Smart City

R – Block, C1 to C4 – Zone, A – City Centre

Salient features of Smart city

Topography

1. Total population – 25,000 - 200,000
2. Population density – 2,500 per sq km
3. Smart city should be within 3km from highway or rail line
4. Airport should be 15 km away from smart city
5. Nobody can buy land in smart city
6. City is to be divided into 3 concentric zones (C2, C3, C4) with a radius of 3km, 6Km, 9Km respectively
7. Each zone is divided into multiple blocks as designated by R.
8. Zone C1 – It is city centre with 0.5 km radius. It will have landmark architecture, big malls, cinema halls, railway terminus station, central bus terminus, entertainment parks, museum
9. Entire city will be encircled by
1. 300 meter wide, 20ft deep lake (Red circle),
2. 1 km wide forest (Cyan circle),
3. 0.5km wide 30 ft high hillock (Green circle)
10. Circular road and slightly elevated railway track along the lake for the tourists
11. Cruise ride on the lake
12. Forest will have open zoos, deer park, Crocodile Park, all sorts of animal including tiger, lion, bison, rhinoceros etc. It will be like mini wildlife sanctuary. Tourists can have elephant, jeep ride
13. All hotels, warehouses will be on the other side of the forest
14. There will not be any polluting industry within smart city
15. All polluting industries should be 10km away from the smart city
16. Four corners of the city must have some unique structure like palace or fort or tower or rose garden or sculpture park like Frogner park in Oslo for tourist
17. Smart city should not have any fly over or metro
18. Smart city will not have any religious structures

Transport

1. City will have 3 circular 4+4 lane elevated highway plus 2 emergency lanes (in black) and 8 diagonal 4+4 lane elevated highway plus 2 emergency lanes (in blue). Diagonal highways will pass under circular highways with adequate number of exits and merges
2. Trees must be planted on both sides of highways and on divider.
3. There must be water bodies along both sides and divider of the highway
4. Each block must have grid like road system
1. with 2+2 lanes for motor
2. 1+1 lane for cycle
3. trees between cycle and motor lane 
4. 2 emergency lanes with trees
5. 15-25ft wide footpath with trees
6. 10-15ft wide divider with trees and water body
5. Residence to office journey time by car must not be more than 25 minutes
6. Roads must be designed keeping in mind that every family will have 2 sedan cars. There must be provisions for Limousines also
7. Distance between two junctions should be around 300 meter
8. Emergency vehicles will have the ability to convert any red signal to green or prolong the green signal till the vehicle passes through
9. Traffic in smart city must be disciplined. We must set a target of zero fatal accident
10. There must not be any auto rickshaw, van, hand pulled rickshaw on the road
11. Lights on the road must be bottom up instead of top down. It is sufficient to light up 8 ft from the surface rather than 25 ft from top. It will reduce global warming. All lights must be LED.

      Safety

1. There must be CCTV cameras all sides of every house, all open spaces within condominium
2. Every road should be remotely monitored using CCTV cameras
3. Smart city must use Drone technology for policing
4. Number of police per 100,000 population should be 300
5. 1 fire station with 10 fire fighting engine to cover an area of radius 5km
6. Police stations must look compact and iconic. It must be fully computerized
7. Smart city must have emergency service like 911 in US
8. Since the smart city is protected by lake, there will be fixed number of entry and exit points at the smart city. Number plate of all vehicles entering and leaving smart city must be captured automatically

Housing

1. Each block will have as much residential office as possible so that people don’t have to travel by bus or car. It will keep the pollution level down during week days as there will be lesser number of vehicles on the road. Another advantage is that commute time will be reduced to almost zero and productivity will increase
2. No  office or residential building should be taller than 5 storied.
3. Houses will be part of condominium/office complex with playground, swimming pool, club house and grocery shops
4. There will be 1,000 sq ft open space in front of every house for kids to play
5. Carpet area of each house should be at least 1,500 sq ft for 6 member family. Each house must have a garage and an area for gardening
6. 20% of the house will be reserved for retired people living alone
7. Each house must have a solar panel  at the roof for heating water, cooking
8. Each house must have a green roof along with rain garden
9. Each house must have a provision for rain water harvesting
10. House must be designed in such a way that it does not require AC during summer.
11. All commercial building must be green building with LEED Platinum Certification

Market

1. Each block will have 1-3 market complexes (not mall) depending on the size of the block so that people don’t have to walk more than 500m. Market complex will consist of convenient stores, restaurants, meat and vegetable corner, Gym etc
2. Each zone will have 2 or more malls with multiplex, within 3km of each household
3. Supply of meat in the smart city will be done by big companies. There must not be any roadside local slaughter house
4. There must not be any vegetable seller on the footpath

