Back Of The Book: Why Is MLA 146 Angry?

BACK OF THE BOOK
Why Is MLA 146 Angry?

Because in Karnataka, ground zero of India's information-technology explosion, the wired world isn't anywhere close to reaching his people, says Samar Halarnkar

One day I trawled my way to U.R. Sabhapathi's home page (www.ursabhapathi.com) and clicked on the ''Work Done'' section. It said blandly, ''under construction''. When I went in to the ''Press Room'', it was fully updated.

My first response: how like a politician. Cynicism comes easily when you talk of a politician, but an Indian politician with a web site?

Still, a simple Internet home is little more than a gimmick. ''March 3-School computerisation launched in Udupi, courtesy Infosys,'' says one headline on Sabhapathi's site. Another, more grandiose and magnificently vague: ''January 31-U.R. Sabhapathi plans for the future of Udupi.''

Sabhapathi is the only member of the legislative assembly (MLA) of Karnataka with a website, which told me that he hoped to use the power of the PC and the Internet to boost the development of his constituency in Karnataka's western corner. In the spirit of Net-engendered open government, he has on his site details of every municipal work in his constituency since 1994.

My second response: there seemed to be something about Sabhapathi.

Sabhapathi is MLA of Karnataka constituency 146, Udupi, an area most famous for providing all of India with the spotlessly clean and efficient dosa, idli joints that we know of as Udupi hotels.

But Udupi is an unusual Indian constituency in that it is almost fully literate. It is an area of temples, vedic learning, engineering and medical colleges. It is a nook ready to move on, a silk worm ready to emerge from the chrysalis. As it does, Sabhapathi wants to weave in the threads of the silicon revolution.

By early 2002, the land records of about 20 million Karnataka farmers will be fully computerised and available at cyber kiosks at the click of a mouse. Optical fibres are lacing the state. By 2002, Karnataka's engineering colleges will also step up their production line of computer engineers from 10,000 to 14,000.

So it seems fitting that a MLA from Karnataka would think of moving government functions to the net. In his block office in Udupi, Sabhapathi has already installed computers, putting everything from population statistics to details of road resurfacing online.

TREADMILL

Just Change The Music

I have a problem. I simply can't work out to the beat of bhangra. Nor can I do my reps to the accompaniment of Hindi film music. I just can't. And that, I discovered, was a serious disadvantage at my friendly neighbourhood gym, a no-frills basement outfit in one of South Delhi's colonies, which insists on playing tracks like Kambakht ishq hai yeh (from the new Fardeen Khan-Urmila Matondkar starrer, Pyaar Tune Kya Kiya, said the gym's instructor, looking derisively at ignorant me). After a few days of doing pathetic, formless pull-overs and bench-presses, I decided it was time for drastic action. One morning at six, I appeared at the gym with a bagful of cassettes. And, wonder of wonders, managed to get the guy in charge play some Leftover Salmon, a polyethnic cajun slamgrass band that I am digging these days. They belt out music you can dance as well as work out to...well, okay, make that I can work out to.

As I settled into my pre-workout warm-up schedule, I heard a voice from the treadmill next to mine: ''Good move. I was getting tired of the monotonous music they play here.'' I turned to see a middle-aged gentleman, a gym regular who I've seen here often. Gym conversations are usually rare and restricted to a brusque ''How many sets left?'' directed at you when you're at the lat machine or the leg press machine. But this gent and I quickly fell into an easy chat. In a few minutes, he was complaining about how he'd been hitting the weights for around three years now but wasn't making much progress in terms of looking markedly different. At 43, he was fit and all that but wasn't developing muscle mass and wasn't getting anywhere near the ripped-body look that he wanted.

It's a common problem in weight training. And the reason is simple. If you do the same set of exercises with the same set of weights, you're not going to get anywhere. Of course, you're going to be much better off than you'd be if you never exercised at all. Remember, that once we reach middle age, our metabolism slows down with each passing year and we lose muscle mass. If we don't do weight training to maintain muscle mass, it's likely we'd put on extra kilograms of pure, unmetabolised fat. But, if you don't merely want to maintain your muscle mass but want to add to it and get closer to that ripped look, bump up those weights. And, because muscles get used to monotonous routines and stop growing, keep varying your exercises. You'll be surprised at how that works.

MUSCLES MANI

A swarthy man, forehead smeared with vermillion, Sabhapathi works out of room 275 of the Legislator's Home (LH) in Bangalore. The LH provides an anteroom, an office, and a bedroom to each legislator. Most of the anterooms are filled with "party workers", constituents, job-seekers, and servants. These are the people who power the representatives of the people. They mill around the four-storey LH's sole typist, the travel agent, and book stall.

