Serendipity : Musings of an Islander

B i t t u Journey of a hale and healthy boy whose little oversight cost both his arms By Debkumar Bhadra It was Thursday, 21 June, 2018 when Gaurab Kumar Paul, fondly known as Bittu went out to lend a helping hand to his village mate wind-up a function. The task at hand was to remove an array of alternate Bamboo and Galvanised Iron (GI) pipe poles planted on the road side to install light fittings decorating the pathway to the premise where marriage reception of his friend was hosted the previous night. When Bittu reached the spot, work was underway. Some of the poles have been removed and his friends were working on the remaining ones. He joined them by pulling out one himself when his friend, next in the line received a call on his phone and left the GI pole he was working upon, to answer the call. Bittu grabbed the GI pipe which his friend has left half done with both his hands and pulled it out of the hole when a loud cracking noise was heard with sparks flying off live High Te...

Celebration in the time of pandemic By Debkumar Bhadra Festivals and festivities are an integral part of Indian culture. In the words of Sadguru significance and importance of festivals in Indian culture was such that there was a time when there used to be a festival every day of the year. If today is ploughing day, tomorrow will be planting day, day after tomorrow weeding day - 365 days, 365 festivals. The sole purpose of these festivals is to bring peoples closer to one another, break the monotony, socialize, celebrate and unite into a fabric appreciating and rejoicing each other’s tradition, festivals and cultural diversity . In the coming month, we have Durga Puja between 22-26 October, 2020. Celebration of Sharadiya Durga Puja in the islands and elsewhere in the country is unique in the sense that more than those five auspicious puja days, preceding months spent in preparation are also an event in itself. Secondly almost all Durga Puja is performed in temporary pandals put ...

Unemployment, Hunger and accumulating EMI’s stare at islands self employed autowallas By Debkumar Bhadra The COVID-19 pandemic, associated lockdown and restriction on economic activity impacted different sections of the society in varied proportions. While the government is staring at a steep economic slide, the working class specifically those who have been working daily to make ends meet are reeling under abject poverty due to loss of job. The lower strata of the society comprising daily earners have been hit the hardest. Autorikshaw, Jeep, Taxi operators are one such affected group who have been at the receiving end since day one of the pandemic.   According to 2018-19 edition of Basic Statistics there are 4738 registered autorikshaw, 31766  LMV’s including Cars/Taxi Omni & Jeep out of which an estimated 15-20% is engaged in commercial (Point-to-Point) transport sector,  257 Government owned State Transport Service (STS) Busses and 143 Privately owned busses ca...

Open Invitation to demonstrate speed prescribed under QoS BB service regulation is provided Dear Sir It is submitted that am a BSNL subscriber having a BSNL Postpaid Mobile (943428xxxx) connection since July 2003, BSNL Landline Phone (258xxx) since March 2005 and BSNL Broadband (BB) connection since November 2008 in my name. During the past decade and a half I have been a loyal customer always paying bills within due date. But won’t claim am doing something extraordinary because I believe when service has been availed, timely payment is an obligation which I must honour as a customer. However, when I look at the service side, specifically during the past year or so, it has been a continuous downslide on your part. Be it 2G, 3G, LL or BB service, frequent call drops, poor voice quality and non-conforming data speed is all am getting in the name of servic e. Highly unstable and below standard connection speed, combined with high latency ranging between 600-1000ms and packe...

The business of Ullu – Banana… By Debkumar Bhadra ­­ Murari Lall needs to build a structure for which he need 10 bamboo poles, neither one more, nor one less. He finds there is only one company in the town namely BEESYNL selling bamboo poles @ Rs 100/- a piece with the condition that the order has to be placed online and the entire quantity required has to be bought altogether and the company will deliver it at the doorstep and that bill once raised has to be paid. Finding no other alternative, Murari Lall agrees to the monopolistic company's conditions and buys 10 poles required to build the structure. Company sends them on a truck to his home. The truck arrives. Against required 10, Murari finds only 5 poles have arrived loaded on an open body truck. Upon asking, the driver said 5 poles might have fallen off the truck hence consider them lost in transit. He then goes on to add, press refresh, the company will resend them. Since the quant...

Electricity Billing and Payment, stuck in the past! By Debkumar Bhadra According to local media reports, Electricity Department, A&N Administration is contemplating raising electricity bills by direct meter reading or provisional bill in the islands ostensibly to ramp up the cumbersome process, which as of now is labour intensive and require repeated visits to customer premise, first for taking meter reading and then for distribution of printed bills. With the instant initiative, it seems the department aims to finish meter reading, billing and distribution all in one go. It is a welcome step, but addresses the actual billing-payment issue only partially. Let me explain . According to data accessed from Basic Statistics, A&N Islands have 1,33,990 consumers during the year 2018-19 of which 91,270 is in South Andaman, 32,660 in N&M Andaman and 10,060 in the Nicobar District. Every month personnel from the electricity department visit each of these indivi...

Islanders caught as collateral in the lockdown By Debkumar Bhadra With less than a week remaining into the 21 day lockdown, everyone seems to wonder if the lockdown will be lifted or extended! Well for a diverse country of 1.3 billion, there cannot be a one-size-fits-all answer, specifically when the choice is between life and livelihood. On one hand there is a perceived risk of undoing the commendable job of containing the deadly novel corona virus, on the other it is the country’s economy that is at stake . While many states are already arguing for extending the lockdown, an update shared by the Chief Secretary to the UT Administration of Andaman and Nicobar has brought some respite. “All ten earlier positive cases are now negative after treatment. They will be shifted from hospital to institutional quarantine for 2 weeks” read the late night tweet by @ChetanSanghi. The islands which so far accounted for 11 corona positive cases, after ten of them declared neg...