Education

1. Each condominium/office complex must have 1-2 play school and 1 primary school
2. There should be 3-5 higher secondary schools in each block depending on the size of the block with teacher student ratio of 1:20
3. Students will go to school using school bus only
4. Each zone will have one or more graduation, engineering, paramedical, veterinary and medical colleges depending on size of the zone
5. Each zone must have 1 school for physically and mentally challenged people
6. For every 1 lakh population there must be 100 medical seats, 300 engineering seats and 500 graduation seats
7. Each block must have 1 public library
8. There will be 2 universities on the periphery of last zone (C4)
9. All schools, colleges and universities must be of same standard
10. Each smart city must have an innovation centre with a fund between Rs 10- 50cr per year
11. There must be a school within 2km of a household
12. Political student union must be banned in schools, colleges and universities. Class representatives should be selected through computer based lottery
13. Each house must get 100MBPS last mile internet connection through fibre optic
14. There must be high speed Wi-Fi in all public places, educational institute, public libraries

Judiciary

1. In smart cities judicial process must be fast and swift so that all cases can be solved between 1 day and 365 days
2. Mandatory use of lie detector on both accused and victim can greatly reduce investigation and prosecution time
3. There should be 1 Lok Adalat for every 5 blocks
4. For every 100,000 population there must be 10 judges with maximum number of cases handled per year not more than 100

Sports

1. Each block will have indoor, outdoor playground for cricket, football, hockey, tennis, badminton, swimming, athletics and other sports
2. There should be a sports complex with 50,000 capacity multipurpose stadium on the periphery of Green circle 

Sewerage System

1. Sewerage system of the smart city must be state of the art. Each condominium/office complex, mall must have its own sewerage and solid waste management system so that a drop of waste water doesn’t go out of local area
2. Only fully treated waste water should go into water bodies
3. All drains must be underground
4. Each household must be encouraged to segregate recyclable and non-recyclable waste
5. Local administration should buy recyclable waste from citizen
6. Public place must have two bins – one for recyclable waste and other for non recyclable waste
7. Each block must have adequate number of compactors to collect garbage from houses
8. Solid waste must be segregated between bio degradable and non degradable waste
9. Solid waste must be recycled as much as possible
10. Rain water drainage network must run along with road network so that rain water drains into encircling lake within few minutes
11. Use of plastic bag should be banned completely. All plastic bottle should be charged e.g. Rs 10 which is refundable on return
12. There must an auto clean coin operated toilet every 1Km like in London
13. School, College, Malls, govt offices, all public places must have modern ladies and gents toilets
14. Toilets must be cleaned every hour
15. Toilets must have tissues paper, soap dispenser, hand drier, auto flush system like Delhi airport
16. Toilets must be reasonably spacious

Water

1. Smart city must not use Underground water in principle. People must be encouraged to conserve water. So water must be taxed on difference of consumed water and released water to sewerage system
2. Drinking water must be piped
3. Water supply should be 24X7
4. At least 150 litre of water per person per day should be supplied

Power

1. Smart city must have 24X7 power supply to industry as well as to residential area. So, it must have its own power plants. Transmission efficiency must be one of the best in the world. Power plant should be 100km away from smart city
2. Street lights must be solar powered
3. We must try to generate as much wind power as possible
4. Citizens must be encouraged to use energy efficient lights. All rooms of the house should be fitted with a motion sensor so that light gets automatically switched off if there is no movement for 5 minutes. Stairs should also be fitted with motion sensor so that light gets switched on automatically whenever someone climbs the stair
5. Smart city must implement smart grid for effective transmission and distribution of electricity

Beautification

1. Smart city will remain calm and quiet  like Ghum in Darjeeling except for festive days
2. Smart city must be declared as political ad free city in public place
3. Anybody littering the city must be fined Rs 1,000 per incidence
4. There should not be any overhead telephone line, cable TV or electricity line. All cables must be underground
5. There must not be any street dog or cows or other animals
6. Highway divider and both sides of the highway must be filled with flower garden, fountains and trees which has long branches
7. There must be 5 ft wide space between footpath and building for planting big trees
8. All public service must be fully computerised
9. Each block must have adequate number of water bodies and parks with full of trees
10. In smart city there must not be any poor, beggar or unemployed person
11. Smart city must be completely pollution free
12. All public service must maintain help desk so that people can resolve issues over phone

Health Service

1. Each zone must have enough hospitals so that number of hospital bed per 1,000 population is 5
2. Each zone must have adequate number of veterinary hospitals and clinics
3. Each zone must have adequate number of diagnostic centers
4. Each block must have adequate number of clinics so that average queue time for a patient is not more than 30 minutes
5. Doctors should be available within 1km from residence from 8am to 11pm. A pharmacy must be attached to each doctor’s clinic
6. Each block must have adequate number of well equipped ambulances. Ambulance must have access to real time data of nearest available bed
7. Each hospital and clinics must offer telemedicine service
8. Each hospital must provide tertiary care

Art & Culture

1. Each zone must have art hub consisting of theatre complex, concert hall, auditorium, artist studio, school of fine arts (dance, music, drama, painting and instrument)
2. Art Hub should also contain big multipurpose stage like Royal Albert Hall of London
3. Artists from all over India and abroad must be invited to perform in smart cities
4. Each block will have a community center and multipurpose ground for cultural programme and observing religious festivals
5. Religious procession on the street or political rally must be banned in smart city

