India and Unique Identification Number

I think this blog is inappropriate for discussing, India and UID project (Unique Identification Number). I recently had look at Mr. Nadan interview on NDTV about this project, despite his public saying it seems people are still confused with “ID Card” and “Unique Identification Number”. Again I’ll repeat UID is NOT an ID Card its just an identification number which will go to your various documents like Birth certificate, voter ID card, Pan Card etc.

Concept of national ID is not new US have got defacto SSN (Social Security Number), in Poland there is PESEL (personal identification number) which drastically reduce paper work, for example In India, when you go to open a bank account they ask you to bring an “identity proof” ha! I need to prove who I am. It’s rediculous but thats the way things works in India. If you’re aware how to twists paper work then you can even get 10 credit cards in India.

Idea of UID is a watchdog on citizen activities and bring poor people a bit near. Now, how it’s going to help poor people, though I was quite skeptic initially that its going to benefit poor and as I can see here in Europe, I think it’d really help poor if its easy to get this number. The fundamental advantage of UID is that you don’t have to prove who you are to various institution e.g banks, tax authorities, immigration authorities etc.

Estonia is first country which connected its UniqueID and ID cards to an OpenID. For those who are not aware of OpenID (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenID ) its an authorization process specially for web but can be extended to other application. Let me explain you in simple words say you have a Gmail account and all Gmail Accounts have issued a unique ID which is a URL (https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/ud) so now if you comes to a website which accepts OpenID and if you provide your uniqueID URL then it’ll authenticate you from OpenID provider in this case Google.

It would be great if India UniqueID will be OpenID enabled. Estonia has successfully implemented national ID – OpenID connection. If you are XYZ ABC with an Estonian UID 42004010123456 then your OpenID is https://openid.ee/e/xyz.abc.42004010123456 (https://openid.ee/e/name.surname.uid)

Biometric is really cool and we should do in this way but more things are happening around us, in order to bring egovernence to common citizen OpenID is an open platform for both government and non government world. I hope Mr. Nandan have already thought about it.

Schengen Agreement – Where the hell is free movement?

Recently, I stuck with my renewal of residence permit in Poland and all I got was “D” Polish national visa. Which allows me to stay only on territory of Poland, but wait I have a trip to India, I bought ticket and everything has already planned. Immigration officer told me that Its multiple entry visa which allows to leave Poland and re-enter without any problem, in case of argument just show old residence card.

So far so good, my Lufthansa flight from Gdansk-Munich-Delhi-Munich-Gdansk has connection in Munich. Many European countries uses bad practice while issuing visa. In case of national legislation they issue “D” national visa which is limited to schengen state which issued that visa, and if it has picture and visa code then it also allows you one visa free 5 day transit to reach schengen state who issued that visa from other schengen state.

So, I was worried because it only allows “ONE” visa free transit when contacted German consulate in Delhi, they mentioned “Indian passport holding any visa issued by EU/EEA doesnt require Airport transit visa” so i was very happy that everything is in motion.

A week before departure, I just voluntarily contacted German embassy in Warsaw and their answer was like this “Sir, You need Schengen Short stay visa, if you are on national visa and you have connection from Munich”. I said what? I’ll be transiting via air just 1 hr layover in Munich and Officer nicely explained me why I need short stay visa instead of VTA/ATV or transit visa. Flights from one schengen state to another schengen state is considered as local flights, they dont have any immigration check points and more funny thing is “Schengen airports / gates are considered as schengen territory not transit territory”, well that’s ridiculous. In short it stay if you have got “D” visa then you are stuck in that schengen state which issued that visa.

In real schengen agreement is not complete it lacks completeness. They cannot issue me transit visa because i’ll be entering again in Poland after one month via Munich and transit visa doesn’t have number of days. So, they said only solution is to give you Short stay tourist visa, well that’s even more ridiculous but it’d work in my case.

In 2002 EU Parliament approved a proposal to provide some solution to this kind of problem by issuing “D+C” visa. D+C visa provides all features of national visa plus it include 90 days stay in other schengen state from the date of first entry in schengen zone. Practically it doesn’t work, because national legislation takes lot of time in some countries it even exceeds 6 month and in other cases embassies even dont issue D+C visa either they dont know what the hell it is or they just dont want to issue them or they are lazy to follow schengen visa procedure and add information to SIS.

Recently, A new proposal has been made to EU Parliament regarding providing completence to free movement regarding non-EU citizens. Proposal says “Long term D visa would have same effect as residence permits, so a non-EU citizen would be entitled 90 days visa free entry in schengen states in half year without visa, just like residence permit” and “Consulates should propagate D visa information in SIS(schengen informaion system”. It makes sense, both proposal aims to provide free movement without compromising on security issues and incase if any state need to issue visa to someone on personal interest then they can use “VTL” limited territory schengen visa.

