Quick Road Pothole Repairs in Daly City

It is possible for a couple of persons to fix potholes in a hurry.  See the adjacent picture.  First the hole is cleaned up of loose mud and gravel.  Then assuming it is dry, the 'cold patch' mix is poured into the hole and leveled out uniformly.  

It must be understood that the 'cold patch' is a bituminized fine gravel available in plastic bags of about 10Kg each.  See the bags in the foreground of the picture.  After the leveling is done and the loose gravel around is cleaned up, the whole is patted into place with a flat plate.  The man bent over is holding one in his left hand.  Next, a motorized compactor is run over the entire area of the patch for ten minutes. Particular attention is paid to the edges to seal them to the existing road surface.  Note, no road roller is needed.  Notice, all the materials and the compactor are brought to the site in a small van and the two workers clean up and leave in 30 minutes.  

I was impressed with the quick clean job done in a professional manner by a pair of workers.  Maybe MCGM should invest in this set up for each Administrative Ward in the city and suburbs.  The Corporator funds could be used for funding such a project since it will bring relief to millions of citizens of Mumbai.  This decentralized approach will give better control to the various Wards in the city.  There will be no need for hundreds of Crores of Rupees of contracts given to centralized contractors who are unable to deliver in quality and time, and not accountable to the local citizens.  Such centralized contracts should be reserved for main roads, highways and serious street faults.  Lack of such simple solutions for the regular monsoon pothole issue is causing a dis-connect between the citizens and the muni administration.  Jai Hind! 

Who Can Be IAC Andolan Party Citizen Representatives for Elected Public Office

In the past almost two years, the world has seen a very unusual and peaceful struggle by India citizens under the brand IAC, to protest and seek solution for poor governance and delivery of national services.  All kinds of urgent reforms have been bandied by the intellectuals and a global first, hundreds of thousands have come on the streets in a peaceful satyagrah, protesting alleged corruption and scams of humongous levels.  Many Parliamentarians, Assembly representatives, Ministers and Administration officers have been blamed for the Loot of the Nation, but a majority of these worthies who are 'clean' and working diligently for bettering India governance, are unable to counter the 'tainted'.  On the one hand, public satyagrah is identified as a solution while on the other hand the Constitution needs that systemic changes can only come through the institutions of Parliament and State Assembly.  Since serious corruption and cronyism is alleged of some of the elected and selected representative, it is a no-brainer that selfless concerned citizens must take up elected public office and clean up the mess with the help of the existing 'clean' politicians.  

Charles De Gaulle remarked that Politics is too important to be left to the Politicians. Our India Constitution requires that "We the People ... ", as 'owners' of the nation, exercise our duties and rights with responsibility.  Citizens need to participate and focus on Citizen Politics instead of the Transactional Politics, that India suffers from at present. This adjacent poster picture# is very apt. Selfless citizens will be reluctant to give five years once in their lifetime for the nation, but we have scamsters queing up at midnight for 'tickets' and 'post', armed with bags of illicit money and pernicious influence.

As long as the IAC-Andolal Party requires that the Consensus Citizen Candidate will: act positively on constituency citizens feedback, occupy public office only ONCE in a lifetime, reduce all perks of office; much of the cronyism, corruption and transactional politics will disappear.  However, for such negatives to reduce from the India Politics in general, it will require that citizens demand this new and higher benchmark, from ALL politicians and their Parties.  Jan Jaagran must focus on this kind of voter education.  Citizens must identify the tainted and vote them out of office.  It will be the endeavor of IAC to set better benchmarks for Indian Politics.

Those who go for public office need to be: Saadhan Sampanna Sukhi Samruddha. Those who have fought the 'system' for their own/public issues, who will abide by the team resolutions, who will always be citizen centric, and treat the 'elected office' as a position of 'public trust', can best serve the nation.  The need to reside and work for at least five years in the chosen constituency and to learn the process of administration of some governing branch of village, district, state or nation, through sustained inter-action, will be essential for efficient performance when in office.  A fair degree of education and knowledge, either through formal or informal systems, will be useful for efficient delivery of citizen expectation.  The Andolan Party will need to setup a shadow executive government and pull in citizen experts for various branches of administration.  At all times the motivation must only be selfless national service.  The Andolan Party will need to conduct awareness and training workshops in targeted constituencies for all of the above points.  A well designed plan to bring in systemic changes in national and state statutes, policies, systems and institutions must be prepared after extensive national debate and consensus.  It is a given that the existing tainted and obstructive politicians and administration will fight tooth and nail to prevent execution of such a plan, but if sustained Jan Jaagran on issues is in place, slow but sure progress is possible.  All historic and digital media, must be used to educate the citizens. Since about fifty percent of the some 250 million households have TV (Census-2011) and about 80% of the citizens have media awareness (NFHS-3 survey), it is only effort and credibility, that is lacking on part of those who exert themselves for selfless national service.