Financial Sustainability

1. Smart city will have 1-3 anchoring manufacturing unit that will employ 5,000 to 25,000 people
2. Manufacturing units should be 10km away from the smart city
3. Smart city should be self sufficient on agriculture, textile and fruit processing
4. Minimum salary in smart city should be Rs 25,000
5. If 35% of the population is engaged in industry like agriculture and manufacturing, it will generate enough opportunity in other areas to employ remaining 65%
6. Education from play school to university must be almost free. Every earning member must spend 5% of their salary or Rs 5,000 per month whichever is lower for education. Employer should also contribute similarly
7. Agricultural land lost in creating smart city can be compensated to some extent by pomology as source of income
8. There is a huge opportunity of generating ad revenue in smart city. Prominent ad places are bus stops, buses, parks, reception area of govt offices, classes of schools and colleges. If Kellogg or Colgate sponsors a class, it will generate brand loyalty of those  products among students

Polygraph Test

Email sent to Chief Justice of India on 11-Aug-2014 as a followup email of 3-Jun-2014

Dear Chief Justice of India,

Pending cases against politicians specially law makers should be expeditiously concluded so that people of India can get rid of corrupt politicians sooner than later. 

India deserves to be number one country in the world. 

We cannot be number one unless we eliminate corruption from our society. 

We cannot eliminate corruption until we bar dishonest people from entering politics. 

We cannot remove dishonest politicians if we cannot build a case against them. 

We cannot build a case against corrupt politicians if we don't have proper evidence

We cannot have proper evidence unless police investigates

Police cannot investigate unless they get witness and forensic evidence

Police cannot get  witness and forensic evidence unless they are free from political interference

Police cannot be free from political interference so long corrupt politicians continue to be law maker

So, it is a vicious circle. The only way we can come out of this circle is by using lie-detector in every case. As part of proof of concept we can apply lie-detector or brain mapping on cases which are more than 5 years old. For sake of 1 billion Indians please device something so that investigation and trial can be completed in a year. 

---

Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2014 14:52:43 +0530

Dear Chief Justice of India,

There are 32 million cases pending in different courts of India. Investigation and prosecution take ages to complete. Corruption of investigative agencies, political interference, hostile witness and dishonest lawyers make the situation worse. Thousands of crimes are not even registered for various reasons. Court monitored cases like CWG, 2G are taking years to come to logical conclusion.

In last 3 decades many social activists, professionals, intellectuals are trying hard to bring an end to corruption which spread at all levels of our life. But unfortunately they have limited success.  Last couple of years we have seen Anna Hazare and others are trying to pass an anti corruption bill in the parliament. I believe such bill is not going to eliminate corruption overnight. But we want to see end of corruption as soon as possible so that billions of rupees that are invested in various schemes are properly utilized to the benefit of common man.

The only way we can speed up conviction rate is by use of technology. One of them is polygraph test which is highly reliable. However there are two major concerns against polygraph test

1. False positive - The response of a truthful person is determined to be deceptive

2. False negative - The response of a deceptive person is determined to be truthful.

I am not overly concerned about false negative for two reasons. 1. Number of such cases will be low. 2. Such deceptive persons can be prosecuted again by conventional method of cross examination and witness. 

False positive situations can be eliminated beyond reasonable doubt if 

1. We carefully set the questions. 30% of the questions should be relevant to the issue or crime being investigated. The other questions should be  controlling questions which should be so generic and obvious that respondent cannot tell a lie
2. Question set must be approved by the court and must be given to the subject 7 days before the test. He must be given the opportunity to try out the questions by himself before sitting for the actual test. This will remove the nervousness factor of the subject.
3. The test should be conducted twice with a gap of 3 days and if the results are same on both occasions, it should be accepted by court without any further deliberation by respective lawyers and cross examination.
4. Test should be conducted in presence of a magistrate and should be video recorded

To begin with, polygraph test can be started in the following situations where both victim and accused have no criminal past. So, the chance of false positive is virtually zero and percentage of false negative would be from low to insignificant.

1. All IPC 498 related cases 
2. Domestic violence
3. Political violence
4. Charges against govt employees
5. Sexual harassment
6. Harassment by police, government employees, politicians
7. Small time bribe taker like traffic police, lower division clerks 
8. Family dispute

To sum up when technology is available we must close certain categories of cases within 7 days.

Clean Ganga

Email sent to PM on 5-Sep-2014

Dear PM,

Thank you for appointing group of IITians to look into Clean Ganga project. I have some raw ideas which I would like to share with you over email since Clean Ganga group is closed in MyGov.nic.in .

