Peaceful Bulgaria gets a jolt

Bulgaria is a lovely little country of around 7 million people tucked away East of Europe. When I visited the country around 5 years ago, one of the things that struck me as remarkable was the complete absence of any security apparatus anywhere in the country. Being used to the intimidating presence of gun totting security guards, metal detectors and frisking at every nook and corner of the country, the absence of a threat perception among Bulgarians was astonishing.

When I checked into my rented apartment on arriving in the country, my agent – an old lady probably in her fifties - helped me to settle down and showed the place around. At one instance, I had some difficulty understanding the strange locking system on the outer door of my apartment, which she was trying to explain. After a few unsuccessful attempts at teaching me how to lock & unlock the door, she politely said that if I found I could not understand the lock, I could leave the door open while going to office - no one would take anything! I looked at her in total disbelief, but over the next few weeks realized she had really meant it.

Outside the President's Residence - the guards have gone home!

My office, at that time, was located right in the front of the President’s Residence, in the heart of the capital city Sofia. The majestic building stood there almost discreetly, watching life go by. There would only be one security guard at the gate who stood on duty for the entire building. He too would leave at 6:00 PM in the evening and after that, there would be no one! The National Assembly, which stood a stone’s throw away, looked similarly commonplace. You could easily walk up the stairs or take photographs, with no one even casting a glance at what you were doing. No rifle wielding commandos, no cars flashing their red beacons, no VIP cavalcades bringing traffic to a halt. It was clear to me that Bulgarians had no enemies, nothing to fear. Having come out of the Iron Curtain, the country had at that time one of the highest growth rates in Europe and was looking forward optimistically to joining the European Union. 

In fact, the only time I saw any security presence in the country was when the then U.S. President George Bush visited Sofia. For his visit, some of the principal roads in the city were cordoned off, traffic was diverted and there were policemen all around. The night before Mr. Bush was due to arrive, as I walked home late from office, a policeman stopped me and asked for my identity. After showing him my papers and answering a few questions, I proceeded home. Clearly, Mr. Bush had enemies, though the Bulgarians didn’t.

Last week, a powerful bomb ripped across the coastal city of Burgas in Eastern Bulgaria, killing 5 Israeli tourists and injuring many others. The tragic attack has shattered the peace and harmony of this beautiful country. If the attack changes this permanently, it would be a sad day indeed.

Ay dil hai mushkil jeena yahaan…

A recent survey by The Economist ranks Mumbai among the "world’s worst cities to live". 

In a global ranking of 140 cities, Mumbai has finished at 116. The city’s poor ranking has evoked hardly any reaction from its political leadership, or even its people, who seem to have resigned themselves to their poor fate. Are things really this bad, or aren’t they? After twenty years of economic reforms, the financial capital of one of the world’s fastest growing economies (all the things the ‘experts’ on CNBC or elsewhere tell us) ranks 116^th on “livability”. What is it that the world looks at, that we are missing out on?

The Economist’s survey gauged cities on five categories - political and social stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education and infrastructure. Here is my take on the topic.

1. Stability: Prevalence of crime, threat of terror / military conflict or civil unrest:

Look at the numbers. More than 5,000 cases of petty crime and violence, such as chain snatching, rape, dacoity, theft etc. were reported in Mumbai in the first four months of 2011 alone. This excludes white collar crime, corruption and the like.

The city has seen 8 terror attacks in the last 10 years, killing nearly 500 people and injuring many more, not to mention the communal riots of 1992-93 or the serial bomb blasts of 1993 that killed more than 250. The world gives no marks for the “spirit of Mumbai” which springs back to its feet the next day after every bomb blast. Against this, I have visited countries where I was told there is no need to lock your home while going out – “nobody will take anything”.

2. Healthcare: Availability of private and public healthcare, drugs and general health indicators:

This is something that India itself scores very poorly on, and Mumbai is no exception. The United Nations’ Human Development Index ranks India at 119 out of 169 countries. The HDI measures life expectancy, literacy, education and standards of living for countries worldwide. It is a standard means of measuring well-being.

In Mumbai, public healthcare is the responsibility of the Brihan Mumbai Municipal Corporation. But for a city of more than 1 crore people, the BMC provides just 4 ‘teaching’ hospitals, 5 specialized hospitals, 16 peripheral hospitals, 28 municipal maternity homes and 14 maternity wards. Most of the residents (80 % plus) rely on expensive private medical care. The result? 32 per cent of the reported ailments in the city remained untreated. Even today, seven to eight per cent of all deliveries in Mumbai happen at home.

