A trip to Hyderabad - Part 2

There are more passengers than the number of berths, Sathya observed and said to Prakash. Perhaps they are traveling together, but were allowed berth in a different coach, he guessed.

Let's share this side lower berth till TTE allocates one for me, Prakash said. Meanwhile, Sathya was arranging Chapati and Daal as lunch for both. "When did you prepare this?" Prakash was clearly surprised.

When you were packing your bag, she replied. "But weren't you also packing then? Also, you only had about 10 mins!" he asked in reply.

"Where are you going up to?",  an elderly gentleman asked Prakash, cutting into their conversation.

"Secunderabad."

"Me too," the gentleman replied with a slow nod.

The elderly gentleman was accompanied by a young couple. There were three more people in the same bay that makes 6 passengers, but only 4 berths were there.

"No chance, sir. Coach is full. Not even a single berth is available", TTE's voice broke his attention. TTE was replying to a fellow passenger who happens to board the compartment with a waitlisted ticket he bought from the station counter.

Later, he examined the tickets from the elderly gentleman's and the rest. "Sir, I have a partial waitlisted ticket," Prakash said, showing his ticket to be examined.

"I can't confirm the waitlisted ticket. If you find some empty berths, feel free to occupy", saying thus the TTE moved to next bay.

TTE have just checked 6 tickets from 4 berths. Some of them must be traveling on partial waitlisted tickets then. Thinking thus, Prakash initiated a small talk with the rest in his bay.

"Do you have confirmed ticket, sir," Prakash asked the gentleman.

"No," came the reply in a shallow tone as if he is sad. "Three of us are traveling, but we could get only one confirmed ticket," he replied. After a brief chat, Prakash came to know that their status before final charting were WL 13, 14 and 15.

Indian railways have cleverly confirmed WL 11 and 13 so that 5 people can travel with 2 berth allotment!

What an idea Suresh Ji!

(Suresh Prabhu was the railway minister when this trip happened).

Why linking Aadhaar with voter ID is a bad idea.

"If the govt has guts, they should first link Aadhar with voter ID", reads one of the comments on Times of India article. The article was about linking Aadhar with driving license. I've often received this kind of comments and suggestions in WhatsApp and Facebook from various people. These people are to a large extent apolitical and so their views need to be considered seriously. Nevertheless, it is a very bad idea to think of linking Aadhar with voter ID.

Election commission of India is an autonomous body and their main objective is to conduct a free and fair election and declare the results. To ensure this, they have to be independent of govt of India, but for financial reasons. On the other hand, Govt of India have a say in policy issues and are also accountable. Govt can have the policy to reduce the burden of poor by providing various subsidies. To achieve this, they may use any means of technology including Aadhar.

Govt can have the policy to keep a check on tax sheets. For this, they may ask us to link our bank accounts with Aadhar. Zero tolerance for terrorism is one of the key policies of the govt for which they may want us to link mobile numbers with Aadhar. However, conducting free and fair election comes under the purview of the election commission. Govt has no role to play here.

It is even worse if for argument sake govt and election commission agrees to link the two. Conducting election will come under direct control of govt, which is very bad for our democracy. The only feasible solution is Election commission has to add the biometric feature to voter ID independently and maintain it as well. But this solution is very expensive and will only become an additional burden to taxpayers.