1. Fence both banks of Ganga so that garbage cannot be dumped into the river by people. We should fence those areas where population is more than 50,000.
2. Rain and flood water carry lots of garbage to Ganga. Fencing will prevent large part of that garbage coming to the river.
3. Put boulders on the banks of Ganga to prevent soil erosion.
4. Demolish all structures after proper compensation (unless it has historical or architectural value) within 1,000 ft of banks of Ganga and plant millions of trees in this 1,000 ft strip.
5. At every 50 km put a net/permeable membrane across Ganga to collect floating garbage and silt.
6. Remove silt manually or with machine during winter season when water level is low. Silt can be used for landscaping of the town, for enhancing fertility of the land and other purposes. Please see how river bed of Yellow river is lowered by removing silt http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2357967/Open-floodgates-Millions-tonnes-silt-forced-downstream-giant-dam-China.html 
7. We must aim to lower the bed of Ganga by 2 meters in 3 years and 6 meters in 8 years.
8. Ban immersion of idols in Ganga.
9. Move all burning ghats away from Ganga so that ashes cannot be thrown into the river.
10. At every ghat across the length of Ganga, cover one area of the river to perform rituals and 'Puja' so that flowers and other materials do not spill over into main river. Covered area must be cleaned every day. In Varanasi, Haridwar and other places people float lamps with flower which should be collected within half kilometer.
11. No picnic at the banks of Ganga.
12. At every 500 km specially after polluting cities like Varanasi, install basic water treatment plant over Ganga to remove suspended particulate and colloidal substances. 
13. Replace all boats by Ferry similar to Sydney Harbour at major Ghats across Ganga.
14. Clean each ghat and convert them into multi storied pavilion with shops and car parks where people can enjoy wonderful view of Ganga, see evening Arati, take bath and perform rituals.
15. Create theme park with ferry ride like Millennium park of Kolkata at 47 towns across Ganga.
16. Make ghats free from religious touts. Maintenance of ghats should be given to private company.
17. Millions of litres of sewage are dumped into Ganga every day. Expert panel can find a solution how to treat them before dumping into river. My solution would be to dig a canal circling the city and pour the sewage on the canal and reuse it for the water need of the city. We don't need to dig underground water. In Varanasi alone 2000 million litres of sewage are produced every day. 
18. Seek help from Japan, Germany how to manage solid waste. Reusable material should be separated from solid waste before it is crushed to 1/20th of its original volume. 
19. Buy out non biodegradable materials like plastics, metal cans etc from household so that people don't throw it into garbage bin. This will help to manage solid waste better.
20. I believe laws are in place for managing industrial waste.

Monitoring of politicians

Email sent on 6-Apr-2011

Dear PM,

You said that appointment of CVC is an error of judgment. You realized that error after being rapped by supreme court. Before that media has been relentlessly highlighting corruption charges against PJ Thomas for months. But you chose to be silent and thought the issue will be buried under carpet like Bofors. You also said that you are taking full responsibility. Lip service is just not enough. Have you setup a commission of inquiry?

The biggest tragedy of our democracy is that not only our politicians are corrupt but also PM and CMs think that they can do whatever they like because they are elected by the people. Since our investigative agencies are not autonomous there is no check to stop wrong doing of our politicians.

I have a proposition to contain such error of judgment in future. 

1. Setup a monitoring group consisting of non political celebrity from different walks of life like Ratan Tata, Sunil Gavaskar, PT Usha, Usha Uthup, Barkha Dutt, Kiran Bedi etc and retired judges, professors and professionals. The number should be at least 1,000. The objectives are
1. pre-empt any potential corruption or minimize the impact of a corruption which already happened. If Raja was removed when he overruled your request of auctioning spectrum, 2G scam could have been avoided.
2. Removal of incompetent people from government.
3. speedy establishment of prima facie of the charges against concerned persons
2. Any controversy at state or central level will be referred to that group. Members of the group will deliberate the issue on TV channels and blogs, invite further comments from public and give their verdict on the issue within three months.
3. the verdict must be binding until it is reversed by any court.
4. It is not necessary that all the members of the group need to debate. But for a valid verdict at least 10% of the members should participate in the debate.
5. Group must have the authority to sack any MP, MLA or elected persons at Panchayat/corporation level except PM, Government officials, IPS officers. If the verdict goes against PM, it should be referred to Supreme Court for validation.
6. the verdict should be limited to whether concerned politicians/government officials/IPS officers are corrupt and need to be sacked. For scam like 2G, group will not have the authority to cancel 2G licenses or in the case of CVC it cannot cancel appointment of PJ Thomas. However it could sack home minister or Prithiraj Chauvan for misuse of power.
7. Quantum of punishment will vary from suspension/removal from the office to hefty fine twice the amount of perceived loss to barring from politics. However punishment should not include any jail term.
8. Initial members of the group will be appointed by the Government of India in consultation with retired chief justice of supreme court and validated by media. Subsequent members would be appointed by existing members themselves.
9. No member of the group will get any salary. However the group should have an office in each state with video link facility, a TV channel and an internet site to communicate between themselves and with public/media.
10. Law enforcement agencies must fully cooperate with the group
11. All CMs, ministers will be subject to annual performance evaluation by the group against some measurable pre defined KPI with a pass mark of 60%. Anyone failing to secure pass mark more than once should be treated as incompetent person and must be removed from the ministry.

We fed up with corruption and mediocrity. Rajiv Gandhi lost because of 64 crore Bofors scam. But you are surviving scam after scam. Each scam is many folds bigger than Bofors. Politicians must be held accountable to some independent body.

Terror Strike in Mumbai‏

27-Nov-2008
Dear Prime Minister,
 

In this hour of crisis Nation expects

1. BJP and Congress to speak the same language on terrorism
2. BJP and Congress spokesperson should stop talking rubbish in the media.
3. BJP and Congress should stop taking political mileage from this blast and previous blasts
4. Dr. Manmohan Singh and Mr. Advani should address the press jointly
5. Government should remove Mr Shivraj Patil and find more competent home minister

This year every month there is a blast. Terrorist can strike anytime anywhere at their will. Government is clueless how to tackle terrorism. Putting the blame on Pakistan or ISI is not going to solve terrorism. Approach to tackle terrorism should be multi dimensional.