Around 3 years ago, a delegation of junior high school students from India got invitation from France to visit and learn french in France. This delegation booked flight via Delhi-Munich-Frankfurt-Paris instead of staright Delhi-France. They went to french embassy and they got “D” visa for35 days with a stamp that they cannot apply for residence permit on this visa. And like other people they have that misconception that they can travel to whole europe on that visa which said “France” instead “Schengen States”. They reached Munich and immigration officer  enquired that where you are heading they said france. But its from Frankfurt and how you gonna take Munich-Frankfurt flight he replied. School teacher was completely blank, German Immigration officer asked them to return back from next earliest flight to Delhi. But its completely unfair, we dont know whats going on behind curtains, we are just going for an educational trip, yellow-pale school teacher replied. German immigration officer couldn’t understand why french embassy issued a D visa for short stay and agreed to talk to higher officer. After a long talk they have been issued a transit visa so that they can take this flight from Frankfurt, its really rare if doesnt happens oftenly, but thanks to Germany authorities who understand that Indian doesn’t have pocket full of euros they earns hardly 200 euro a month in home country. After arrival in France, instead correcting visa french authorities acted like a stubborn child and said “Indian embassy in France is doing similar things, they are not issuing work permits and visa as fast as they should” huh! its really childish. French doen’t understand that India has huge population and selling county again is not in our agenda. We don’t want hypermarkets like Carrfour in India taking all money to France, its  like socialism in past when English people dominated India for around 250 years. So, India is very careful regarding foreign investments etc.

So back to the story, I need schegen visa for just 1 hour layover in Munich. I went to Germany consulate in Warsaw, a nice lady gave me all requirement list, I needed a schengen health insurance, bank balance, 60 euro fee etc all requirements which are necessary for schengen visa. Next day I went with all those papers and met with two Chinese workers in Poland who had similar situation but the only difference was my flight is after one week and their was scheduled at 10:35 same morning. Good news they got visa on 9:10 but I am still skeptic about if they could catch that flight since airport is very far. At 9:40 I got my transit so called “tourist visum”. It was really quick. I must say German are really processing visa application faster and better. I called that visa “A visa to your own home”.

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:52009PC0091:EN:HTML

http://www.hindu.com/2006/03/17/stories/2006031703041200.htm

Land Transportation in Germany

Land transportation in Germany is well organized and extremely disciplined. Speaking in terms of facilities, I don’t really see anything else which needs to be added into then system. Trains are on time, trams and

S-bahn and U-bahn serves mass of people in cities. Intercity and Regional trains are well organized. That’s how capitalism was imagined to benefit and “consumer king”. True fully I didn’t travel much on trains in Germany but I travelled enough to comment on how it looks from outside.

Last year when I first visited Berlin, I was shocked a bit when I first bought VBB normal ticket which cost me 2.10 EUR and surprises even getting bigger day by day. Berlin transportation system is sophisticated and it’s good to see common fare for all transportation services in Berlin. Later I accepted if you wants good service then you have to pay more.

I met with many locals there including some of my quite old friends and they always curse how capitalism is being used by Deutsche Bahn. But I always ignored those comments. Being from India, transportation in Berlin is allmost a dream world for me and after few days I left Berlin and moved to India.

While I was in India, I noticed how difficult is to provide transportation in India. Massive number of people and less number of road and rail-lines, further exploration into railways website in India reviels how they are making money with subsidised system. In fact I was all most shocked when i saw a 300 km 2-nd class rail ticket in India cost same as normal fare VBB in Berlin.

Recently, I just returned from Berlin and this time I had to travel by train. The story continued, I paid 25 EUR for 120 Km DB Regional train travel. With no discount for student and senior citizen, high fare, posing an evil image of capitalism DB seems to have some seasonal discount, happy weekend ticket and some promotional fares on some short distant routes, which led a normal middle class family in Germany to travel by train. People have their own ways to express anger, they usually are on cycle. Buys used ticket instead of machine-o-mart and so on …

In my opinion instead of directly linking “high profits” to “fare hike”. Transportation system have to learn how to get “high profits” without being evil. If Indian Rail minister “Lalu Prasad Yadav” who just studied few years in high school without any college degree can turn Indian railways into profit, then why can’t well educated Germans do the same in Germany.

