Mystery Shopping- Mock it and fill your Pocket--Book Review

Title: Mystery Shopping: Mock it and Fill your Pocket
Author: Saurabh Bhatia
Publisher: Become Shakespeare
Number of pages: 109

Mystery Shopping by Saurabh Bhatia is a bible for the mystery shoppers. It has only 109 pages which makes it easy on the eye and mind. I happened to hear a lot about mystery shopping and was dying to unravel the mystery behind it when I saw it at the Become Shakespeare book store. 
Although the book is touted as a handbook or guide for mystery shoppers one can learn a lot of lessons from it.  The book underlines and explains the need for effective communication and relationship building which maybe helpful to you in both your professional as well as personal life. 

The first two chapters talk of what is mystery shopping and who needs it and for what reasons. The next two chapters tell you of the qualities you must possess to be a mystery shopper. There are real life examples as well as tips from the author, that help to identify one's grey areas and work on them. The next two chapters are tips and tricks that anyone can use to reap benefits in their professional field. Many guidelines for writing reports and using technology to one's advantage were lessons I had forgotten. Reading the book was a gentle nudge to improve. I also liked the seventh chapter that talks of e-mail and phone etiquettes, that served as a reminder.
The most useful of all chapters is the 'Frequently Asked Questions' section that one must ideally read after reading the first two chapters. Doing so will be helpful for a novice and will lay the background for easy reading of the real life shopper examples.
The language is simple and the pointers make it easier to grasp the tips and tricks. The graphical representation in the beginning of each chapter was a great idea to not make the book read like a boring handbook.
I give it 4/5, four points for the lucidity in the language and chapters that were neatly laid along with the short pointers. One point goes away for the few facts that I believe got repeated over and over again. The author could have worded them differently to not sound redundant.

The Hunt for Kohinoor by Manreet Sodhi Someshwar

Title: The Hunt for the Kohinoor
Author: Manreet Sodhi Someshwar
Publisher: Westland Books
Number of pages: 425
Genre: Thriller

It is astonishing to read a fast paced engaging thriller that races past in ninety six hours, without giving away the plot and reading in redundancy.
Her language was simple and lucid with connotative vocabulary in the narration. What held my attention was the protagonist and her daunting adventures, for the Indian fiction market such a character is the rarest of rare. It would make for a great bollywood script with thrilling elements like terrorism and national security in the picture. The story is set in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan with picturesque locales that leave you spellbound. The book begins at a snail's pace which gave the reader all the time in the world to get acquainted with the characters and their mannerisms.
Mehr the main protagonist suddenly discovers that her dead father is alive when a high profile politician of Pakistan gets murdered. Mehr is pushed to investigate the lives of people who are posing as a serious threat to national security.
Much like a Bollywood thriller, it has every kind of a character that a perfect racer of a thriller needs. The characters help the story to flow although the large number of characters crowd the plot, at certain places and make you confused. 

Aadhar- A Scam of Myths

I recently came to know that Nandan Nilenkani will be contesting for the Lok Sabha elections from Bangalore South against the five time elected BJP MP Anant Kumar. In a larger scheme of things, I now realize why Nilenkani left his high paying job at Infosys and decided to head the UID project. 
For someone as prolific as Nilenkani, to not have weighed the pros and cons of Aaadhar and jumped into the bandwagon of a schematic scam was weirdly unbelievable. With Nilenkani declared as candidate for the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections, one can only think of how the Congress led UPA government has hit the wall when it comes to scams. Touted as a scam bigger than the 2G, since it was passed through an executive committee outside parliament,  one can only feel extremely disappointed and sorrowful at Nilenkani's political ambitions. And the mountain of lies he had to heap, to reach his goal. 
Despite a Supreme Court bench questioning the scheme's validity and passing an order which said that "No benefit of service shall be denied on account of non-possession of Aadhar and no illegal immigrants would be issued Aadhar. The government drunk by power, is carelessly misguiding the nation by linking Aadhar to essential services like LPG, gas connections, marriage registration, salaries and provident fund disbursal, until the September 2013 Court ruling against it. Since Aadhar is being linked to the NPR or the National population Register, it is stealthily being made mandatory. And nothing is being done to keep a check on this misgiving.

To begin with, it is impossible to roll out a scheme like Aadhar in a country like India. For the many Indians living on the streets this card would only be an added burden. Many of the farmers and laborers do not have fingerprints of good quality, neither do the elderly. People suffering from diseases of the eye and the aged, would not be able to give iris imprints of the quality that a person with an empirically average eye sight can. In places like J & K and the North East it will always be difficult to enroll citizens for Aadhar, because of security issues. 

Aadhar: Why a voluntary scheme is being pushed through?