The need for Citizen Politicians to have high integrity and spotless record while essential, may be difficult to come by, due to the entire nation being dragged into some form of corruption, misuse of statutes or influence peddling.  It has been famously* said that many rural citizens (rural population is about 69% of the about 1,210 million total as per the Census-2011), have only one demand, that they be classified as BPL (Below Poverty Line) to enable governmental largess, which explains again how the current politics has reduced the nation to beggary.  The equivalent in urban area is managing 'domicile and low caste certificates' by any means, to benefit from various 'schemes' for education, jobs, promotions, reserved constituencies for elections, and subsidy.  All the high sounding requirements will be difficult to come by, but selfless citizens need to work towards these goals and the public must accept that random mistakes will occur and bear with them, during the period of change in national politics.  Let us not wait for Harishchandra's in this cesspool of Indian Politics and Society, but be initially satisfied with a good degree of honesty.

Citizens on their part must always exercise: the need to monitor, right to get answers and duty to act on problems.  Those elected for public office must gracefully vacate office if 'charges are framed' for alleged wrong doing.  Criticism without do-able and validated solutions must under all circumstances be avoided. Suggestions without working-plan and participation must always be restrained.  In fact, concerned citizens will have to dig in their own pockets to fund the minor expenses of their chosen candidate's election, and also fund their post election establishment.  Sustained volunteerism will be needed to get their citizen candidates into office and to vote out the tainted ones'; this is not optional.  It is obvious that the dedicated Youth, wedded to 'selfless national service' must come forward and seek training for IAS and Political Science.  They must volunteer and build a better India since they are going to live in it.  Dharma from the Seniors and Karma from the Youth should be the motto for this and the next decade.  This is a generation long struggle, even the OECD nations have to still continuously struggle to keep their authority and 'ownership' of their nation. The world today accepts that India does not lack talent for setting standards.  Let us show the world what good global standards should be.  Jai Hind!

# The origin of this poster has been traced to FaceBook member: I Love Delhi, who has not yet confirmed its antecedents. Credit for the poster is therefore pending :)

* Arvind Kejriwal in his book SWARAJ.  Copy posted at htpp://iacmumbai.org  

Walk in San Francisco

Went for a walk in the Potrero Dist. adjacent to Design Dist near downtown San Francisco City, California on a late Saturday morning.  The Rhode Island St. between the 16th and 17th Street, a block about 250 Meters long was blocked off for all kinds of vehicular traffic.  Citizens and kids were out enjoying the weekend sunny late morning.  The SFcB (San Francisco Center for Books) which has its center there, had arranged a free design and printing workshop, right on the street.  Posters were put out well in advance for the citizens to enjoy the event.  This is a common activity here.  Certain city blocks are made pedestrian plazas in the summer and early autumn weekends, to encourage local citizen social interactions.  There may be Farmers Markets, Garage Sales, street foods, painting marathons, etc.  One is expected to use the public transport or personal vehicles parked far away and walk around in the area and take in the planned local activity, which are generally educational.  Even the street Market will have lots of info on the products, with owners explaining and answering queries.   Local eateries and cafes, put out small tables and chairs on the footpath and citizens enjoy the open eating and fellowship.  A great degree of cleanliness is visible with lots of trash boxes in the area.  

This printing workshop brought to my attention a very interesting 'button' making setup.  The adjacent picture shows the manual button jig-die press, along with parts to make the buttons.  There is the clear-transparent PVC circle, then the paper printed matter circle, then the metal underlay, which are all press-bonded together in the first step.  This is then pressed into the back circle plate which has the clip for wearing the button on the shirt.  This setup is for 5cm buttons and the parts have an excellent finish.  

The setup can be purchased locally, the message on the button is locally made for local public cause.   The details for the setup are shown alongside.  I have been thinking, maybe our Activists and Volunteers could use such a setup and make meaningful buttons for public cause at very low cost.  I checked out the parts and setup, and found I could make one button in less than a minute.  Ordering ready buttons from vendors for our activities is always costly with no control on quality.  

Walking around the area I came upon a small  manual letter press for making leaflets, cards and A4 size posters in mono-color.  Children and adults were encouraged to try their hand and understand the process.  Similarly, there was lithography and transfer printing setup.  For a large size print, they had organized a three tonne road roller to press the inked block on the paper.  This drew large crowds and bids were placed for buying the limited editions of art made by popular local artists.  

Thinking of aamchi mumbai, I feel the above activity, buttons and cards are all eminently do-able and will encourage citizen participation and bonding.  Public cause messages can be given and citizen awareness raised easily.  The increased public participation due to national level IAC activities can be used at such platforms to educate citizens on their duties and rights.  Jai Hind!   

Meditation 101

Someone once asked Gautam the Buddha: "... you have meditated for so many years, what have you gained?".  The Buddha said ‘nothing’. Shocked the person says ".. nothing?". "So why have you struggled so many years if you were gaining nothing?".  The Buddha answered: "... I gained nothing, but I lost my anger, suffering, delusions, pain, worries, sickness etc.".

This is the true reality of meditation. One gains almost nothing. There is in fact nothing to gain, what you need to gain is already within you. You were born with it; it is your unrecognized true nature, buried deep within your ego centric contaminated mind.  Only when this contamination is cleared (the glass is emptied can anything new be put in), your own true divine nature reveals itself to you. Meditation is the process of getting rid of the garbage under which your mind has buried itself, to reveal your true divine nature to yourself.  

Go for it and be joyful always :)  Only 30 minutes a day, early when you wake up, these are your very own minutes, let not ANYTHING - ANYONE take them away.