This is about internet.org a.k.a Free Basics from Facebook

In May this year, Mark Zuckerburg announced taking an altruistic turn and pledged Facebook’s resources in providing internet access to some parts of our planet, the aim was to provide free basic internet access on a platform that was christened internet.org. This month that got re-christened as Free Basics for Facebook. There was a truly desi spin given to this measure which was identified with #ConnectIndia, the motive remained the same.

A lot of charitable work has been done by Tech Entrepreneurs from North America. Ground breaking research in combating AIDS, eradicating polio and with that goal in mind for leprosy. Contraception, infant care and nutritional supplements were all led at some point by or are continuing to be led by foundations funded by big corporates, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is just one such example. With that background a lot of people welcomed Facebook wanting to provide basic internet service to regions that haven’t been exposed to it so far.

Imagine a village, where a basic phone that has an internet browser is available but with no infrastructure to let the phone access the billions of web sites that constitute what’s essentially known as the INTERNET. Imagine a service provider, who embarks on provisioning GPRS, EDGE or 3G or LTE connections, and get these phones on the information superhighway. Imagine the poor farmer being able to access weather patterns or current prices for his crop, to be able to carry out financial transactions without having to visit the nearby town’s bank.

Imagine the farmer’s child, accessing the finest of lectures on trigonometry or fine arts or literature or ideas for that school project. Imagine the lady of the household being able to access all the video and music and be able to chat with her distant cousin in a foreign land or another village without wasting money on phone calls that go dead in the monsoons. The intent in provisioning free basic internet access can never be faulted. So where is the problem?

The problem is in how Facebook wants to solve this conundrum. Facebook wants to tie up with internet service providers in the region and get them to allow access exclusively to http://internet.org. On this platform Facebook has curated a set of websites and made available as part of it’s free basic internet service. No points for guessing that Facebook is the only social media platform available, not Google+ or Ello. The platform is also not going to support HTTPS URLs which means no encryption of data between the user and the destination on the internet. To cite just one problem with this, if you were to access your bank account on a HTTP connection a sniffer can access your username and password bloody easily.

Facebook therefore wants to direct these new users to a tiny set of websites that constitute the internet. In the name of providing free basic internet all Facebook is doing is finding newer users in the developing world, and since they can’t afford the costs associated with internet connectivity, provides them with seemingly free access but restricts them to a platform it has built (internet.org) and thereby increase it’s own customer base and therefore deny them access to those billions of websites that would otherwise be available on the internet. Now if anyone thinks, “Isn’t this how the missionaries landed in Africa with the Bible?” it won’t be misrepresentative.

Why would they do that? The answer is fairly simple. Google, Facebook and Twitter are the significant platforms in the world in terms of number of users on them as well as number of active users. I’ve completely disregarded data from Chinese social networking sites since they operate in isolation compared to the rest of the world. Google and Facebook have almost the same number of active users (around 1.4 billion). Google’s revenue last year was $66 billion while Facebook’s was a little short of $12.5 billion. For approximately the same amount of users Google rakes in more than 5 times in revenue.

There is going to be significant pressure on Facebook’s stock in maximizing its potential to earn more dollars per user. Facebook’s organic growth has reached a plateau. It acquired WhatsApp for a gargantuan valuation to add to its user base and it probably made sense too. It hasn’t come up with a clear roadmap in integrating the platforms though it has tried to innovate with making calls possible between WhatsApp users. How else can Facebook grow?

That’s where the air brushed altruism comes into picture and that’s in getting more people onto their platform but since they have their own challenges Facebook sets out to solve one such challenge, by giving them internet access but restricting it to internet.org. After a few years you’ll be surprised when someone who grew up with Free Basics from Facebook says “We have Facebook” when what they actually should be saying is “We have Internet”.