1. Solid defense system – seal land and coastal border permanently. We have 7516 km of coastline. Why can’t we have search post every 1 km to guard the coastline day and night.
2. Disarm the country – search every house, offices, slum, religious places for hidden weapon.
3. Restrict dealership of chemical used in bomb making to big companies.
4. Crack down on those who are trying to indoctrinate young people
5. Blast terrorist training module in Bangladesh and Myanmar
6. Invest 10,000 crore rupees in J&K, Assam and north east state so that every unemployed young man gets a job

Unique ID‏

5-Apr-2010
Dear PM,

It is good that government is serious about providing unique id card to every Indian. We should take this opportunity to gather vital socio economic and demographic details as well like

• family information including ids of children, spouse, parents, grand parents and first cousin brothers/sisters to create one level deep network.
• qualification
• reading/writing capability
• mother tongue
• language spoken, understood, read and written
• assets - land, home, TV, fridge, Car, bike etc.
• Profession/skill
• average monthly income
• number of days without job
• how many meals taken in a day
• base food taken - rice or wheat
• parents living with their children
• known diseases
• living in slum
• house vulnerable to storm and flood
• house area per person
• sources of income
• number of earning members
• Child labour

It is very important that government publishes potential users of national id and ask respective ministries be ready for it. Architecture of the project must be scalable enough to add more and more users in future. Obvious users should be

• Income tax dept
• Banks
• mobile companies
• Police
• immigration
• election commission
• public places like shopping mall, cinema hall, tourist spots
• each and every registered company in India

 In essence system must be capable of dealing with billions of records in real time

I think this project needs to be completed asap ideally between 18-24 months. Responsibility of basic data collection can be given to companies like TCS, Wipro, HCL, Infosys, NIIT etc. Each company may cover 10 Lok Shaba constituencies or the entire state. We can deploy half million college pass out under supervision of 50,000 professionals like teachers, executives, celebrities, IT professionals etc to capture data in 12-18 months. Entire interview should be video recorded for data verification.

Minimum Salary‏

30-Jan-2007
Dear Prime Minister,

I work in an IT company whose employee strength is around 1800. Average salary of the employees is around Rs 40,000 per month. We have a 35 acre campus in the heart of Bangalore. There are at least 50 security guards protecting the campus 24 X 7. Salary of the security guards varies between Rs 4000 to Rs 6000 per month. If the salary of other employees is reduced by Rs 500 per month, it would generate enough money to increase the salary of security guards by Rs 18,000 per month.

In a city like Bangalore to lead a decent life one need at least Rs 20,000 per month. I have few suggestions for even distribution of salaries with due respect for the brilliants.

1. Maximum salary including bonus, perks, and shares, of an employee within the company should not be 20 times more than minimum salary of the contractors or permanent employees. 2% of the critical employee including CEO, MD, CFO or board of directors may get 50 times more
2. Higher the minimum salary, higher the times maximum salary can be multiplied by. For example if minimum salary is Rs 20,000 based on current inflation rate, maximum salary including bonus, perks, shares may go up to 40 times. 2% of the critical employee including CEO, MD, CFO or board of directors may get 60 times more
3. There should be a slab in interest rate of PF based on annual income. If someone is earning more than 8 lacs a year, there should not be any interest on PF or PF deduction should be proportionately less

The point that I am trying to make is that every Indian should earn enough money to lead healthy and comfortable life. My measure for comfortable life for a 6 member family with at least one earning member is as follows

a. A 2-3-room decent house of 700-1000 sq ft (owned or rented)

b. Ability to buy within three years of service

  i. An refrigerator, flat colour TV - 21inch, DVD/CD Player, Music system

  ii. Gas oven, water filter, mixer, dinner set

  iii. Beds, sofa, dinning table

  iv A computer with internet, cable TV, mobile phone

c. Four meals a day with requisite calorie for every family member

d. mediclaim for entire family

e. Education for the kids in a reasonably good school

f. to dine with whole family in a restaurant once in a month

g. to shop in a mall during festive seasons

h. Some savings every month.

Internet based FIR system‏

19-Feb-2009
Dear PM,

Whole nation is shocked by the news of hundreds of missing children among poorer section in Delhi. Media (NewsX Channel) showed one family who lost 3 of their girl child in last 4 years. They also alleged that police refused to take any FIR which is a common nuisance over decades and government is doing nothing about it.

I think time has come to use internet to file FIR so that good percentage of the population can avoid going to police station. Internet base FIR system may be made available to banks and post offices for those who do not know how to use internet and employees may be trained to help people to file the FIR. NHRC should be given access to the system for monitoring. It is easy to develop and deploy such systems across the country.

Mr. PM, you have all the power in the world as prime minister of India, but you cannot protect young children from being kidnapped.

Sir only thing I am asking is to be sensitive, put yourself in place of a helpless parents whose children are kidnapped.

