get help from French police to recover the money. He gave evidences of the Shop and the location (We googled with details in SMS to locate the shop) and requested them to investigate. To his disappointment, he was told by police that, they can’t investigate anything as there was no video evidence maintained in the Metro station and can’t go to these shops (which were in 1 km radius of this station), instead he was again given copies of same set of documents and asked to follow up with the bank.
Friends, I am not writing this to earn sympathy for my friend who has and is undergoing hard time in paying back the amount, but to warn you about the ordeal you could undergo in similar situation. After reading this post, who do you think mugged him, is it the fraudster, or the police or the banks. Banking systems are designed to prevent frauds and help people banking with them to safeguard the money.