The politics about Durga Shakti Nagpal and Civil servants

The suspension of a 2010 cadre civil servant in Uttar Pradesh has been latched onto by the media and is playing on TV day in and day out with bits and pieces of new information coming out. My understanding of this story has been through the media and I’m attempting a bit of reading between the lines. Let’s assume that the civil servant didn’t do any wrong and has applied sound judgement in the case she’s accused of malpractice.

Did the ruling government suspend the civil servant only because a minority community is party to the structure in question?

Is the opposition party at the centre crying the loudest for the same reason?

The Great Indian Bureaucracy has had stalwarts in it’s service. Year after year one hears of stories of simple individuals exhibiting great heights of integrity and ethics despite being in government service where the power they wield is substantial and the opportunities for making money under the table looms large.

The District Collect of Madurai who stood up to the mafia that controlled the town and reached out to the marginalized, who spends his time today as the Managing Director of Co-optex is a good example of a decent civil servant.

There are have been instances of personnel who took their job seriously and would never bow down to power like this Police officer who towed the Prime Minister’s car, who rose to the heights of service in the force but despite which couldn’t take charge as Police Commissioner of the national capital. A grudge she probably still nurses inside !

We’ve also seen examples of civil servants who made it their life’s ambition to cleanse our polity of corruption and take up the aam-aadhmi’s cause like a crusade but who’ve then been massive disappointments by cozying up to the executive and taken up prestigious or plum postings after retirement, literally peddling the agenda of the government of the day.

That brings me to JM Lyngdoh, who retired as the Chief Election Commissioner of India and was lauded for the conduct of elections in two key Indian states in the early part of this century. A rare breed of civil servant who stood up to what he thought was morally and ethically right and hasn’t sucked up to the executive after retiring, like he vociferously declared in this interview to the BBC 10 years ago.

It’s another matter that the Chief Minister of one of the two states that went to polls in that period kept referring to him as “James Michael Lyngdoh” every time he spoke to the media sort of alluding to his religion and therefore making him seem like an enemy of the majority. There was no way JM Lyngdoh could be an Indian in his books that he even asked if the man came from Italy. However, India at that time was fortunate to have AB Vajpayee at it’s helm who chided his party’s own Chief Minister for all the mischief, ABV’s disappearance from the political scene is sorely missed today.

P.S: Politicians look at Civil Servants as “slaves”, literally, people who can be ordered around and dropped at one’s whim. An example for this can be seen in this TV debate. Make no mistake, this contempt for the bureaucracy exists in all political parties and not just the one seen in this video.

 

 

The Kerala IPL saga – A technician’s take on the the hoopla

All news channels today are running the Tharoor involvement in Kerala’s IPL story in the ‘breaking news’ mode with everyone giving little substance but more air time over what’s actually nothing. In an attempt to see if Dr Shashi Tharoor or his office would in anyway be connected to the IPL team I discovered some startling facts, all based on information available on the internet. At the outset I’d like to state that this writer couldn’t care less about Sunanda Pushkar and her association with Dr Shashi Tharoor. This writer’s objective is just to present some facts about the new Kerala IPL team related to the real estate they own on the internet and in the process show how Dr Tharoor’s office might be linked to the team much closer than what Dr Tharoor would like everyone to believe.

The way Rendezvous sports won the IPL bid and the fact that there was only one Malayali name was in the owner’s list and he had 1% share in the team was a little hard to believe. It was a little baffling that businessmen with absolutely no connection to the state would like to put up an IPL cricket team spending atrocious amounts of money. The parallels between Dr Tharoor’s political debut and Rendezvous debut in IPL is too obvious. A virtually unknown in Kerala politics, Dr Tharoor was given a ticket to the Lok Sabha seat of Thiruvananthapuram. This despite the fact that he wasn’t from Thiruvananthapuram but from Palakkad in Kerala. He won and subsequently went on to become the Minister of State for External Affairs. The way Rendezvous bid and won the IPL franchisee for Kochi was very similar to Dr Tharoor’s Lok Sabha victory.

