Should cops resort to caning or innovative ideas?

Ever since lockdown has been announced in India, cops have taken over roads of the country to maintain law and order along with physical distancing. But within 2 days news about cops high handedness of became headlines of all leading news channels, newspaper and in social media platform like Twitter, where people vented their anger, tagging all top officials of police department along with PMO and Chief Ministers of respective states. 

Within no time this news spread like fire in jungle, to add fuel to the fire were some of the videos where cops could be seen caning and abusing people were made viral on whatsapp, which made the matter worse. Taking advantage of the situation, people created numerous videos on various applications and shared them through facebook and whatsapp.

There were instances of casualties also due to caning in some parts of the country, as a result of which few cops were suspended and departmental inquiry was initiated against them. If proved guilty, cops may be punished too, as these acts leads to violation of human rights too.

Taking stock of these situations DCPs of few states flung into action and issued orders to the force, not to hit people. Now cops on road were in a dilemma, to figure out innovate ways to keep people thronging road unnecessarily without using sticks.

In Chennai, cops used corona virus structured helmet to scare people away from road and it worked for them, it was applauded by people too. This was very innovate thought by Chennai police to scare people through virus replica, as till date people have seen the virus only in mages not in structural form.

In Kerala, after the initial caning now cops make people to do sit ups, if they are found wandering in the city without valid reasons. When I watched the sit up video recently, it took me back to my school days. I am happy that there is no violence and cops have decided mellow down their anger on masses to handle situation calmly.

Bengaluru police commissioner asked this staff to talk politely with people when on road and not to resort to violence of any kind. He is addressing press on daily basis and taking all preventive measures to avoid any outcry among masses and they cooperate with the administration during these time.

I am happy that now there is no violence on roads now else situation could have gone out of control for the government to manage and the entire purpose of lockdown would have failed drastically.  But thanks to the timely intervention of top brass of police officials they not only managed the situation but also instilled the faith of people in police department once again.

I am against all those people who venture out of their homes unreasonably just to risk their life along with their family members. Action should be taken against them but in a way where they understand their mistake and is ashamed of their deeds, just the way kids are taught in schools.

Challenges of stamped home quarantine people

We have been hearing and reading lot of stories about people who are officially home quarantined venturing out among the masses and endangering lives of thousands of people around them. General public criticize home quarantine stamped people without identifying the reason from them to defy the order of government. I would like to share few challenges faced by such people with a real life incident.

Supply of essential commodities

People suspected of Covid 19 virus are also human beings and have full rights to lead their lives just like any one of us. It is duty of the society to ensure that, home quarantined people are supplied with adequate food and essential commodities so that they don’t venture out to buy them and be harassed by people.

A friend of mine shared the plight of a home quarantine stamped people at his native

An aged man in his 60s had returned to his home town, just before the lockdown after meeting his daughter, he traveled by train for both his to and fro journey. The moment he got down at his station, he was asked by officials to be home quarantined which he agreed to.

But next day he was seen at a super market buying groceries for him, when people noticed the stamp in his hand they immediately altered officials and they reached the spot. When this man was questioned by the officials, his response was, I didn’t had food at home as I am alone now and couldn’t with stand starving for long, hence ventured out. Health official and people were so moved by the plight of this man, that they assured him 3 meals daily all through his stamped home quarantine period. Fortunately for him a neighbor of his volunteered to support him for his meals.

Not all stamped home quarantine people are fortunate like this man.

Attitude of society towards stamped home quarantine people

Societies attitude also play a vital role in ensuring that stamped home quarantine people are at home only. Don’t discriminate them or treat their families as untouchables rather rendered your support to time at their testing time. Check with them about the challenges faced by them and extend your helping hand to them which will make them obliged of their duty towards the society. 

When stamped home quarantine people are ill-treated by their own society they become rebellious and wander out freely to vent their anger which is not good for the society at large.