Reservation in premiere institute‏

23-May-2006
Dear President (Dr. Kalam)

I don’t know what prompted Mr Arjun Singh to reserve a good percentage of seats for SC/ST and OBC. No sensible politician would like to dilute brand image of IIT, IIM, ISI or other premiere Indian institute. At the same time I do agree that SC/ST and OBC need some push so that they can compete with socially privileged class. I have few suggestions 

1. Do not increase number of seats in the existing institutes, as it demands expansion of existing infrastructure resulting more chaos
2. Create ten new universities all over India to teach general stream, engineering and medical at graduation and post graduation level in next 2 years
3. Invest at least Rs 400 – 500 crore for each university
4. Let 80% seats in these universities be reserved for SC/ST and OBC
5. Let at least 2500 seat be available at graduation level and 750 at post graduation level in each university
6. Children of the students passing out of these universities cannot get SC/ST and OBC status
7. Education should not be free. Arrange a loan for the students to be repaid in 7 years once they get a job
8. Provide financial help, if needed to the family of the students for the period they are in the university
9. Form a permanent commission who will look for the talents among SC/ST and OBC
10. Reserve 10% seats for foreign students who will pay twice the amount
11. Recruit top-notch professors; invest heavily on the facility and infrastructure so that these universities become premiere institute in next 10 years.

Protection of women‏

9-Jun-2005
Dear President (Dr. Kalam)

Abduction and rape of woman and young girls are on the rise. This problem is going out of control every day. We should decisively kill this nuisance once for all. I have tried to consolidate my ideas on the problem and its solution as below

We are horrified by the news that girls are abducted at the age of 4 and given hormone injection for quick development to be sold to pimps at the age of 12. For 8 years they are prepared for proper shape to be used in sex trade. This business is running for many years. Can you please ask PM to go all out against abuse of woman and young girls including kids? This problem is going out of proportion every day with incidents of rape, abduction, sexual harassment, and prostitution. It is an extraordinary problem that requires extraordinary measure. The measure should include

·         Much tougher law to deal with this problem. Abduction and raping should be punished with life imprisonment. Pimps should be jailed for life.

·         A fast track court comprising 5-10 judges should be set up to deal exclusively with such cases in each state. Recently a fast track court in Rajasthan has given guilty verdict in a rape case in 3 weeks time.

·         There should be a special force in every state to deal with this problem. Whenever an FIR is lodged with local police, the case will be taken up by special force. It is a general practice by policemen to ask for bribes while taking FIR. It is not easy to fix this problem at present. Alternatively a pre-printed free post FIR form should be made available at every post office. Victim just needs to fill up their name and address so that special force police can come to take detailed FIR. This special force should report to CBI only. State will have no control over them.

·         Rehabilitation of sex workers. The number of sex worker may vary between 0.5 to 1 million. If rehabilitation means investment of Rs 5000 crore, we must spend that amount.

·         Any men caught in red light should be fined with one months salary or Rs 2000 whichever is higher. Failure to pay the sum the person will be jailed for 3 months. For subsequent offences fine and jail term will be doubled. We need to create centralized database of offenders with recording of fingerprint.

·         Demolishing all red light areas. However social scientist may not agree with this idea. In that case government may give licence to limited number of brothels across the country.

·         Women workers at construction industry or tea gardens are most vulnerable to sexual abuse and harassments. We should create a comprehensive database of woman working in these vulnerable industries.  NGO and woman rights organization members should talk to those women at least once in a year to know whether they have been abused or any potential threat of harassment. This will send a strong message to potential offenders that these women are well protected.

·         Arab marriage – this is a big nuisance primarily in the state of Kerala. We must grab and prosecute those Arabians at all cost.

·         Eve teasing is continuously on rise in the city area especially metro cities. It is the by-product of high society culture and influence of glamour world of show business. It is relatively easy to tackle. Impose hefty fine on eve teaser or on their parents/guardians. Lets deploy 1000 undercover women police everyday all over India to catch eve teaser. I believe within six month such things will come down to a great extent, if not eliminated.

·         Dowry is an age-old          problem in India. We have many laws to curb the problem. But none of the laws seems to be working. You will find only a handful of marriages where dowry is not given. I think parents of the brides are primarily responsible for this shameful culture. It is a social problem. Law cannot help much unless lie detector test of parents of both bride and groom is made compulsory immediately after the marriage. However we can reduce the menace by

o   Forcing both the family to submit their complete list of assets including cash and various loans before the marriage to the appropriate authority.

o   Limiting the amount of gift to the twice of parent’s monthly income.

o   Submitting the list of gifts given before and 1 year after marriage to the appropriate authority.

o   Random verification of the asset of the groom within 1 year of the marriage.

·         Time has come to ban some TV channels and TV programmes that promote soft porn. We also need to censor stupid music video and so called item songs of Indian movies. It has seductive effect on young minds. Channels like Ftv and Z Trend are basically soft porn channels.

·         Celebrity party should not be telecast. It is too glamorous life to be afforded by middle class. Now it is a fashion of dreaming to be a model or miss India or miss state or miss school. India needs more scientist, technocrats or sports personalities than models or beauty pageant. Having said this we feel proud when Indian women become miss Universe or miss World.

