Why TRAI? WHY?????!!!

TRAI, the telecom regulatory authority of India, is a govrnment body that can't seem to mind its own buisness. They recently created headlines with their latest decision to restrict telecom subscribers to a maximum of 100 SMSes per day.


This post is a journal recording my attempts to go to the TRAI website and find out how in the world they can justify such a dumb rule.

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Alright, so a google search for TRAI quickly brings up their website. http://www.trai.gov.in/Default.asp#. Now this website looks like something put together by a teen hacking in his room in 1995. The scrolling texts and bad colors make this site look real ugly. To their credit however, the website actually works, and most links seem to work flawlessly (this is very rare for a government of india webpage).

Correction: the links DON'T work. To the left of the page, there is a column of links to places like "Regulations", "FAQs", "Press Releases" and the like. It seems pretty complete at first. The weird part is that all these pages link back to the home page. Typical govt. of India nonsense.

However, the flashy things scrolling in the centre of the page seem to work. The search bar seems to work, however, you need select the type of document, the year of release and the internal department that is responsible for it. Now, I am looking for something that says "less than 100 smses per day", how on earth should I know which department prepared it and what format it was in?

I am trying "Regulations" "2011" and "Moble Networks" a try. --- 2011 does not have any regulations by Mobile Networks. Let me try "Press Releases".

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Nope. No luck.

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After an hour of searching, I found a press release. You can find it here http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/trai/upload/PressReleases/840/PRESS_RELEAS.pdf .

Hmmm. That press release talks about how Vodafone paid 50 grand. It also gave me the name of the paper I'm supposed to be looking for:

“The Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations, 2010”.

Well, this dumb rule was proposed in 2010, and looks like no one cared back then! Its come into effect from 27th September 2011.

Now let me try and find the original paper.

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Well, here it is! 
http://www.trai.gov.in/TCCCPR_with_6Amendments.pdf


WARNING: Long boring document! Might cause drowsiness, frustration and under severe circumstances, cause you to question the very purpose of your existence.


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I just read through the original regulation. Guess what? It does not say anything about the daily 100 SMS limit. But I did find a super awesome fact in the paper.


SUPER AWESOME FACT COMING UP! 
 
Everyone knows about the Do Not Disturb option to stop telemarketers from calling you. But what about the SMSes? Have you ever had those annoying hundred different SMSes about trips to goa or life insurance offers clog up your inbox? Have you always wanted to find a way to get rid of all of them?


Well, the TRAI has made life easy for you. What follows below is the part (c) of Schedule 1 of the above mentioned paper.


c. Registration of preference through SMS
14. A customer may also exercise his preference by sending SMS to 1909.
15. If the customer wants to exercise the option of fully blocked, he may send SMS “START 0”.
16. If the customer wants to exercise the option of partially blocked, he may send SMS “Start ” as given below:
“START 1” 
             for receiving SMS relating to Banking/Insurance/Financial
             products/credit cards
“START 2” for receiving SMS relating to Real Estate
“START 3” for receiving SMS relating to Education
“START 4” for receiving SMS relating to Health
“START 5” for receiving SMS relating to Consumer goods and automobiles
“START 6” for receiving SMS relating to Communication/Broadcasting/Entertainment/IT
“START 7” for receiving SMS relating to Tourism and Leisure 17. A customer can also choose multiple preferences from categories of preference
mentioned in para 16 above.
17 For receiving commercial SMSs from Banking/Insurance/Financial products/credit cards and Real Estate, the customer may send SMS in the format “START 1,2”.


So send STOP 0 to 1909 to block all messages being sent to you!!


Also, under the Miscellaneous section under Schedule 1, point II reads:

II. A toll-free short code 1909 shall be available to customers for registration or change or de-registration in the National Customer Preference Register.

So sending an SMS to 1909 should be toll free.




And what do you do if you still get telemarketing calls or messages even after unregistering yourself?