 Mental agony

Duration of stamped home quarantine is 14 days provided one doesn’t develop any symptoms of Covid 19, else the duration will increase. During this time quarantined people is always under constant mental agony interpreting their journey of the days ahead, as chances of them testing positive for Covid 19 is high in comparison to others. This makes them irritative by nature.

So it is the duty of the people of their surroundings to ensure that they don’t panic, during these times and don’t take any drastic steps. Because we don’t know when a home quarantined person may slip into depression or commit suicide.

These are few of the probable challenges faced by stamped home quarantine people and if we are able solve these challenges, we might instill people to be at home both safely and happily. Because together we can we will overcome this Covid 19 pandemic.

Kudos to NDTV for helping migrant laborers across India

Lockdown of services across India for 21 days was announced suddenly due to fast growing Corona positive cases in India and it came as shock to all Indian citizens. But there were few who were really hit hard by this decision of government and they were the migrants workers spread across country.

The moment they heard this news, first thing which crept into their mind was to head back to their homes reason all of sudden they were rendered jobless and didn’t had the money sustain through the lockdown period. As most of them were daily laborers who earn hand to mouth and this situation was new to them, as this has been implemented for the first time in the country.

To make matter worse all forms of commute like railways, buses and even flight services were stalled during the lockdown period, this added fuel to the fire of the plight of migrant workers. They don’t even have money to pay rent for the month and are not sure how long will it take for them get employed again? Equipped will these problem in hand they decided to march towards their home town irrespective of the distance.

NDTV was first one to draw the attention of the nation towards the plight of migrant workers, as it’s not an easy task to walk hundreds of kilometer, that too without food and water. Some even has kids with them and few were just months old, which made the journey cumbersome but it didn’t deter the spirits of the laborers.

The moment this news was aired by NDTV, nation came together to help the people and they tweeted about it in social media a lot. Thanks to the joint effort of NDTV and the people of India, several state governments came forward to the respite of these people. Now buses have been arranged for all them to ply them back to their hometown and they have been provided with food and water at shelter homes where they are eagerly waiting for their buses.

I read a lot in media that WHY are these workers going back to their home town rather they can stay back in which ever state they are currently as they are risking their life along the ones in their villages or cities.

The answer is these people are worried about their future as they have no means of livelihood to survive in cities now and they are not sure how long with this situation continues to prevail and have no one to rely upon during this crisis. Though state government is trying everything possible to comfort these laborers and their family but in this panic situation all they want is to be at home with their loved ones. It’s more of an emotional calling of this workforce which is forcing them to go back home at any cost.

The most important question which is being missed by people is “Who will feed these people on the 22^nd day” ie the day when PAN India lockdown ceases. Can someone ANSWER this question, I doubt. These workers are actually thinking about their life after the lockdown period, to which none of have an answer.

So let’s not judge them and respect their feeling.

NDTV once again you did a commendable job, you were the flag bearer of this story which is now being covered by all leading news channels, print media and the political circle, which led to quick resolution of the issue.

NDTV, hats off to your team and their unique story coverage in the country

Ways I spend my free time during self-quarantined period Part -2

In my last blog I wrote about few ways which keeps me occupied during the self-quarantined period, continuing the legacy I am going to share few more ways in the second and final part of the blog. All these are my personal tried and tested methods.

Build rapport with family members and friends

In our busy life we don’t get time to sit and talk peacefully with our family members and friends as we have multiple thoughts running in our head then. Now when we have the time, let’s use it connect with our family members and friends and try to cover up for all the time which was devoid to them.

This can be done in 2 ways, for all those of you who are with your family, take time to talk to your family members individually, it will help them to feel connected with you and will help you to build new connections with them again.

For all those of you who are away from your family, you can e-connect with them through phone calls, video calls or any other mediums, I urge all of you to call your parents daily during these time without fail as they will be worried about you all time. A call from you will make them relaxed and consoled during this testing time.