Every one has a Twitter account these days, it’s such a huge hit in India. So the Kerala IPL team has it’s own Twitter account too. The screenshot below shows their page and their website (the standard.in) which I take it is their official website. I’m not willing to be fooled by the news displayed on “The Kerala Standard” website, it’s a nice way to keep getting in traffic from search engines. While checking who registered the domain for the Kerala IPL team, where it is hosted I hit upon some information which need to be clarified by our Minister for External Affairs. His office is for sure involved in more than just being good friends for a bunch of people who want stand up for the Malayali pride in fielding an IPL team. Here’s the registrant information of this website, the registrant’s name might be familiar to the one’s on Twitter already. Read it along with the registrant information of Dr Tharoor’s official website.

Domain ID:D3883893-AFIN Domain Name:THESTANDARD.IN Created On:17-Nov-2009 13:23:02 UTC Last Updated On:21-Feb-2010 13:14:07 UTC Expiration Date:17-Nov-2011 13:23:02 UTC Sponsoring Registrar:GoDaddy.com Inc. (R101-AFIN) Status:CLIENT DELETE PROHIBITED Status:CLIENT RENEW PROHIBITED Status:CLIENT TRANSFER PROHIBITED Status:CLIENT UPDATE PROHIBITED Registrant ID:CR29734645 Registrant Name:Jacob Puthenparambil Registrant Organization: Registrant Street1:Puthenparambil Registrant Street2:Pulincunnu PO Registrant Street3: Registrant City:Alleppy Registrant State/Province:Kerala Registrant Postal Code:688504 Registrant Country:IN Registrant Phone:+91.4712703745 Registrant Phone Ext.: Registrant FAX: Registrant FAX Ext.: Registrant Email:  jacob@tharoor.in Name Server:NS1.SLICEHOST.NET Name Server:NS2.SLICEHOST.NET Name Server:NS3.SLICEHOST.NET

Domain ID:D3443246-AFIN Domain Name:THAROOR.IN Created On:26-Mar-2009 07:13:16 UTC Last Updated On:04-Mar-2010 17:44:22 UTC Expiration Date:26-Mar-2011 07:13:16 UTC Sponsoring Registrar:GoDaddy.com Inc. (R101-AFIN) Status:CLIENT DELETE PROHIBITED Status:CLIENT RENEW PROHIBITED Status:CLIENT TRANSFER PROHIBITED Status:CLIENT UPDATE PROHIBITED Registrant ID:CR7566948 Registrant Name:Shashi Tharoor Registrant Organization:Office of Dr. Shashi Tharoor, MP Registrant Street1:TC 24/2074 3, Panavila Jn., Thycaud PO Registrant Street2: Registrant Street3: Registrant City:Thiruvananthapuram Registrant State/Province:Kerala Registrant Postal Code:695 014 Registrant Country:IN Registrant Phone:+91.4712324555 Registrant Phone Ext.: Registrant FAX:+91.4712324666 Registrant FAX Ext.: Registrant Email:praveen@tharoor.in Name Server:NS1.SLICEHOST.NET Name Server:NS2.SLICEHOST.NET Name Server:NS3.SLICEHOST.NET

Looking at the WHOIS information for thestandard.in and tharoor.in one can safely conclude that Dr Tharoor’s office or one of his staff members has registered the website for the Kerala IPL team. The email ID listed is jacob@tharoor.in which is probably the official email address of Dr Shashi Tharoor’s OSD, Shri Jacob Joseph. This information is available on the contact page on Dr Tharoor’s website. Did the Minister’s office register the domain for the Kerala IPL team? If Yes then why unless they have a stake in it? If No then why is the official email ID of the Minister’s OSD listen on the domain’s contact information?