·         Hotels/resorts, big and small, should be warned about potential misuse of their premises by call girls or boss with his lady secretary. Hotel management should be fined heavily if found guilty of any immoral act.

·         Banning of all porn magazines/CDs from India and abroad. I don’t understand why government of India has given licence to at least 20 adult content magazines like Debonair?

·         We should also take help of technology to make our society more secured.

o   Install thousands of video cameras in potentially dangerous areas. It is quite common in UK where instances of mugging are very high.

o   Develop a mobile phone like device, which will send distress signal with geographical coordinates to the nearest police station when pressed. This is possible through GPRS system. In US parents can track their children with help of the mobile phone the children is carrying.

Economic suggestions‏

26-May-2005
Dear Prime Minister,

I would like to share some of my views that would boost Indian economy
1. Government has announced 9.5% interest in PF. I have few concerns. Why should govt. pay such high tax-free interest to those whose monthly income is more than 1 lacs? Interest rate should be based on gross  monthly salary. Higher the salary lower should be the interest down to the interest offered by bank. Interest rate should also be based on age. For example anybody above 45 should get highest interest. So when we apply both salary and age final rate should be lower of the two rates.

2. Govt should charge 25 paise for every banking and share transaction regardless of the amount of the transaction.

3. Thirty (30) percent of annual salary increment after tax should be given in gift voucher (GV) in order to increase private final consumption expenditure. Gift vouchers should be limited to consumer goods and services. For example if someone gets Rs 50,000 per month and gets a monthly increment of Rs 1000, he/she should get 30% of Rs 670 (Rs 330 paid in tax) as GV i.e. Rs 201. This should be applicable for both government and private companies.

Extend the above idea to income tax return. All rebates applied on calculated tax should be converted into gift vouchers. This will force people to improve the quality of their life.

4. Every earning individual including pension holders should spend 7% of the gross income after tax in health, 5% in education, 5% in food, 2% in cloth, 3% in transportation. A person earning Rs 1000 a month should spend Rs 220(70 + 50 + 50 + 20 + 30) every month in education, health, food, cloth, and transportation. Similarly Ambani brothers who earn 3 crore every month should spend Rs 66 lacs every month. In return government along with private organizations must ensure free education and medical expense to every  Indian. Government will provide food voucher worth of Rs 2000 every month, 4 sets of clothes and pair of shoes of agreed quality and free local transportation in trains and buses. Objective is to distribute the income  more evenly. It is not acceptable to me that 66,000 Indian holding US$235 billion, more than 25% of our GDP! So, more you earn more you pay for basic amenities of life.

5. Introduce National Id card with biometric identification (photo and finger prints) for all Indians. This card should also act as debit card in collaboration with SBI and other banks. Also every registered  company/traders should be given a unique company id card. All transactions of value Rs 1000 or more should be either through cheque or national/company id card. Every transaction should identify source and  destination ids. This way ministry of finance will be able to find income and expense of all individuals and corporate. It will help to eliminate black money in a big way. Technically it is possible as all our cities and towns are connected through Internet. National id card has many other benefits like keeping track of demographic details of the entire population, checking illegal immigration, it can be linked with voting machine to stop false voting, help to keep track of medical history of each and every individuals. VAT can be  implemented more effectively. I think cost of the project should not be more than Rs15,000 crore. Benefits of having national id are far too great to be ignored.

6. Declare the year 2006 as consumer year and withdraw sales tax or VAT from consumer products.

Investment in R & D‏

10-Feb-2005
Dear Mr. Kapil Sibal

We cannot be superpower unless we build our own technology. We are sick of the word ‘foreign collaboration’. It is imperative that we spend trillions of rupees in R&D to be leader in technology to compete with US, Europe and Japan. The reason US is superpower because it controls 70% of the world ‘s technology.  I have few concrete suggestions in this regard. Objective of this suggestion is to compete with top companies like SONY, Intel, Dell and many others.

1.      We must create a pool of 2000 top grade technocrat and scientist like Mr. Vinod Dham or Mr. Shyam Pitroda or Mr. Jayant Narlikar. This pool will be created from existing talents within the country working in institutes like ISRO, DRDO, TELCO, HAL, and TIFR etc and also from overseas.

2.      They will be given average annual salary of 1.5 crore with reduced income tax of say 15%. Some of them may get 3 crore annually. With this salary we can attract successful Indians who are working in companies like Boeing, General Motors, Intel, Motorola, Oracle etc. We can even recruit Russian or American technocrats. India must be a hub of multi national technocrat like US and Europe.

3.      We will create a group of 5 people and the group will be assigned to R & D projects of commercial value. The projects may come from both government and private institutes. Projects that I can think of

· Chip design and fabrication. Nowadays chip is used in every product from TV to washing machine to camera.

· Medical equipments – 20 most useful medical instrument so that we don’t have to purchase them from MNC at a very high cost.

· Consumer electronics – TV, DVD, Audio System, Home Theatre. Though we have many Indian companies who manufacture these electronics item. But they don’t invent technology.

· Food processing.