Well, read schedule VI of this paper:

SCHEDULE –VI
PROCEDURE FOR REGISTRATION OF COMPLAINT

a. Complaint registration through voice call

1. A customer may make a call to 1909 for registering his complaint.
2. The customer care executive shall ask the customer about the details like
particulars of telemarketer, the telephone number from which the
unsolicited commercial communication has originated the date, time and
brief description of such unsolicited commercial communication.
3. The customer care executive shall register the customer complaint and
acknowledge the complaint by providing a unique complaint number.

b. Complaint Registration through SMS

4. A customer may register unsolicited commercial communications related
complaint by sending SMS to 1909 in the format given below-
“COMP TEL NO XXXXXXXXXX, dd/mm/yy, Time hh:mm”
Where XXXXXXXXXX – is the telephone number or header of the SMS, as
the case may be, from which the unsolicited commercial communication
has originated.
5. The customer complaint shall be registered and acknowledged by providing
him a unique complaint number through SMS.


Ok everyone! Lets give those marketers Hell!! :D :D :D

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Well, atleast one good thing came out of reading this article. But what about the 100 SMS limit? The search continues...

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Ah! Found it! This regulation is found in the 6th amendment, dated September 5th, 2011.

In sub-regulation (2) of regulation 20 of the principal regulations,---




(c) after clause (k), the following clauses shall be inserted, namely:-

(ka) no Access Provider shall permit sending of more than one
hundred SMS per day per SIM:
Provided that in case of post paid telephone number the Access
Provider shall not permit more than three thousand SMS per SIM
per month:
Provided further that in case of post paid telephone number, the
Access Provider shall not permit sending of more than one
hundred SMS per day per SIM from a date to be notified by the
Authority;

(kb) the Authority may by direction, from time to time, specify
the category of SMS which shall be excluded from the limit of one
hundred SMS per day per SIM:
Provided that before permitting a customer to send specified
category of SMS beyond the limit of one hundred SMS per day
per SIM, the Access Provider shall obtain an undertaking from such customer that he shall not use such telephone number for
sending any commercial communications:
Provided further that the Access Provider shall enter, in the list
maintained in the National Telemarketer Register, the telephone
number, name and address of the customer, category of exempted
SMS and date of permitting sending of SMS beyond limit of one
hundred SMS per day per SIM and the said list shall be updated
every Monday.”


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Heights of pointlessness!

The justification for this regulation was to stop telemarketers from bothering people. However, in a follow up to this regulation, on the 27th September 2011, the TRAI released this document which says

... clause (k) of sub-regulation (2) of regulation 20 of the
regulations provides that no Access Provider shall provide to any person,
other than a telemarketer registered with the Authority, any tariff plan or SMS package in any form such as special recharge voucher, student
pack, seasonal pack etc. permitting sending of more than one hundred
SMS per day per SIM ...


So the telemarketers are exempted from this regulation. What the hell is going on?


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Here is how I see it. In the recent London protests, the London police determined that mobs used SMSes to communicate and organize massive rallies that were unpredictable and uncontrollable. The police found the mobs to be better organized and better prepared than the police were!

Following the Anna Hazare movement, I guess the Sonia Gandhi government is shit scared about what is going to happen the next time the people decide to rise in protest.

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In my opinion, telecommunication channels are a national resource. It is a resource that helps business grow, that helps people stay connected and helps build and maintain national integrity in the same way that news papers did in the pre-independence era.

Here in Arlington, Texas, I see how the citizens of America rose in protest in the latest and currently ongoing "Occupy Wall Street" protests. Why the fuck are people back home in India not complaining?

Well, the people are complaining. I see the blogosphere is ablaze with TRAI bashing and comments and opinions. But that isn't enough. There are only a handful of bloggers and people who read blogs in India.

What would be more effective would be campaign organized on facebook.

Dilip's law of internet #3: Everyone is on facebook.


Imagine a protest organized on facebook, where everyone sends a postcard, to the protector of our constitutional rights, the supreme court of India, which says "I need more than 100 smses per day. I am ready to pay for it. My access provider is ready and willing to provide this facility. The 100 sms per day limit is affecting the quality of my lifestyle. Please defend my constitutional rights in this regard".

Or something like that. Imagine a million people sending just one post card a day, every day, to the supreme court, till the rule is removed. A single postcard per day will cost the same as the cost of an SMS that some people have to pay.

The supreme court has in the past, accepted messages scribbled on a post card and sent to it, as a valid public interest litigation, and acted upon it. 

This kind of protest will work, if planned and organized well. Anybody care to help me do this?

Share your thoughts.

Growing up

When I was a kid, I always dreamt of growing up.