Sabhapathi was a footsoldier himself. After his B.Com, this son of a small-town electrical appliances businessman spent about two decades in politics, switching parties and allegiances. He's now with the Congress party. Unfortunately, there are 224 MLAs in Karnataka. To become a state government minister or perhaps chairman of a government board, you must either have a mentor or capture public imagination.

So Sabhapathi waxes eloquent on computers in Udupi, how he would now like to take grassroots e-government to his constituency. Much like Gyandoot, otherwise backward Madhya Pradesh's showcase of e-governance-45 villages linked on an intranet, ironically modelled on a design drawn up in Karnataka.

Now, consider this: Karnataka, home of India's wired elite, hasn't managed to wire a single village.

''Isn't this ironical?'' I ask Sabhapathi.

The smile of this otherwise affable son of the Udupi soil fades.

''Yes, isn' it?'' he says darkly.

Sabhapathi gets up and opens his steel almirah. From a file he detaches a letter. It was written in June 2000 to his leader, the chief minister of Karnataka, S.M. Krishna, pointing out just the irony that I'm talking about. ''It is sad that non-descript Dhar district in Madhya Pradesh was recipient of the International Stockholm award,'' says the letter, urging Krishna to hasten the stillborn attempts to wire Karnataka's government.

Can A Computer Tar A Road?

''It is a very hard task I say,'' sighs Sabhapathi. ''When I talk to my colleagues in the party, they ask me questions like, 'can we get water from computers, can we get roads tarred?' Such ignorant responses only indicate how my colleagues think.''

''Only this year were ministers in Karnataka given e-mail, but they don't use it. Most bureaucrats who work for them don't have e-mail, so what's the use? These computers are glorified typewriters! That's all,'' says Sabhapathi bitterly.

M.M.NANIAH,
Minister for IT,
Karnataka

He blames his political colleagues and the babus for the state's stalled e-governance initiatives. ''Everyone wants to promote it, go abroad,'' he fumes, lapsing into colourful, colloquial Kannada. ''None of these bureaucrats is interested in e-governance.''

At the time of going to press, Karnataka's bustling IT secretary Vivek Kulkarni was indeed abroad, trying to encourage US companies to weather the tech downturn by moving operations to Bangalore. Without Kulkarni, his boss M.M. Naniah is like a PC without a chip.

Karnataka's infotech minister is an affable man who laughs at his heartiest when he must talk about things he is only vaguely familiar with-like infotech. Ask him why the state is so unwired and Naniah guffaws again. ''Have you met our IT secretary? What did he say?'' When you tell him you were told of some experimental projects and the land-records effort, he says affably: ''Then what he said is right.''

To enter the Vidhana Soudha, the seat of Karnataka's government, is to enter an alternate reality to the heaving tech energy outside its grand stone walls. The clatter of typewriters, the chatter of clerks is everywhere. Like most ministerial cubbyholes here, Naniah's office is firmly Remington land.

Can Naniah receive e-mailed complaints? ''Where is the need for all this? I tour my constituency regularly and redress all grievances there itself.'' Of Sabhapathi's frustrations, Naniah laughs: ''He is too fast for the administration! But we shall definitely catch up with his suggestions.'' In an administration, Naniah philosophises, ''these things take time to implement''.

In 2000, the estimate to wire up Karnataka's government statewide was Rs 300 crore. That is modest. The annual expenditure of the state rural development and panchayat raj ministry is Rs 6,000 crore. In 2001, the estimates were down to about Rs 200 crore, primarily due to falling equipment costs.

''Cost recovery is in a few months, not years,'' says Subramanya Jois, CEO of the software company wiring Sabhapathi's constituency. ''And for this cost we can do it in style, set up a high-bandwidth, stable system. We've pursued this project passionately for two years, but I think it's of no use.''

Sabhapathi says 11 gram panchayats (local governing bodies) in his constituency will be fully computerised in a couple of months, but that could be all. He gestures to his PC. ''Do you know why other MLAs come to my room? There is always a queue at the typist, so they come to use the only computer in the LH. They know I don't mind.''

Sabhapathi smiles ruefully. ''People also like to work at my computer because it is so quiet here.'' His hand cuts an arc across the room. ''As you can see, there are no hangers-on here. My workers have realised there is no need to waste time and money, no need to catch the overnight train to Bangalore any longer.

''They send me e-mail!''

-With additional reporting by Venkatesha Babu

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