Mulayam the Ned Ludd
The Mulayamites have declared war against the computer. Will the electorate reward them? Or will it give them the same treatment the British government gave the Luddites in the early 19th century.
They said Ned Ludd was an idiot boy
That all he could do was wreck and destroy
He turned to his workmates and said: "Death to Machines"
They tread on our future and they stamp on our dreams.
(Poet and performer Robert Calvert from his 1985 album Freq)
That all he could do was wreck and destroy
He turned to his workmates and said: "Death to Machines"
They tread on our future and they stamp on our dreams.
(Poet and performer Robert Calvert from his 1985 album Freq)
As a part of his job-creation strategy, Samajwadi Party (SP) supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav has called for ousting computers whenever human hands can perform the task. This is a brilliant idea. Thus, begin with banks that increasingly rely on computers to maintain customer accounts, prepare monthly statements, match customer signatures and clear inter-bank accounts. In the past, these tasks were performed by human hands and provided valuable employment opportunities to our hard-working men and women. Consider just the impact of the use of computers in cheque-cashing on employment.
In the past, this transaction employed multiple workers; one accepted the cheque and gave the customer a token establishing his priority, another verified the signatures, yet another checked the customer's account and authorised payment and finally the cashier exchanges cash for the token. Since this process usually took half an hour or more, many customers would send a hired hand with a bearer cheque to the bank to bring back cash to them.