That was a very good explantaion, Amlan.
But needs a couple of additional explanations to clear it up for our befuddled friends: 1: It is obvious that ONE arm of the Central govt. has failed in its duty of delivering the mail in the manner it has promised the people. That in itself is NOT a sin,or a crime meriting a federal case. It could have been an accident. The mail truck from the PO to the airport could have been washed away by flood waters. THe mail-deliverer might have used it to cook his dinner. Whatever. 2: But for the UPSC, another arm of the all knowing, all powerful Central god of the nation, to have ignored the appeal to re-consider the issue, even though its sibling, the postal dept. caused the problem for the students; is unconcionable. 3: Those who are entrusted with the powers, in this instance the many armed god, OWNER of two arms involved, must be held responsible, ACCOUNTABLE. If that does not happen, the whole exercise is MEANINGLESS. Now how do the citizenry extract accountability? a: By going to a reliable forum, where after a trustworthy and competent investigation would establish guilt or innocence and if guilty would assess damages, and may either recommend redress of the grievances or award damages. b: Take to the streets, shut the whole place down. c: Go beat up the post-master. d: Call Assam Netters to judge. I would now invite the befuddled Netters to examine which of the above seems to be an appropriate tack? And if none above, perhaps something else? I am not going to point out the right answer here, because if the befuddled pick the right ones themselves, they would have ownership of the decision--and therby will be a far better means of selling the idea ( thanks to my management seminar fundas here!) 4: I don't recall ANYONE, much less the perennial offender, yours truly; who has claimed in THIS instance, that it was a case of discriminating against the Assamese. It is either a case of serious reading/comprehension deficiency or a case of some variation of bi-polar disorder causing hearing of voices not sopken ( Dr. Tilok, any comments, if you are listening ?). I did however raise the possibility that the clerks-from-hell, the suck-up and piss down bunch, who are not only expected to be able to read the rule-books but also are expected to be able to exercise good judgement and are paid to SERVE the citizenry with their tax rupees, might have iognored the appeals, because the appealers were nobodies--just a bunch of losers from Assam. If it were a bunch of students from DElhi, I do believe the response might have been somewhat more thoughtful. I raise that possibility because of my willingness to be observant and what I have seen. cm :-) At 5:05 PM +0800 8/30/02, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > [ From: Rajib Das <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ] > [ Date: Aug 30, 2002 07:04 (-0000) ] > > > Does the postal department in your home country take > > the responsibility of ensuring delivery of your > > normal mail? As in provide a GUARANTEE? A service > >An emphatic NO. The postal department of any country, in their >right minds, would not "guarantee" the delivery of mail. >Keeping that in mind that, if you had an urgent and important >document to be sent, what would you do ? Turn to some such >service which can provide a guarantee of sorts as far as the time >of delivery is concerned, would you not ? I would presume that >this is exactly why, as you mentioned, you would think of Fedex. > >And so, coming back to the case at hand, they, just as you would, >did send it through a service, which for all its claims, is a >service that can be construed to be something like Fedex. As you >would think of Fedex as the first thing when you have to send >something urgently, some people in India can be forgiven for >thinking of "Speedpost" in a similar manner. And, as far as I >remember (that was 10 years back), it did claim to be able to >deliver your mail anywhere in India within 3 working days. And >you do pay a price for it - I remember paying INR 150 to >"Speedpost" a document (that was 10 years back). > >With that in mind, if you were to send an important document via >Fedex and had a similar result, what would you do ? I guess then >the normal thing would be for you to ask for compensation from >Fedex, notwithstanding the fact that Fedex would have probably >made you sign off on an agreement form to the effect that they >would only expend "all reasonable means" to deliver your document >on time, unless of course you have insured your document. But, >your case will have some ground in a court because you can argue >that you have used the "Fedex-like" service and NOT the normal >mail primarily because of the service's claims and that in doing >so you have been misled, because had it not been for it's claims, >you would have filled up your forms way ahead of the deadline >knowing jolly well that normal post would take a much longer >time. > >Having said that, I agree with your other points and I do NOT >subscribe to the hypotheses that this is yet another classic case >of step-motherly treatment for Assam and that there is a >conspiracy at play. > >/amlan.