Jacob Joseph
Officer on Special Duty
Telephone: 23014118
Email: jacob@tharoor.in

Source: http://tharoor.in/contact/

Additionally I also have considerable proof to believe that both these websites are hosted out of the same datacenter in the US, I did a trace of the IP address and see them pointing to the same location owned by RACKSPACE. The underlined lines below shows that both websites though they resolve to different IP addresses are hosted out of the same datacenter and the IP space is owned by RACKSPACE, one person manages the hosting space rented here in all probability. Do the Minister’s office or personal staff host the Kerala IPL team’s website? If Yes then why is the minister denying close association with the IPL team? If No then how come the Minister’s official website and the Kerala IPL website are hosted out of the same facility? Coincidence? A might one I’d say !

tharoor.in (174.143.27.168)

13   355 ms   416 ms   294 ms  RACKSPACE-M.edge2.Dallas3.Level3.net [4.59.36.50]

14   287 ms   285 ms   283 ms  vlan907.core7.dfw1.rackspace.net [98.129.84.181]

15   284 ms   286 ms   289 ms  aggr511a-1-core7.dfw1.rackspace.net [98.129.84.149]

16   285 ms   282 ms   291 ms  174-143-27-168.static.cloud-ips.com [174.143.27.168]

thestandard.in (204.232.202.72)

15   268 ms   267 ms   271 ms  main1.above.net [209.133.126.42]

16   268 ms   277 ms   275 ms  vlan907.core7.dfw1.rackspace.net [98.129.84.181]

17   302 ms   289 ms   281 ms  98.129.84.217

18   272 ms   273 ms   294 ms  204-232-202-72.static.cloud-ips.com [204.232.202.72]

Shri Jacob Joseph who also is associated with mobmag.in and tenders4u.com is an active twitter user and Dr Tharoor even once attributed him to the reason for getting onto Twitter. Why should the Minister deny his close association with the Kerala IPL team and attribute it to just mentoring when his personal staff seem to be closely involved in their presence on the internet? Surely the interests aren’t philanthropic.

The URL posted today by Dr Tharoor’s OSD is in bad taste. Why rake up Mr Lalit Modi’s past when that’s already been part of a court dispute in the BCCI election case? When you knew he was indicted why did you even seek his favour for an IPL team? This particular gentleman has always gone on overdrive on Twitter when Dr Tharoor landed into a controversy, should a Union Minister of India’s personal staff start giving out sound bites? Are the personal staff of the Minister exempt from helping hold the integrity and respect of the high office the Minister holds and get into a slander match with a sporting honcho who thinks he can turn any sport into a money spinner?

I’m sure every information on the WHOIS pages of these domain will be changed overnight, but the fact that they were on them till today is a testimony to the the shallow thought that went into owning these online resources. It’s not a crime to own a stake in a cricket team in a format that’s exciting and gets good ad revenues for broadcasters. Someone should take a long hard look and say “let’s stop insulting the intelligence of our audience and come clean out of this.” It’s not a big deal, but would mean a lot to folks such as this writer who have loved Dr Shashi Tharoor’s books and have seen every interview he has given about a dozen times on the internet and looked up to him as a man who made his country proud all through his career.

India is on Twitter?

We are living in a chaotic period in the modern India. Telangana, Naxals, Inflation, Kashmir, Terrorism, Liberalization … buzzwords that are heard everyday on TV, in the papers, on the internet and at bus stops in our country. Last year particularly was the coming of age of Twitter in our country. We saw a whole gamut of famous people get onto to Twitter and started using it mostly to promote their own personal agendas.

Shashi Tharoor, by far the most followed and eloquent amongst the newest twitterers from India keeps hitting media headlines for a casual remark he makes to his friend or commenting about aspects of foreign policy. The media which erstwhile played the role in bringing the message from the establishment, film starts and other avenues was finding it hard to cope with the fact that all these people now were directly talking to their target audience. Given this new channel established the media then had to report what was going on in Twitter which most often was a tad stale for the one’s that follow all these celebs on Twitter in the first place.