3. Culture and Environment: This covers factors such as climate, culture and environment.

Air pollution levels are five times higher than acceptable levels and a quarter of water the city drinks is actually  unfit for consumption.

Noise pollution is high, rising and during festivals reaches alarming levels.

4. Education: This covers availability and quality of public and private education.

Mumbai has literally thousands of schools, colleges and educational institutions. Clearly, no shortage of quantity here, but when it comes to quality, like the rest of the education system in India, there is still a lot to be desired. The education system is actually an ‘examination system’ and churns out graduates who are skilled at nothing. As per an Assocham study, India was at the last position in terms of quality of secondary education in seven emerging market economies.

Goldman Sachs says the lack of quality education was one of the 10 factors holding India back from rapid economic growth.

5. Infrastructure: Quality of road network, public transport, international links, availability of good quality housing, energy, water etc.

Ah! The less said about this the better! Mumbai’s transport system is one of the most congested in the world. More than 1.5 million vehicles cram the city’s potholed roads with utter disregard to traffic discipline. Even the smallest of rains are enough to clog the streets with water. Trains of 1700 passenger capacity ferry more than 4500 passengers each during peak hours. More than 60 % of the city’s population lives in slums, where even  shanties cost more than a couple of million rupees. 

For water, the city still looks to the Rain Gods every year. According to a World Bank study, of the 27 Asian cities with populations of over 1,000,000, Mumbai is ranked as second worst performer in terms of hours of water availability per day. And despite this, 700 million liters of water, or 20 % of its daily supply, is lost daily due to theft, illegal connections and leakages.

Basically, nobody cares.

Building sky-scrapers and flyovers does not constitute development; there is a lot more to making a place ‘livable’ than the city’s leadership would like to believe. But is anybody listening?

How to tap a mobile phone

We have been hearing a lot about phone tapping these days. But ever wondered how to tap a mobile phone? You might be forgiven for thinking it’s a complicated technical operation, but it’s quite simple really.

When the security agencies want to tap someone’s phone, they simply get another SIM for the same number (as the target person's number) issued from the service provider and insert it into a phone. Now, every time the target phone rings, this phone will also ring and they can simply pick up the phone and listen. The phone should be kept on mute mode; else even the slightest sound will let the target know someone is listening. Or the phone can be connected to a computer to record the conversations and listened to later. Even the SMSes sent to the target number can be received this way. The security agencies and the mobile phone companies use this method all the time, officially or unofficially, to tap phones of suspects such as politicians, industrialists, criminals etc. (what’s the difference, by the way?)

If one has access to the target person’s (such as the spouse or teenage daughter) mobile, the task is even easier. A variety of phone tapping software are available easily on the net, such as this one. Many of these software require installation on the target person’s mobile phone, and then activation from another (your own) phone. You can then easily listen to what’s happening.

Note that tapping phones this way without the knowledge of the other person is not legal, of course. So remember that you are doing it on your own risk. But then, when you want to, a polite “may I tap your phone from tomorrow?” is unlikely to be of much help. 

Norway killngs and the Indian connection

The killings in Norway have an Indian connection.

Anders Behring Breivik, who exploded a bomb in Oslo and later sprayed bullets for more than one and a half hour on a Labour Party youth camp, killing 76 people in all, used “Dum-dum” bullets to do the job. These type of bullets were first manufactured at the Dum Dum Arsenal, near Kolkata, in India by the British in the late 1890s. The bullets, also called ‘expandable’ bullets, are designed to expand inside the body of the target after they hit, thus causing a wound larger than the diameter of the bullet itself. They thus cause more blood loss and damage than would an ordinary bullet, which hits the target from one side and comes out from the other. Certain types of Dum-dum bullets fragment inside the body of the target, making the wound especially painful, difficult to treat and more lethal.

The bullets manufactured by the British were so deadly that in 1898, the German Government lodged a protest against the use of Dum-dum bullets, claiming the bullets caused wounds that were “excessive and inhumane”. The British defended the use of the bullets against what they called “fanatical barbarians” (“freedom fighters”, probably, for us) who would not be deterred by ordinary bullets, but the Hague Convention in 1899 accepted the German claim and banned the use of Dum-dum bullets in war. The ban continues till today.

However, Dum-dum bullets themselves are not banned from use, The Hague Convention only covers war, and hence use of the Dum-dum bullets for other “permitted” purposes, such as by the police, for hunting (where permitted), self-defence or in sports is allowed. Breivik was able to legally acquire the bullets.

With the Norway incident, the demand for a complete ban on manufacture and sale of Dum-dum bullets may revive. Atleast some lives would have been saved had Breivik not been using Dum-dum bullets.