I wanted to be old enough to own a car. I wanted to be old enough to have my own house. I wanted to be old enough to be allowed to stay up all night watching tv and eatching chocolates.

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Then, I grew up. Owning a car turned into paying auto insurance. Being in my house all by myself turned into lonlieness. I still can stay up all night watching movies and eating chocolate, but I then I won't be able to wake up on time the next morning. Life sometimes, can be an unpredictable bitch.

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The one thing I didn't think about growing up, is the role other people start playing in life. Friends, Family, that special person, the silent guy who smiles at you every morning: it is these people that suddenly start filling up life and start making things "life-like". Every person starts taking on a role- villan, comedian, hero, loyal firend, lover, traitor.

Then, as I grew older, the sarcastic miser and the grumpy man with the coffee mug stopped being people with lives and families and stories: they turned into exactly what their names said they were: the sarcastic miser and the grumpy man with the coffee mug.

Every person once had a name in my head. Now, every person has turned into that name in my head. The villan, the traitor, the comedian and the hero. They are real people today, who walk this earth, who see me every day and talk to me, and smile at me, and disappear from reality when I'm no longer looking at them.

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I suddenly realize that the older you grow, the more life resembles a badly written story: the characters seem shallower and more generic, plotlines start becoming predictable, and stories no longer have a satisfying finish.
 

Or maybe, I'm not old enough to witness the brilliant twist in the plot, the surprise character, the hidden easter eggs or the big satisfying finish. Maybe I'm still growing up, and this growing older thing only stops at the grave.

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So what have I been, I wonder. A villan? A comedian? A hero? A lover? Probably, a letter on my grave will have the answers.Hopefully, it won't. I guess I really don't want to know.

Ignorance is bliss. I'd rather be the hero and not know about it, than be the everyday asshole and be reminded of it constantly.

Blood red eyes

Ah, so whats the biggest change in my life in the past 2 months?

Well, I've moved across the planet and found a new home!

Yep, thats right. I moved from Bangalore, India to Arlington, Tx, USA this August. I'll probably get down to explaining why I moved in a later post. (All you folk in India who twitch at the words GRE, SOP and reco letter- stay tuned!).

Today however, I do not want to talk about Arlington, my journey or my life here. Today, I want to write about a very special person. A person who saved me from insanity. A who gave me confidence to be myself. A person who grew to be my angel. A person who walked out of my life forever.


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This post is about you.

I know you never read blogs and you are never going to read this post. Yet, if you ever come by this page, and read this post, you know its about you.

I woke up this morning thinking about you. I woke up with a desperate need to be with you, see you smile, see you happy, laugh, talk and have fun together. I almost wrote an email- saying how sorry I am for everything that happened, that I wish there was a way we could send things back to the way they were before. I wrote about how much I missed you and missed being with you. I wrote about how I wanted to forget everything that happened and try and start afresh with you.

Then I remembered how it all went bad: you told me you picked him over me.

I put a painful finger over the backspace key, and watched as the cursor ate away everything I typed letter by letter until there was only a blank white screen with a blinking cursor staring at me from behind the screen.

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Guys don't cry. They just go to bed and fall asleep and surrender to their personal nightmares. They toss and tumble and moan as they take gruelling punishment in their sleep, and wake up the next morning with bloodshot eyes.

"You look like a zombie", my flatmate tells me. "Your eyes are horribly red".

"Its nothing- was just rubbing my eye" I told him, as I walked into the shower.

Old Tardis in New Trailer!

The latest Doctor who trailer has a very very interesting moment.



The tenth Doctor's tardis makes an appearance at 0:37.

The big question is, who is holding back Amy Pond: Rory or the tenth doctor?!!



Things are getting interesting!

A college fest in the making!

Today, I'm going to talk about something that is keeping me occupied almost all day. My college's annual cultural fest.

Every year, during the march-april period, almost every engineering college in Bangalore hosts a cultural fest. These fests are a mixture of competitions, stalls, performances and are all about having a good time.

This year, I am one of a lucky group of 24 awesome people who are responsible for making our college fest progress from a dream into a written plan, and then from the plan into the actual event. We discuss ideas, decide who is responsible for making something happen, and then review what progress has been made so far. We also deal with the human factor: dealing with someone who is passionately holding on to an impossible idea, keeping arguments from getting personal, taking decisions when everybody has contradicting opinions and still having fun at the end of the day.

