On Monday 10 Sep 2007 8:47 am, Amit Varma wrote: > Another important distinction, Shiv: I choose to associate with any credit > card company I deal with, and any risk I take is of my own volition. It is > not so with the government.
Sorry if I have have caused hurt and it is a pleasure to address you directly. You are obviously more accountable than the average journalist and I appreciate that. Since I do a lot of writing that is seen by nameless opinionated people - the ability to own up is one to be valued. But let me take you up on what you have said - starting with a digression about banking. Your personal banking choice is itself an indication of your naivete and powerlessness. In India, the really wealthy people realise this and bypass these systems - because the system is so weak. A bank is fundamentally a money making business that tells you "You give me your money and I promise to pay it back, but I will do whatever I want with it while I keep it with me" Typically banks will accept Rs 100,000 from you for safekeeping and pay little or no interest to you. But if you borrow Rs 100,000 from the bank in which you have kept your money, they will lay claim on your own money as security, and in addition they will charge you a high interest rate. We put up with this system for various reasons - mainly convenience and presumed security. We lack the power to provide security to our own assets and need that third party with all its warts. There is an assumption that we make when faced with the friendly PR of a bank executive. That assumption is that if you were somehow cheated out of your money by the bank - say by a clerical error or an errant bank employee, the bank will be fair to you. This is sometimes patently untrue. For example in the hypothetical case of Udhay being cheated out of Rs 100,000 by a bank employee, the bank will fight tooth an nail to save its reputation, and any threats/negative PR made by Udhay will be used against him. And if the bank is as corrupt as the police - your chances of getting your money back with ease is less likely than the ease with which the bank conned you into imagining that all will be well. But all this peripheral to the issue. The issue seems to be that there is a lack of trust of the law enforcement system. That lack of trust certainly needs to be addressed because it is a serious issue. However it seems to me that trying to pin the police down using the example of "restriction of freedom to use cybercafe for private banking" is a double self goal. You should not be using a cybercafe for that in the first place, and secondly, banking is not as secure as you imagine because it has to deal with the same law enforcement. If the bank and police are in cahoots - you are screwed. If the bank supports you and the police don't - you are still screwed. Whichever way you look at it - the bank and police remain unscathed and that leaves only naive and lonely you to get hurt. Good cause maybe, but bad examples. shiv