· Photography – auto camera, SLR camera, Camcoder, Digital Camera, Telescope, film processing.

· Mobile phones

· Office equipment – Photocopier, printers, digital white boards

· Printing technology

· Robotics

· Automobile – we should design a car, which can compete with Mercedez Benz C class.

· Software – Office product like word, Excel, Powerpoint, Database like Oracle, Multimedia products like Adobe photoshop, 3D Studio, Autocad.

· Hardware – mother board design, memory chip, hard disk

· Aircraft – aircraft engine, design of interior of the aircraft, key navigational instruments.

4.      Each group will be given 10 to 100 people depending on nature of the project. Duration of the project will be between 1-5 years. Projects will be picked up in such a way that every year 20% of the projects will be ready for production.

Now million rupees question is how much will it cost and where to get the money?

Cost estimate at a very high level

Source of Finance

·         Projects will be distributed between 100 companies i.e. each company will execute 4 projects. Infrastructure cost should be borne by the company that will take one or more projects. So each company has to get on an average 4*20=80 crore for infrastructure in the first year.

·         Cost of salary will be borne by every registered company, public or private, in India. Each company must pay 0.5% of the monthly salary of their employee. I don’t have any data about how many trillion of rupees are spent in monthly salary. But I believe 0.5% cess will raise rupees 4000-5000 crore annually. Government should cover any shortfall.

As the projects are completed, a new line of business should be created with the developed technology. Each line of business may need between rupees 10-200 crore to build.

Some Thoughts

12-Dec-2004
Dear Prime Minister,

I would like to share some of my ad hoc thoughts.

1. Every graduate, engineering or general stream including IITians must spend 1 year time between graduation and age 35 in teaching in rural and urban schools where there is a shortage of teacher. In west Bengal all MBBS doctors compulsorily have to go to village and practice there for three years before getting their degree. If doctors can do, others should also do. Though quality of teaching may suffer. But primary objective is to see more and more children pass through at least class VIII.
2. Every couple earning more than Rs 25,000 per month (combined income) should spend Rs 1500 per month to sponsor either health or education of a child in need upto age 17 years. Those who are earning 1 lacs per month should sponsor 4 children. I don’t have data on how many multiples of Rs 25000 could be found; my best guess is that we could sponsor 7-8 million children.
3. Every adult under age 50 including ministers, MPs, MLAs should spend 7 hours in a week for social work. Primary objective is to involve mass in development work like Gandhiji did during freedom struggle and to boost up the love for country.
4. We should create a general purpose R&D centre in the line of DRDO and pump Rs. 15,000 crore every year. This centre will design and test a new product which is not available in India or in the world. For example a digital thermometer which is very popular worldwide but not in India because of high price of imported thermometer. After successful testing of prototype entire technical knowhow will be sold to new entrepreneur or established business house for mass production. The product could be sub part of a bigger product like head light of a car or a complete product. The product could be as simple as making mirror or as complex as laser printer. One thing I hate is assembly of a product with the help of foreign company without having R&D unit. The point that I am trying to make is that we have to be technologically independent. Today US is politically super power because it controls 70% of the world technology. I think we should  first create a exhaustive list of products (the list may run into few lacs) and answer the following questions

Is it available in India?

Is it designed and developed by Indian Company?

Is it world class?

We should take up 5000 design projects every year. Duration of the project should be between 1 to 5 years. Projects must be selected in consultation with the industry.

5. We should encourage people to earn more and spend more. Abolish income tax upto 30 lacs per year. Introduce spending tax. Anybody earning between 3-15 lacs must spend at least 40% of their income for the purchase of items/donation/travel worth more than Rs 500 by cheque or credit card. Any shortfall from the minimum spending limit should be given as spending tax to the government. However overseas purchases or travel and any purchase over non Indian internet site should not be considered as spending. For earning between 15-30 lacs minimum spending limit should be 65%. There are few benefits

·         As people spend more, government can generate more revenue through sales tax which will offset the loss in income tax.

·         Individual will be honest not to hide their income.

·         This will increase the quality of life. Those who are planning to buy Maruti 800 will go for Zen. If I white wash my house with lime every 5 years I will now do the same every two years using Asian paints.

·         Bank interest can be further lowered because savings potential increased by 20-30% with abolition of income tax.

6. It is utmost important that we keep our best brains within our country. For long we served US and world by allowing highly skilled people leaving the country. I have few alternative proposals. All engineers, doctors and post graduates
• Cannot leave the country in foreseeable future. This is definitely tough. Or
•  Can leave the country after serving the country for 10 years. Or
• Can spend 50% of time overseas not exceeding 2 years at a stretch and 50% time in India. If some body spends 6 months in overseas, he/she must spend next 6 months in India.
• Can leave the country for higher education for maximum of 3 years.
7. There should be a subject on patriotism in school, college, IIT and IIM. We are told from our school days to become engineer/doctor/scientist and go to US/Europe. We are never taught to serve the country.
8. I would like to have a technology channel. It will show how a product is manufactured and the underlying technology from conception to production. I am personally interested to see how ISRO makes satellite from design to finished product step by step or how a paper mill works. This will make young children to be more innovative and grew up with technology. This channel should be shown in Schools once a week.