Satya Sai Baba and Germany

During my first visit to Germany, I went to explore Southern Berlin (Grünewald). As I left S-bahn I saw an old railstation, which was quite indifferent with Berlin Hbf. or any other railstation in Mitte. I just follow the way and reached to bus stop, actually first I was suppose to go to Polish embassy, because in this time Poland wasnt in Schengen so I need some enquiry for visa. On this bus stand I saw a mid 60s old man sitting, strugling with his health probably

saying “Are you from India?”. I replied confidently “Yes! I’m sir”. Then he added “You doesn’t look like Indian but red string in your arm said so”. After short conversation I asked about Buses and they were in every 15 mins. Next 15 mins revieled some strange information about India and religions in India.

“I was in India at Satya Sai Baba and he gave me this ring” he said. By the way ring had orignal ruby gem and he confirmed that he didn’t buy it, Swami gave him. He expressed his willness in visiting India agian to meet Swami but also said he is out of money and his health is degrading everyday to travel. But, I could see he is going to make to India at least once in next few years of his life.

I was quite surprised because I saw BBC documentary Secret Swami and one on from Vir Sanghvi and its counter part can be found here by Satya sai org and had no faith in any religious ecstasy by Satya Sai Org.

There is a nice famous interview Ullrich Zimmermann’s series about his sexual encounters (blip:video) It seems he is in lots of controversies and World is subdivded into devotees and antagonist. From Vir Sanghvi to Ullrich Ziemmemann, for me its just superstition.

Sopot – Leisure beach

Sopot is a small town near Gdansk in Poland. Recently, I made a small one day trip to Sopot and had a bit more Polish taste.  SKM polish suburb railway leaves Gdansk Glowny (Danzig in German) every 15 mins on weekdays and 30 mins on holidays and weekends. Ticket cost around 3 PLN and can be purchased on Automat or ticket counter.

Gdansk itself is famous for igniting world war-II. By the end of the war the city lay almost completely in ruins. The German population was moved to Germany and more Poles  came under Gdańsk. However, the impact of its former German ties is still evident. Although most of the old buildings were damaged or destroyed in WWII, they have been painstakingly restored or rebuilt.

PS:Thanks to Alicja Piwowarska to rectify some historical mistakes.

I am home!

I am again back to home, this time I traveled EU for an internship .. I spent my most of the time in Berlin and east Germany and now a bit nostalgic about my trip, nevertheless feeling good to be home after a long phase. I guess now i am off a bit from traveling for 1 month due to university examination, but I promise to keep posting short stories from my last trip.

Indian Kitchen is smelling!

Last week, I was travelling along Berlin Tiergarten, which consists of Germany’s largest zoo in zooloigcal garten and Aquarium. Tiergarten looks similar to Connaught place in New Delhi. I was there to extend my air tickets to my airlines office.

This week was pretty stressful at work but beside that, I ate Indian food allmost everyday in this week. Andy my neighbour have been to India couple of times and he is very keen to cook Indian spicey food. I oftenly enjoyed Dal and Rice at his home, but today i was my turn to cook something and I made Rajma (Kidney Beans) and Rice.

http://picasaweb.google.com/iapain/BerlinTiergarten [Photo Album]

Dresden – a wonderland

I spent around 6 weeks in Berlin and I didnt really find anything special here, so I decided to make a day trip. It was all my plan, untill JT shew his interest in this trip. After just 5 mins of discussion we ended on Dresden, for me it was residual of world war 2. JT come anc picked me for Hauptbahnof one of the biggest station in Europe. I bought a “happy weekend ticket” which just cost 33 Euro for 1 day unlimited travel in Die Bahn local trains (RE, RB) and entered to the inquiry counter, this lady said we have train in every to hours so we were pretty relaxed and after a big sigh this lady said “next train is in 2 mins, and I dont think that you can catch this one.” We start running to Glice(platform) and saw closing doors, but suddenly JT pressed button and door opened again for us. As soon as we entered JT start poking around to find a best seat (JT is 22 year old american guy, so now you can imgaine whats best seat for him). He found a seat next to a young girl but unfortunately she left us alone at next station. He took some card out of his bag and we started to play “momo” a German card game. After 2 hrs and we finally reached to a place to change our train to Dresden.

Trains are pretty much on schedule in Germany and we changed our train on time, It was pretty raining and darn cold. We just start talking about grading in german school and soon we joined one german couple. We reached to Dresden on time and these couple were there to meet a local friend from Mozambique and this guy invited us to see Dresden and we just walked into his car with these german pair and spent around 2 hours near Elba bank and lately we went to swinger and Frauenkirche. Later we decided to turn back to Berlin though I really didnt want to leave.

http://picasaweb.google.com/iapain/DeepakInDresden [Album]

(c) John Tulayev (jtdreamworld@gmail.com) picture: SD530100.JPG

Hibernation

University students might know about semester examination. During this month even i cant think about travel dispatches. I have to set myself in ”seduction period”. I’m sure it’ll be sun again. Destinations which are in my mind are North-East or Uttranchal.