When was the last time, you spoke to your friends at length?  I think months ago, who’s stopping you from calling your friends now to speak your heart out, just like school or college days. Or you can also update the contacts of your school and college friend’s in the alumni network.

Clear files from your laptop and hard drive

There are lot of unwanted files which would have piled up in our laptop and hard drive, since clearing these files takes lot of time and energy it is usually neglected and when we are overburdened we clear files randomly in haste. At times we end up deleting important file too. Use this time to do the herculean task for cleaning files from your electronic devices.

While deleting photos and videos, you can share some interesting clicks in your family group and relish those memories.

Build business connection

Business contacts play a vital role in business expansion and relationship building activities in the long run. Lockdown period can be used by you to connect with professionals in LinkedIn or any other professional website. Professionals will be able to spend more time with you now and you can discuss your proposal at length with them, who knows when situation normalizes you may bag a contract.

Work on your start up idea

Any start up idea need lot of time, research and preparation before presenting it to the investors. This time can be well utilized by you to work on your start up idea as time is enormous and since you are passionate about it so time will never be a constrain especially during your me time.

I hope some of the ways suggested by me is beneficial to you, if so do let me know about it in comments.

Stay home stay safe

Ways I spend my free time during self-quarantined period Part -1

India is under lockdown till April 15^th 2020 to fight the pandemic caused by Corona virus and to emerge winner in the fight against this virus. Together we can and we will, initially it was difficult for me also to stay at home all time and still be engaged. But now I have figured out few ways which keeps boredom away from me, so thought of sharing them with other too.

Web series

Don’t jump into conclusion, hang on till you hear me out completely, I am not talking about the set of new web series being launched on a daily basis rather I am taking about the ones you have already watched. I had watched few web series in hurry and wanted to watch them again peacefully when I am at ease. So I am utilizing this opportunity for the same, few web series which I wanted to watch were “Made in Heaven, Code M, Mission over Mars” to name a few. I watched them again and I enjoyed it thoroughly even more than my first watch.

Movies

Movies like DDLJ, Sholay are the ones which we can watch anytime. I am a big fan of action thriller movies and have a collection of them in my hard drive. Now I am using this self-isolation phase to go through those movies again. If you watch movies of your genre which have already collected you will never bored of it, just try it and let me know about it

Books

I was an avid reader once but due to lack of time, my reading habit declined drastically but I still used to buy books in the hope that one day I might read them. Only time when I read book is while travelling, that time am relatively and devote my self completely to the book in hand.  So in case you too have some books which you haven’t read or have read partially, find those books and go on a reading spree.

I have just mentioned 3 because they keep my busy but I don’t overdo any of them, ie I do them in moderation, watch one web series at time, then a movie and finally the book. This way I keep variations between my activities and I am inclined to repeat another activity when one cycle is complete. 

My gratitude to Indian Railways during Corona times

Corona or Covid 19, I think no one would have heard of term ever but will remember it till their life time now, thanks to the current pandemic situation globally due to this virus. Thousands of people have lost their lives globally and the numbers are just increasing daily. I just hope together we are able to defeat this virus globally by being self-quarantined.

During the initial stages of this outbreak I was at my hometown, that time I wasn’t much aware of the situation because numbers of cases were negligible and situation was under control then. Since my work at home town was not completed I decided to extend my stay by 5 more days. Those 5 five days were very crucial as by then Corona was termed as pandemic by WHO and travel restriction were enforced by the government.

Due to some unavoidable circumstances, I had to travel back to Bengaluru and for the first time I was in the dilemma, whether to travel or not? The situation was more intriguing on the day of travel, till I reached station, I was just waiting for a reason to cancel my travel.

But the moment I reached station, I felt I was in safe hands, they was Covid 19 medical desk at the entrance of station and place was being cleaned by disinfected at regular interval and safety instructions were being announced through speakers. The station had deserted look with bare minimum passengers at the platform and all of them were either masked or had covered their face with handkerchief, first soothing experience.