You have prominent personalities from the electronic media like Rajdeep Sardesai, Vikram Chandra, Sagarika Ghosh, Prabhu Chawla, Barkha Dutt …. on Twitter. You have reporters from these channels on Twitter. You have Vir Sanghvi, N Ram, Pritish Nandy and a whole gamut of professionals from the print media on Twitter. The film industry is there on twitter. All these folks promote their own articles, shows, movies on the medium. The folks from the media sometimes encourage debate, my favorite is Vir Sanghvi who never seems to have a problem calling a spade what it is. Go on, tweet to your hearts content and if you get a reply from one of these celebs do make a big deal about it.

Last week I was standing in a long line at a railway booking counter. The counters open at 8 AM and if you are one of those hapless one’s hoping to get a Tatkal ticket on a weekend train you better get to the booking counter by 8:15 AM or you don’t stand a chance in hell to get a confirmed reservation. Being the 17th person in the line I was slightly worried. As the crowd moved with only 10 more left an officer in Army uniform turned around:

Officer: Tatkal ticket?

Me: Yes sir, Saturday’s train, just 17 tickets remaining.

Officer: Aagay jao, mera tho utna jaldi nahi hai. (Go ahead, mine isn’t as urgent)

Me: Bahut shukriya sirji. (Thank you sir)

Don’t we need more people like this officer to make this world a better place?

Vigilante citizens or pseudo-moral hooligans?

Kerala as a society has always projected itself to be progressive, forward looking and intelligent. There is a high level of literacy across the state and this is simply not just based on if a person can write his/her own name, most people can read the daily newspaper. This state also has amongst the largest circulated newspapers in India. There are also the largest number of news channels in Malayalam, I’m just sharing a perception and not basing this on any fact.

Rajmohan Unnithan, one of the new leaders emerging in the Congress, was hounded, heckled and paraded in front of the media and subsequently taken to the police station in Manjeri and for what? Rajmohan was surrounded in the house he was with a friend/colleague/acquaintance of his by members of the PDP (People’s Democratic Party) and DYFI (Democratic Youth Federation of India). This group of vigilantes took it upon themselves to then hurl abuses at the duo, brand the woman a prostitute, tease them, harass them, rip their clothes (marginally, heck does that make it any less a crime?) and force the Police to book a case against them.

Paul Zachariah, noted social activity, commentator, columnist and write in Malayalam, wrote in the New Indian Express that Rajmohan took a short break as he was passing through Manjeri in Malappuram district. I’m not going to get into the morals of this episode, what outrages me is the fact that sort of vigilantism has been glorified by the media in Kerala and people alike. Manjeri for one is a well known red bastion, a strong hold of the communists and hence the DYFI showing up on Rajmohan’s doorstep is hardly surprising nor is the presence of their new found friend, the PDP.

Why would a shrewd politician like Rajmohan walk into a trap, if that’s version of this episode is true? This politician is a known Left baiter and has spoken acerbically about many such episodes in the past. He’s also played the villain role in a couple of movies. Once close to K Karunakaran he fell out with him after they split and was one of the harshest critic of Karunakaran’s son Muraleedharan who is currently trying his best to return to the Congress(I) after a failed stint trying to setup a third front in Kerala.

At the end of this apparently Rajmohan insisted that a medical test be conducted and no instance of sexual contact between the two could be proved. The media took it upon itself to telecast this sort of harassment ‘live’ as if it were of such national importance. Paul Z makes an interesting observation, he says the society in Kerala as such is starved for sex and hence this craving for sensationalism. Anyone who has been to “God’s own country” can vouch for the fact that except the big cities Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram, Kozhikode, life’s not easy at all for the women who have to travel by bus or train to their workplace and back.

What has the law enforcement agencies got to do by arresting and booking cases against two adults just because they were under the same roof? (Immoral trafficking!!!! Bullshit) Who gives these vigilantes the power to go about being the law and justice system all rolled into one? What if these two people were sleeping around? Who should be bothered by it? What happened to the progressiveness that marked the leftist ideals of yore?