Delhi High Court recently challenged Delhi government's guidelines to make Aadhar mandatory for procuring a National Food Security card for citizens who are enlisted below the poverty line.
The petitioner put forward a plea citing the apex court's ruling of September 23rd 2013 last year, that said no person should be left behind while availing social welfare benefits in the absence of an Aadhar Card. The petition by Ram Kishan and others sought taking away Delhi government's guidelines which requires submission of an Aadhar card and its details by a household for getting National Food Security consumer card.
The plea filed through advocate Yogesh Kumar also aims to order the Department of Food and Public supplies to look into the petition application for food security card without Aadhar and to provide foodgrains as per the old rates and norms.
The National Food Security Act which came into being on September 12th 2013 with effect from July 5th 2013 aims to provide foodgrains to eligible households at subsidized rates through PDS system. The petition is against Delhi government's guidelines under the Act asking for Aadhar number for identifying eligible households that is those below the poverty line.
The last date of submission of the application for food security is March 15th. Earlier in the year, mandatory Aadhar linked transfer of LPG subsidy to beneficiaries accounts was suspended and the cap raised from nine to twelve.
Also to avail government benefits and services like gas connections, marriage registration,salaries and provident fund. Aadhar is not mandatory as per the September 24th 2013 ruling of the Supreme Court.
The interim order was passed in a PIL filed by KS Puttaswamy who stressed that the UID scheme was not passed as per the directives from the Parliament and without discussion in Parliament, and only by the executive ruling.

Aadhar - What people know and think of it?

It is astonishing to note that the government's populist gimmick in Aadhar is a firecracker with sound and no fire. Most people especially the educated Indian doesn't have the slightest inkling of what Aadhar is all about?









When interviewed as shown in the video above, people only had ignorance to mete out. Some said it was as important as pan card and perhaps its replacement. Others sweared by its importance and called it an Indian's citizenship card while many more called it a populist persuasion by the government. While only one gentleman believed that it was being thrust on the citizens of the country while plying with our security.

Aadhar/UID: The Myths behind the National Identity Project

Col (Retd) Mathew Thomas happens to be one of the many crusaders who are trying to bust the myths surrounding the Adhar/UID. As per Col Thomas and the many anti-UID activists, UID number is highly invasive and raises serious concern regarding the critical personal and biometric information. What Adhar does is ask for one of the 14 identities recognized by the Government of India and an address proof and issues a number against those proofs of identity. UID number or fingerprints or irises do not identify the person like the passport does, until the person handling the database vouches for your identity. The government's tall claims of arresting leakage of subsidies also falls flat since the government has conducted no studies on how the leakage has happened.

As opposed to the government's promises of issuing cylinders against a UID number, and directing subsidies to lower income groups, the cylinders are being distributed to the public sector against the UID numbers of citizens. The exemption given to commercial consumers was not accounted for. Also the need for UID for the transfer of subsidy to bank account is ridiculous. Only the bank account number is needed to transfer the subsidies as against the popular notion of a UID number. The money doled out for the project is a waste as biometrics is a probablistic answer. It is difficult to capture the traits of a human in real time. The quality of fingerprints may be poor in elderly people and those who do manual labour. Also for people with visual impairment like retinopathy or glucoma etc. iris prints may not be as perfect as for those with empirically average eye sight. Then how can biometrics be considered a full proof method of identifying a person. More so, Adhar doesn't recognize the migrants or the mobility of population that moves around in search of livelihood. Thus UID in no way grants citizenship to the citizens of India. It is also being issued to foreign nationals and illegal immigrants putting the national security at stake. Justice Puttaswamy filed a PIL against the UID seeking its conversion to a citizenship card like in USA to weed out illegal immigrants. Moreover no parliamentary approval on UIDAI was sought. The bill rejected by a 30 member panel was bulldozed by an Executive order. 

Similar PIL's have been filed by Citizens forum for Civil Liberties and The Beghar Mazdoor foundation, an NGO working for the upliftment of the poor. Aadhar is therefore violating the right to privacy and dignity which forms part of Right to Life under Article 21 of the Constitution of India. How then can this national identity project be deemed rightfully constitutional and in lieu of the laws laid down to guard the citizens of the country? The project therefore be halted to conduct: A feasibility study to cover all the aspects of the project, with the main focus on the workability. Experts must be asked to verify its constitutional significance. The law on privacy should be urgently worked on to protect the rights of the citizens. A cost benefit analysis of the project should be conducted while giving an account of the costs incurred. A public, informed debate be conducted through newpapers,television, neighbourhood meets etc before any such major change is brought in.

20 th February 2014

Some days like these amuse me and makes me ponder over the realities of life.
I usually abstain from junk food laden with too many calories which gets processed using unhealthy methods and may harm us in the long run. To spend two hundred or three hundred plus ruppees on a coffee is banefully atrocious when more than half of the world isn't able to afford two square meals in a day. Let's call it human fallibility, the once in a while luxurious levitation towards an expensive coffee laced with chocolate or swimming in dollops of ice cream, or a burger dripping in cheese. While travelling I prefer to eat junk rather than wake myself up in the wee hours of a morning and dish out a healthy tiffin. That is the harsh reality of a metro life. At this time I am in the midst of a sea of human life, sipping on costly coffee or a drink of some kind whipped with calories. It will definitely not be 'adrak wali chai' or 'filter coffee' so I expect a variant of latte or cappucino, seated on the top of most of the tables. The presentation of the research proposal opened my eyes, and I know why brain-drain is a reality and shall stay so until the government doesn't decide to mend its ways. And as always my parents run after me with their hammer and tongs to get me married. To not domesticate my ambitions is the greatest dowry I am paying to the church patriarchs and the people for whom a woman is a social artefact, worth only her womb.