Aadhar and comman man's experience

The prime minister's pet project of assigning a number to every citizen and Nandan Nilekani headed Aadhar (UID) project is being rolled out across the country in phases.

Its a novel effort for a good cause. But, as usual, not funded well, not implemented well.

I went to the Sahakaranagar BBMP centre which was one of the locations to get Aadhar. First and foremost, there are generic information boards about Aadhar and one prominent sign outside which says "Applications have been stopped, Sorry for inconvenience!" - Just proves my point about implementation.

Since the other board said "Only 250 applicants a day", it was good enough sign for 250 aam aadmis to stand without a clue when the officials would come, when the process would get started.

As expected, there was chaos There were plenty of queues to start with. No one to inform which queue stands for what. Each enlightened citizen had a different explanation for every queue!

I had prior information that there will be one queue for verification and one for photos. With that intelligence input, I tried to stand in one of queues which I believed had equally confused people like me (Hence, must be first timers!).

After waiting for an hour, amidst the commotion, two people (verifying officers) came and sat on a table. After lots of fight among the crowd, and after an hour, I finally submitted my Aadhar form, and then was prompty issued tokens for me, wife and kid so that we could come for verification and photo next day.

Having "Successfully" achieved a part of my objective (A token is a kind of appreciation for our hard work), next day I set off with my family in the hope that things will be less maddening. But, as it happens, everyone wants to jump queue and soon, there was chaos again. After an hour and half of struggle, we finally got the application verified. There was police presence, but neither did the police, nor the Central government Verfication officers, nor the BBMP staff, or the contractors had any clue of how to control the crowd. So, might was right. Plenty of abuses and a few times came close to physical fights. But, being Gandhi Jayanti, I guess the crowd was by and large non violent.

I asked the officer, if We can come fully charged the next day for the photo queue fight? But, he insisted that all formalities have to get over same day. So, we had a small bakery lunch and again, waited infinitely in the next queue for photo and acknowledgement for Aadhar registration. After an hour and half and listening to all the abuses thrown by the crowd at each other, we entered the office, where 4 counters were present. As soon as we sat and started dreaming about the end of this ordeal, came lunch time . Hearing that, the crowd again vented their frustration but to no avail. Half an hour more, and then the person came back and it took 15 minutes to complete the registration.

Surprisingly, the final 15 minutes showed some professionalism which I didnt expect . The instruments were in order, the operator was able to type fast, use the language translation software, to get details both in English and Kannada. He corrected any mistakes that were present, took the photo, finger printing, retina scanning, original document scanning in a professional way and finally gave the receipt which again contained all the information you could hope. So, there is light, but only at the end of a dark and frustrating tunnel .

Hope, the PM, and Nandan listen, allocate more funds, understand that crowd control is as important as the rest of the implementation if they have to successfully implement this project.

Yet another weekend in yet another government ID!
UPDATE on 28/06/2012: After 9 months, I am still waiting for Aadhar ID!!!!
Nandan Nilekani, Manmohan Singh - Are you hearing??????????
Finally, after 10 months of wait, Aadhar card for the 5 family members arrived by July 2012. It arrived for my son first, then my parents, and then for me and my wife!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Java Programmer Certification - Previously Sun Certified, now Oracle Certified

I wrote the OCPJP (Oracle Certified Professional Java Programmer) for Java 1.6 on July 3rd 2011

Its after a long time I have written a tough exam and thankfully cleared it :) .

There were 60 questions and 61% is the pass percentage. You have to get 37 questions right to clear.

All the questions were multiple choice, and there was no drag and drop questions.

Preparation needed

1) I took around 3 months for the preparing from Katherine Sierra's book.

2) It took a month more to revise and give practice exams (There is another book from the same author Katherine Sierra)

3) The practice exams in the book, had questions far more tougher than the actual exam. I had got scores of 31, 32, 39, 41 in the four practice exams out of 60 questions. The time it took also was slightly more than 3 hours for all exams.