Valley of Spiti

Spiti was in my hit list from last two years and unfortunatly, I missed in during my last visit to Lahul and Spiti district, but fortunatly I was able to make it this year. Vibhu just got back from spiti trip, in telling his story he used senses which sensed into my mind and very next week I made a fast, risk and expensive schedule with my school friend Aditya. He is also a travel freak, but the only difference between him and me is he does a lot of research before leaving to destination. We left to CP(New Delhi) a day before our journey and booked our tickets to Manali. It was another turnout in quest, we used Manali and entery point to spiti valley while most of the travellers uses Shimla as entry point. The only logic behind this move was we didnt want to spoil our trip due to heavy rain in Kinnur district. We met on Metro and left to Manali.

Bus ride was very comfortable though it was a bit expensive on our pockets. We reached on time but still we were out of time, that was another loophole in our planning. Finally we decided to spend a whole night in Mahri a point 34 Kms above Manali. Luckly, we stayed in a rest house which was owned by a Spitian woman, she told us about his husband who work in Spiti and a lot about Spiti river and its history.  Everything was seeming beautiful except rain, somehow we got a bus to spiti which was loaded with nearly 50 other people and some dopped Israelis. The good thing in this bus was, somehow it was taking us to Spiti on inaccessable pathway. The person next to me was a local spitian guy, who was interested in selling his guesthouse to us, but he added some valueable facts about Spiti.

After a seven hour, hopping serveral beautiful villages and giant KumZum La pass we finally reached to Kaza – the capital of Spiti valley. Kaza is one of the driest cold area in India but clouds were following us like they were our colleagues or something. As we stepped out, rain begun to start with strong cold wind waves. We start poking for some room and fortunatly we found it very fast. I wasnt aware that rain, cold wind, bad food and height (4800m) just struct me and in night I couldnt sleep, I was so dumb that I didnt want to take painkiller in night.

Next Moring, it was all new except my headache. We ate eggs in a local resturent with all Isreli and Italian menu in it. Aditya suggested me to take painkiller and i did, that certainly helped me to get back to my way of exploration. As in our plan, Kye-Monestry was a must visit point and fortunatly there was some annual day function on the same day so there was no reason to not visit Kye. Many tourist who visit Kaza skip kye monestry but after having a close look on it, I found Kye is very different buddhist place. A noble man gave us a cheap lift to Kye and we enjoyed the whole ceremony and nice buddhist food. While coming back to Kaza we met with two canadian girls who were thinking that young Indians are scoundrel. Emma and Garanda were on Indian pathways from last 6 months and till then they liked India, suddenly they asked “what you doing deepak?” I said computer science and “you?” Emma said to Aditya. “Fashion Designer” he replied. In this moment i saw frustation in myself as girls were suddenly turned to him. we had nice talk and we were on our ways.

The next day, everything seeming to be new, even my headache was gone too but not the rain. We went to Bus stand to get information about Bus to Tabo and this bus man replied “There is no bus for 2 days to Tabo”, that was another major hit to out trip. We’re thining that we just lost the whole trip after coming so far but we were wrong. Soon we came into a fuzzy mood and made plan of camping over chandartal lake. We were two and this would be too expensive for a team of two. We queued our interest to one of the tour organizer and here we met with Tino, Dao, Rachel(sorry i forget her name in Portuguese) and Joao. They got bus ticket but were not too lucky but still lucky enoguh to get a comfortable ride to Chandratal Lake, a famous travel photograher John and his wife were also on the same way and we paired with them to get a nice comfortable ride. Lake was heaven, it was srounded by small peaks which were ideal for hiking and a huge flat  ground with tidy water. we had nice and relaxing time, next day i was in hurry to come back as I had to leave to Berlin and I didnt even plan anything.

In morning, we started to trek to Batal, we just its 20 Kms far and if we talk with 5km/hr then in 4 hrs we’ll be there. My bagpack was light enough to carry but Aditya carried his whole room with him, I was around 1 hr ahead of him and suddenly i saw a tampo with Aditya. I had some intution in my mind that he’ll get some lift because i saw his bag was too heavy to carry. We loaded ourself on tampo and headed to Grumpoo and then Manali.

In summing up my journey to spiti, its necessary to mention nagging Israels(we met with few good israelis too), Ecosphere – camping organizers  and ultimate transportation system by HRTC. Spiti was much more unpredictable but in a good way, hope I’ll make it again someday.

Photo Gallery http://www.imagestation.com/album/pictures.html?id=2102693673 , http://www.imagestation.com/album/pictures.html?id=2102475490