This year, our college's pride rests on 24 shoulders. If we screw up, the consequences will be disastrous. There is a lot at stake, and that is exactly how I like to play. Dream big, work hard and win big!

This fest is going to be a blast! I promise.

Secret keepers can not blog!

Its true! When the biggest events in your life are supposed to be secret for the moment, you will not find anything to blog about!

Fortunately, in my case, the big secret will be out in around 3 months. Then I can blog all I want about it. Till then, if I want to blog, I must pretend I am interested in the ongoing cricket worldcup and then shout my Yaays and Booos in support of my fake-favourite cricket team.

Diablo Swing Orchestra!

I'm known to be a HUGE fan of the legendary rock band Pink Floyd. I'm also one of those people who can have only one favourite band, that I obsessively listen to for months together. It started with my Evanescence obsession in 2005, followed by Pink Floyd in 2007. After 3 years, I finally found a band that was good enough to get me unhooked from Floyd: Diablo Swing Orchestra.

Diablo Swing Orchestra is Awesome!

I'm not going to give a review of this band here. Instead, I invite you all to check them out. Here are some recommendations from their first album The Butchers Ballroom:

1. Rag Doll Physics*
2. Poetic Pitbull Revolutions*
3. D'Angelo.
4. Balrog Boogie.


*Recommend having their lyrics on your screen while listening to them for the first time.

If you like these, you can go ahead and try the entire album.

Doctor Who Season 6- My theories

Everyone's busy trying to predict what will happen in the 6th season of Doctor Who. This is me doing my bit to add to the excitement.


I'm not great at guessing, and I have no idea about the classical series. All I can do is hunt for clues, and pick up on clues spotted by others.

Here's a video on youtube that got me started:



For those of you who're too impatient to watch it, take a look at the image below.


What is that symbol on her arm? It looks like the symbol omega, along with the roman numerals for the number 2. This might indicate the second incarnation of Omega!

Hmmmm. Just a coincidence? I don't think so. I went around looking for other places where this might be hidden. Obvious place to look was an episode written by Stefan Moffart and featuring River Song. Any guesses what I found???



This image was shamelessly stolen from Stonehenge.co.uk.

Wow! I see one big Omega with the roman numerals II!!! Can you see it too???

After seeing that picture, I'm convinced that the symbol on her arm was not a coincidence!!!

Not to mention, the markings on Amy's lawn looks a lot like Omega's helmet.

Here's a snapshot of it:



That looks very very similar to Omega's helmet.

Alright. Now, let me try and make some deductions here. If the markings on Amy's lawn are a sign from Omega, it is reasonable to conclude that Omega had something to do with the explosion of the tardis. Omega's symbol over the Pandorica (The stonehenge is supposed to mark the location of the Pandorica) also indicates that Omega intended the doctor to be imprisoned, possibly because he wanted the doctor out of the way when he returns. He probably foresaw that the doctor would reignite the Universe and sacrifice himself in the process. Having the doctor step through a crack in time to make way for the return of Omega sounds like sweet revenge!

This reminds me of the "Bad Wolf" story arc. "Bad Wolf" was meant to guide the Doctor and Rose to a particular point in time and space... go watch the episode for the full story.

Anyway, could the Omega II symbol serve a similar purpose? Should I expect to see some Omega symbol at every point that led the doctor to be imprisoned in the pandorica?

Everyone knows by now that "The Silence" are actually a race with physical and non-physical properties. We know that Omega created life forms in his anti-matter Universe. If some of them managed to find their way into this Universe, they would make a very good candidate for who "The Silence" are.

Anyway, one other thing that I noticed:

In "The Lodger", it was mentioned someone was attempting to build a tardis.


I think I saw the same tardis somewhere in the 6th season's trailer. Any guesses whats happening?


Update (Jan 15th 2011): Looks like there is a link between the attempt to build a TARDIS and Omega!!
Check out this link to BBC's episode guide (Arc to Infinity)

Quote from that site:
...although the Doctor also dismisses the Ergon as one of Omega's less successful attempts at psycho-synthesis. Towards the end of the story Omega boasts that he can build another TARDIS [but given the primitive nature of Earth this seems unlikely].

Woah! Another link to Omega!!!!

Right now, I'm taking up a massive hunt to find any other clue that points to the return of Omega!