After sometime train arrived and I board it, to my utter surprise there were hardly any passengers in the coach, including me 10 passengers I believe. I went to my berth and settled my luggage, coach was little different today, as curtains and blankets were removed from AC coaches. All I was offered was a pair of bed sheet and pillow but the temperate was moderated, so it didn’t bother me, so it took some time to get the feel of AC.

I realized that janitor of the coach was making periodic rounds of coach at regular interval, initially it was scary initially but later I got used to it. Then the ticket checker came asked my seat number and glanced over my Id card and went back. He was in mask and gloves, I have never seen them with these additional gears as they are mostly in black coat with white trouser, so was little surprised.

By 8 pm onwards rounds of janitor was intensified and they were accompanied by ticket checkers as I could hear their footsteps till 12.00 am, after that I slept.  Morning when I woke up I realized that the whole drill of periodic rounds by janitor and ticket collector was done to safeguard our interest as we passenger were less in number and were scattered in our seating arrangements. So staffs of Indian Railways made regular rounds, in order to prevent us from any towards incident as we were prone to them in this Corona time.

I would like to my express my heart felt gratitude to all staffs of Indian Railways for thinking so much about us passenger even in this pandemic situation. Thank you and keep up the good work

Social media platforms the most effective tool for escalation management

Brand’s reputation plays a vital role in attracting more customers to itself and reaffirming people’s faith in them in the long run. It plays more important role in service industry which is fragile and easily targeted by people for their service offerings. With advent of large number of e commerce firm’s things have become more complicated now. That’s the reason organizations have started giving more importance to escalation management.

Today most organizations have internal escalation management team to address the concern of their customer efficiently in a short span of time. Organizations try their level best to resolve issues offline so that customers don’t vent their anger online at social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Reason is the large scale visibility of these platforms and its harmful effect on brand value.

Based on my person experience I can say that Twitter is the best platform for quicker resolution of concern and I would like to substantiate my stance by the most recent incident countered by me.

I ordered an item from an e commerce firm on 5^th February 2020 with the probable delivery date as 8^th February 2020. On 8^th Feb, I missed delivery guy’s call and when I called him back after 5 mins, he didn’t respond to my call. I tried to call him 2 -3 times, since he was not responding I decided to wait for his call back.

He is didn’t call me back but I was astonished by an SMS which stated, that the item has been delivered to me and it was collected by me personally. I was furious at the receipt of this SMS as the item was prepaid, I immediately called the customer care to apprise them of the situation and they requested me to wait for some time.

After 24 hrs I called customer care again to check the status of my complain, this time too they requested for more time for resolving the issue. Hence I decided to approach the appellate authority for quicker resolution of issue, here also they requested for more time without divulging exact time frame.

Since there was no response from appellate authority even after 48 hrs, I approached them again, this time too they tried to appease me with same old punch line “give us more time”. I was literally drained out by now, hence I decided to vent my anger on Twitter and the response was amazing.

5 minutes after posting my concern on Twitter, I was asked to DM (direct message) my concern to them on Twitter along with my number which I did promptly. I post my concern on Twitter  by 11 am and by 3 pm I received call from the delivery guy inquiring about my package and address one more time, he apologized for this conduct with an assurance that my package will be delivered to me by 7 pm.

At 7 pm delivery guy called me once again to inform me that he was on his way to deliver my package, in another 5 mins, he was at my palace and handed over the package to me personally this time and apologized for the entire fiasco.

I wondered if I had posted my concern on Twitter initially only, this issue would have been solved on 8^th February 2020 itself. This is not the first time that Twitter has been instrumental in resolving an issue, I have seen similar response in past too and the same has been resonated to me by my friends as well.

So my question is “Why do we need offline platform when online channels are more effective in resolving customer’s woes?”