4) After the first two practice exams, I found that, it makes lot of difference to know the number of correct answers for a given question. This was not the case in the practice exam. Hence, I noted the number of correct answers and then only attempted the remaining two practice exams (hence the score is higher)

5) Finally, I registered with a centre in Bangalore. Here also, there was initial confusion. Prometric is the old provider. The new test provider for Oracle is Pearson VUE. So search for Pearson VUE oracle test centres in your city. I registered after going to the centre, and the person at the test centre was helpful and after paying the exam fees, the person registered the test.

6) Pearson VUE offers some free practice tests, but its a limited period offer. I suggest that even if its not free, buy one and then practice, you get the feel of the exam, and it helps you in understanding the software.

Important links:

http://education.oracle.com/pls/web_prod-plq-dad/db_pages.getpage?page_id=41&p_exam_id=1Z0_851

Java SE 7 exams are also listed now in the below link, but I am not sure of the differences in Java 6 and 7. http://education.oracle.com/pls/web_prod-plq-dad/db_pages.getpage?page_id=42
http://www.pearsonvue.com/

Benefits of this java certification:

I am not sure, what value this certification adds. I did it, so that my Java knowledge improves.

How not to get duped by credit card marketing

Mahajanangale,

So far, even though I felt, credit card is a waste, I never campaigned against it. But after being fatally deceived by cheats, I am going all out against this day light robbery.

Here's the sequence how i got duped by credit card marketing in State bank of India, Sahakaranagar.



I opened a fixed deposit in sahakaranagar - State bank of India.

Marketing Lady (Holding my acct opening form in hand): "Sir, we give free credit card to all FD holders"

ME: "I never need one, madam, thank you".

Lady: "Sir, its all free, and you need not pay a single paisa, we give this facility to all holders".... (more crap).

ME: "No madam, thanks, i never use it".

Lady: "Sir, if you don't use it, first year, no charges, you can surrender".

ME: "OK, fine, since you are insisting".

Sign, Sign and more sign

ME: " I don't have address proof right now, cant do anything about it"

Lady: "Its OK sir, we will verify"!

One month later, phone rings:

Caller: "Sir, I am calling up to verify for your credit card"

ME: "Tell me the terms first"

Caller: "What???? We are only verification, tell us your date of birth.."

ME: "Thank you, keep the card yourself"

Caller: "Sir, its for so and so offer, 1st year is free, etc etc"

ME: "Fine, let me give details"...



One week later:

Courier man: "Sir, am standing outside your gate"

ME: "Dude, but who are you?"

Courier man: "Sir, i have come to deliver credit card"

ME: "OK, come in"

Courier man: "Show me this, that, sign here etc etc"

ME: "OK, OK, OK " (thinking): "Why did i ever sign up?"

2 days later, phone rings:

Caller: "Sir, i am verifying details for your insurance policy for credit card"

ME: "Dude, hell with you, i never asked for an insurance policy"

Caller: "Sir, but its mandatory"

ME: "Keep the card with you"

Cut the phone.

1 week later (10 Feb 2011), phone rings:

Caller: "Sir, am Jayanthi, calling from so..."

ME: "yes"

Caller: "Congrats for your card, i will now tell you terms and condition"

ME: " go on"

Caller: "Sir, first year charges of Rs. 329 has been sent to you, you need to pay up before 25 Feb 2011"

ME (shocked) : "Hello, everyone so far told me its free.."

Caller (threatening voice): "Mr. Shivashankar, we take lot of effort to ensure that this information of cutting fees for first and second year is made known to you and you have signed it. Also if you don't pay up, your fixed deposit will not be released.."

This, my countrymen, is happening in the country where Gandhi was born!

From the sweet talking lady "Sir, Its absolutely free"...
To the threatening voice in the phone
"Mr. Shivashankar, Let me inform you that we take enough care to get your signatures, lock your fixed deposits"...