When you are tired but you can't sleep,
When you close your eyes but can still feel, smell and hear the world around,
When a pillow doesn't help let go of reality,
Drifting to sleep feels impossible.
---
"But why?" she asks me. "Why do you take things so hard? Why can't you just keep it simple and take it easy? Your problem is that you get worked up very easily... Learn to be like me... You never see me complain about not being able to sleep..."
---
Lady, you are the reason I can't sleep. For just once, could you simply shut up and go back to bed? I don't want to listen to what my problems are. No, I don't want to listen to you telling me what my problems are.
No. Not tonight. Just leave me alone.
---
When you are tired but you can't sleep,
When you close your eyes but can still feel, smell and hear the world around,
When a pillow doesn't help let go of reality,
Drifting to sleep feels impossible....
Today I've done absolutely nothing. Consider this day wasted.
In other news I found this great new webcomic, thanks to Daniele from girls with slingshots.
Also, I'm loving my iphone- and i finally understand the phrase "if you don't have an iphone, you don't have an iphone". (If you don't understand what it means, well I don't care. Yes, I'm probably going to hell for saying that but atleast I'll have my iphone with me... )
Who would have thought that the easiest way to put a complete halt on my productivity would be as simple as separating me and my laptop's power supply.
In a day that would prove to be a difficult one to endure, I learnt that a 40 mile drive in really bad traffic was completely worth it given the alternative was to sit at home with a dead computer.
Thankfully, the day ended on a positive note, thanks to this guy:
Any day that has me eating pizza in it simply can not be called a bad day.
Everybody has been through this. We all have that one book that is our personal Mt.Everest to be climbed. That one book that despite numerous attempts, we have never been able to finish. Even worse, every attempt to read that book is interrupted at the same point in the story line.
That book to me is Lolita by Vladimir Nobokov. I can count 6 different occasions where I've attempted to start from scratch and failed at around the time Mrs Haze dies.
This week, I will attempt yet again, and I ask you, my beloved readers, to join me in finishing that goddamn book and be done with it!!
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.
----
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".
WARNING:
Long boring document! Might cause drowsiness, frustration and under
severe circumstances, cause you to question the very purpose of your
existence.
----
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
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...
----
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.”
----
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?
----
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.
----
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?
