Saved because of per second billing

2G scam or whatever, the price at which the spectrum was sold atleast brought one good thing with it, the tariff!! Guess India might be having one of the largest number of telecom operators along with lower tariffs.

So these companies needed a differentiating factor to get customers.If lower tariffs were one the per second billing was another. Though this was introduced by the now estranged BPL, it was popularized by Tata Docomo and it came to my rescue :-)

Having lost my Airtel post paid sim and took a docomo prepaid sim. Everything was going as usual with my bike even though I haven't serviced it for more than 6 months (battery dead, right indicators broken, speedo not running and another major (secret fault :-P) ) until one fine morning, my bike refused to take any more abuse and the chain slipped, leaving me stranded in the middle of nowhere !! Called the mechanic near my home but he didn't pick up so made a call to my colleague to inform him of the situation and after the call ended the balance showed as

Call Duration: 85 seconds             Call Cost: 85p              Balance Remaining: 1.81

I still had enough balance to call the mechanic and inform of my plight and he came to my rescue. A normal 1  rupee per call tariff of the olden days would have left me stranded on the road looking for a recharge shop instead of a mechanic :-)

Principle, Prerogative or Prejudice

Siddharth Varadarajan and his new team took up the editorial of the family owned and Chennai's most respected "The Hindu" some time back and the changes in the style and the content of the newspaper are very evident. Well whether the changes are good or evil, is another matter of discussion.

The most striking change is the introduction of "The Sunday Story". Usually the sunday Hindu has 4 pages dedicated to articles on myriad topics from its readers, which are mostly opinion pieces, life experiences and funny anecdotes. Whilst this is still retained, the sunday Hindu has just been spiced up with the addition of the Sunday Story, a report on each metro by staff reporters on a chosen topic for the week. How much of research goes into selection of the topics, collecting data and presenting them god only knows. But some of the topics have really caught the attention of the general public and stirred strong and dividing opinions. One such was the topic called "Housing Apartheid".

As expected just the topic name raised eyebrows, garnered eyeballs and generated curiosity. This post is not intended to debate the contents or the validity of the claims. But however, raised a question in me, isn't an individual or an institution entitled to have its own principles, preferences and prerogatives? Or all these things amount to having prejudice?

Sample these..

• I prefer to read only "The Hindu" that's my preference and prerogative does that mean I am showing prejudice to other newspapers?
• Vegetarianism is my principle which I don't advocate to others.. however, prefer to eat my own meal in a vegetarian restaurant and if its my home I prefer to rent it out to vegetarians, is that prejudice? Isn't it afterall my house that I built it from my money? I am confused.
• I wish all my muslim friends during their festival, but shifted out of a muslim dominant region in Hyderabad, as I couldn't stand the sight of a goat's head being roasted on the road during bakrid. Is that prejudice?
• The government says that even though 100 opportunities are available I can compete for one in 31 and 69 isn't for me. That's government's principle and it calls that RESERVATION and is that a prejudice? I don't know !!
• There was a furore over an advert in a forum I follow closely, which advertised they are building flats that are sale only for a specific community (that makes 2 to 4% of the entire state's population). All the forumers were calling for the builders head. But think about it, he is investing crores into the project and is ok to forego easy money from majority population by RESERVING it for a minority population. Is that prejudice or his preference?

So many questions!!! That is the beauty of being in a democracy :-) your opinion can be called preference, principle or prejudice based on others opinion :-) But you agree to disagree and coexist if not in harmony atleast tolerant of each other.