Monthly Archives: June 2014

They are doing their ‘Bin’ …Are you doing yours!

We have mentioned in our earlier posts how our entire team takes out a couple of days in a month and moves around their city speaking to people on the roads. Psst…The footage will make for some ‘enlightening’ YouTube videos (which we are in the process of making, by the way. Watch this space for that.)

The theme of this piece is inspired from the conversations we have had with people about the issue of ‘Garbage Bins’ in Mumbai; South Mumbai to be precise.

While most of the people said that there are no garbage bins in their city at all, some said they are not enough while a few said there are a lot of bins, newly installed albeit.

After getting varying response from the people of the same city, we decided to chuck everything else and check it ourselves. So, we went about town doing guess what… ‘BIN SPOTTING’ (Besides the point, but when my mother called me to ask where I was and I told her what exactly we were doing, I could hear a disappointing sigh from the other end with a faint ‘Is this why you did Engineering and an MBA’ followed by a click..Hota hai!)

We could see a lot of freshly installed bins which were nowhere close to the tattered bins we are used to seeing.

Cool stuff, municipal people! You did surprise us with these fancy, separate Dry and Wet bins (btw, our counterparts in other smaller cities could spot them as well…they are all over the place…like Hollywood would say… “Run..the bins are taking over” #BadJoke) Would be great if the authorities can run recurring campaigns to raise awareness on what type of kachra to throw in which coloured bin. And the colour coding, we suggest, should be universal across the country.

Trash bins in Mumbai
Newly installed trash bins in South Mumbai.

 So we come to today’s question:

They are doing their ‘Bin’ ..oops bit … but, are you doing yours!

Some key points to remember when you want to throw garbage :

1. Bins are not capable of walking up to you
(we are hopeful that with growing technological advancements such a day would come as well :) #IndiansNeedWalkingBins)

 2. Just like we hunt for the nearest ATMs, STD-PCOs whenever we need one, we can do the same for bins as well. Always, always remember:

The next bin is not too far away

3. And if you think there are not enough bins –

Why not report it at www.ChangeBhai.in!

We will get them installed for you, if there are none close by. What say you? Yes, no, maybe?

Know Why Lights Outside This Delhi Metro Station Were On During The Day.

A lot of citizens tell us that they really want to report an issue on ChangeBhai but haven’t been getting the time to do that. Fair enough. Happens with all of us.

To motivate us, here is an example of a user who saw an issue on his way to work and took out a bit of his time to report it on ChangeBhai. (He couldn’t even take a picture of the issue but was kind enough to take some a couple of days later and send it to us as the said issue was on his daily travel route.)

Click below to see the actual issue:

Issue #: A0363, Lights on during morning, Ramesh Nagar Metro Station, New Delhi

WP_001913

Just to give you an idea of how we work and the kind of updates you can expect from us after you report an issue, here’s an excerpt from our back end team’s Email conversation with the user over the last couple of days after he reported the issue on ChangeBhai.

CHANGEBHAI: We assume that the lights are within the premises and are a property of Delhi Metro. Kindly confirm the same. In order to expedite the process of closing the issue, kindly provide us a picture of the issue

USER: You are correct. The heavy lights are very much part of the property of the Metro Station since these lights are installed on the stairs wall. These remain lighted on all the four gates of Metro Stations in the morning,.(sic)

CHANGEBHAI: We spoke to Delhi Metro personnel Mr. Himadri today who said that the request for change in “timer set” of Ramesh Nagar Metro Station lights has been sent to the ground staff. The issue will be  resolved shortly.

USER: Really impressed with your wonderful take on with the problem. As requested by you, find attached the pictures of lights switched on even during day time.

CHANGEBHAI: This is to update you that  Shambhu Gupta- Station Manager (Ramesh Nagar Metro Station) is personally involved in resolving the issue. He also conveyed that from now onward, they will take care that no lights are on during the day time.

It was a simple case of the timer not being set after a change of season from winter to summer, which was rectified because of this user’s effort. Kudos to Delhi Metro staff as well for their eagerness to resolve our issues.

Do report an issue on www.ChangeBhai.in . That is all we need you to do.  Sharing this post with others to spread the word wouldn’t hurt either.

Do you know where is this place?

The Background (Kahaani ke Peeche ki Soch):

I remember watching an episode of Satyamev Jayate where they focused on the conditions in which the police force works in our country. I can vividly recall a police wallah speaking about how common it was  for electricity board to disconnect the police station’s power supply for ‘no bill payment’ and how they used their ‘contacts’ to buy fuel for their official vehicles as insufficient funds were given to them for the same vis-à-vis the requirements.

It was an eye opener of sorts for sleepy heads like me who had tuned in to the ‘early’ morning popular program to catch their favorite superstar Aamir Khan talk about important issues. That episode indeed created a good amount of public exposure which should have ideally brought in a lot of police reforms. I hope that actually happened.

Now, of course, ChangeBhai doesn’t deal with law and order issues and hence this point doesn’t really apply to us directly. But, since, most of the issues that we handle and receive on ChangeBhai pertain to Municipal Authorities, we wanted to take your views on a similar topic.

The Context (Andar ki Baat):

In our endeavour to remain connected to the ground realities, we regularly speak to random people on the streets about the civic issues that they face on a daily basis and how effective their local management is. We had covered multiple cities before this and were pretty used to hearing negative things until we reached the Vashi – Belapur area in Navi Mumbai last week. We caught hold of people on the streets from different strata of society i.e the kaamwaali bais, autowallahs, students, housewives, office waalas and even beggars (who mostly didn’t give a damn to what we were talking about). Spoke to more than 100 odd people over the last 2 days in this belt alone.

Now, everybody (include those beggars too :-O) had only nice things to say about their area. This took us by surprise and we tried being specific with them by asking

‘kya baat kar rahe ho? koi bhi problem nahi hai idhar..kachra?..bad roads…??’

and they were like

‘nahi..woh sab Mumbai mein hai..idhar Navi Mumbai mein sab thik hai..thoda bahut toh chalta hai’.

They also mentioned that this has been a recent phenomena and their municipal corporation has really ‘pulled up their socks’.

We did not believe them entirely but of course we could get the feel that people here were generally happy with their municipal corporation’s performance.

While leaving, we took a photo of the spanking office building of New Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC). Here it is:

Navi Mumbai Mahanagarpalika
Navi Mumbai Mahanagarpalika

As I drove by, I, in my head, started comparing this structure to the other bigger municipal corporations I have been visiting for meetings. Crowded dirty places full of files. No electricity. Cranky people all around. Shabby toilets. Dark passages. Computers that looked like they were from ‘prehistoric times’. (and am referring to the municipal corporations of big cities and towns by the way).

The Points Raised (Aapke vichaar):

Now, do you think municipal employees need reforms that should improve the conditions in which they work? Will that indirectly work in increasing their efficiency and creating our cities liveable? Or this is not related?

I don’t really have the answers to these questions. Do you?

Why India is Not Playing in the FIFA World Cup 2014?

Saurabh: Spain versus Netherlands ka match hai aaj bhai…kiske ghar dekh rahe hain? Kya plan hai?

Diljeet: Daru main laata hoon. Jagah tum batao?

Punit: Rohit ke ghar chalte hain..bada TV hai uska..Aur uski biwi bhi nahi hai..

Rohit: Haha..Deal hai bhai log..

Diljeet: Apni apni T-shirt pehen ke aana..mazaa aayega..

Am sure this conversation sounds familiar to most of you. If not, then you have been probably hiding in an igloo near the South pole or you just don’t give a rat’s ass like me ..:)..Jest keeding…# ILubPhutball #CristianoRonaldoIsHawwt

The World cup fever has struck almost everybody in our cricket crazy nation. With due respect to the genuine fans, let me throw in my assumed statistics again. Around 90% of these naye naye football fans who throw in historical facts and names of players have no Effing clue about any of the things they are talking about. Tips to locate these fans in a crowd.

a. They will be using their phones slyly throughout the match. Psst…Googling You See..

b. Also, beware of the men (wearing a footballer’s jersey -mostly messi, van persie, ronaldo, neymar and knee length shorts) who are going completely gaga about the world cup. Fakes of the highest order. I have met a good enough sample size in the last 20 days to back my point. #BegaaniShaadiMeinAbdullahDeewana

TRPs of global football games are steadily climbing and ‘viewing’ interest in the sport has never been higher. But, seriously, like me, have you ever wondered why India, though super duper high on the ‘viewing’ interest,  sucks at the game. Not many Indians are playing this game at the ground level.

Quoting some facts from a recent HT article by Rajdeep Sardesai:

1. India has never participated even once in the 84 year old history of the football world cup. (Irrelevant point but apparently, we were almost there in 1950 but had to withdraw because we were not allowed to play barefoot. *eyeballs popping out* That was in Brazil as well, by the way.)

2. We are ranked 154th in the world

(Pakistan is ranked 169th if that helps. I felt kinda nice to hear that. #LoserMentality #IamADumbass)

Saala even Honduras is playing. #HolyCrap #YeHondurasKahanHaiBhai

Courtesy: Rediff News
Courtesy: Rediff News

Coming back to the question, I think it’s because we are so incredibly obsessed with Cricket that we do not have any more space in our head to get into any other sport even from a recreation point of view. For me, all this boils down to the same thing. We are HAPPY doing the same things over and over again. We LIKE to be in our comfort zone. We HATE to change. We just LOVE to talk about Change and DO nothing. #AllFartNoShit

Otherwise what else would explain thousands of visitors browsing the pages of www.ChangeBhai.in each day but just a handful of them actually uploading issues of their neighbourhood? Sad but true. Hey! Are you one of such visitors? If yes, then #ShameShame.

Here’s a chance to redeem yourself. Upload an issue TODAY.