The Brave Pedestrian

27 th October, 2016, Navi Mumbai: Here is a real-life thriller. Justdial starts plundering the bank account of an HDFC Bank customer, while the bank acts like an helpless bystander. After the dust settles, the bank tells its customer to go to the police, while it does absolutely nothing to prevent Justdial from robbing other customers. In May 2016, Sanjeev Goel, managing partner of a coaching academy called Pure Energy Academy in Belapur, Navi Mumbai, signed a contract with Justdial for business promotion. June onwards, Justdial started sucking unlimited amounts of money from Pure Energy's b ank account by using a fraudulent Electronic Clearance Service (ECS) mandate . Although the bank managers now understand how the crime was perpetrated, they refuse to take steps to protect thousands of customers from Justdial and other fraudulent companies following the same modus operandi . HDFC Bank's excuse is that National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI) – which handles ECS tra...

Reproduced below is the complete rebuttal of Mr Ashok Mohanani to the draft press release that we emailed to him on 20th October, 2016. This press release was titled Ekta Builder: Broken Promises & Bhai-giri .   Dear Mr. Krishnaraj Rao, Greetings from EKTA world! At the onset, I appreciate you giving us additional time to send across our response. As discussed, please find our point wise reply to your draft Press Release dated 20th October, 2016 ; With reference to Para 1 of your allegations pertaining to Ekta Group/Ekta World/it’s PR Campaigns, we deny all these allegations, insinuations and contentions contained therein and state that Ekta as a brand is in the market since last more than 29 years and is non for it’s consistent quality and excellent customer service. Today, we are proud to state that there are more than 14500 happy families across the Mumbai and other areas including Pune and Nashik.  We further deny that the PR Campaigns, Websites etc all are s...

Mumbai, 24 October, 2016 : Ekta Group of builders cheats and bullies its customers – no two ways about it. Don't be fooled by clever PR campaigns , paid media, beautiful website , and estate agents. Don't get taken in by endorsements of reputed corporates like HDFC Realty , HDFC Red , or mentions in Magic Bricks Now . Don't get fooled by Anil Kapoor's endorsement and MCHI-Credai Awards for Customer Responsiveness . That's all smokescreen. The ground-reality is that Ekta Group, also known as Ekta World, is shamelessly unreliable. Booking a flat in an Ekta project means giving lakhs of rupees with no safeguards and no legal entitlements. Even when the flat-agreement is registered, it is an unfair, one-sided agreement that make you lose all your rights as a flat purchaser. Ekta builder's overall strategy is to make the buyer helpless. As they say in market language, "Builder ko haath kaatke de dene jaisa hai" -- like cutting off your hands and giving...

9th October, 2016: A lot of HDFC Bank customers are having a bad experience. Some are even having nightmarish experiences... and it's all thanks to the fine art of glibly selling them financial instruments and other stuff they don't need. One friend who wrote to me after reading my recent article about how HDFC Bank routinely abuses it's customer's trust and fiduciary relationship , saying, "Krish, your gripe about HDFC Bank exceeding the limits of fiduciary relationship is absolutely correct. But why pick on HDFC alone? I get similar spam mails from ICICI, Kotak, etc. Upon complaining, I was told to read the last line of these mails and unsubscribe if I did not want to receive such mails. " My reply to his query: " I picked HDFC because I have experience of its activities at first hand. But I also wrote about SBI Mutual and ICICI Bank in that article." And then my friend wrote: " Here's a promo mail from AXIS Bank."...

7th October, 2016: Imagine you are having a gynaec examination. With his rubber-gloved fingers inside you, the gynaec starts a casual chat about why you should buy his home-grown brand of condoms and intimate products. Creepy? Yeah, well, but that's how HDFC Bank and other private-sector banks work. Actually, HDFC Bank is like if your gynaec collects real-time information about when and with whom you have sex, what kind of sex you are habituated to, exactly when you menstruate, what kind of lingerie and sanitary pads you are currently wearing, etc. and then this gynaec goes and hires a bunch of MBAs and college freshers, calls them "Relationship Managers", lets them hang around his clinic pretending to be gynaecologists themselves till you start feeling comfortable enough to tell them about your intimate problems. Then your gynaec goes and gives these relationship managers access to your information on their computer screens, with monthly targets for selling you co...

Never ever ever ever question Modiji's great leadership. Ever! He has valiantly led the surgical strikes from the frontlines, and we, the only true patriots, will willingly lay down our lives for him! "Never doubt that khakhi chuddies can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." -- with apologies to Margaret Mead. The Surgical Strike happened! It did! We kicked Pakistan's ass. And it happened exactly as our great and glorious leader Narendra Modi says it happened. Exactly that way -- because Narendra Modi is the only true leader since Independence. He has proof, even though he does not want to show any proof. It's not fair to ask him for proof, because he is Our Glorious Leader (Praise Be Upon Him). Every single Prime Minister who came before Narendra Modi (except Atal Behari Vajpayee) was a nincompoop and a liar.  Actually, even Gandhi was a closet gay, a child-molester and a coward. It is actually Golwalkar, Hedgewar and Godse -...

1 October, 2016, Cuttack: Before doing business with a judge's brother, think twice. In the year 2000, Ravenshaw , a 150-year-old college, signed an MOU to start professional courses in "public private partnership" with Star Computer Institute Pvt. Ltd. , belonging to BJP politician Biswajit Mohanty , son of Barrister Ranjit Mohanty, and brother of Orissa High Court's second-seniormost judge Indrajit Mahanty . In 2011, this MOU was renewed for a further three years. Upon the MOU's expiry in 2014, Ravenshaw (which was now no longer just a college but a full-fledged university) decided not to renew their MOU with Star. In the process, Ravenshaw incurred the enmity of Biswajit Mohanty's elder brother , who proceeded to give them a taste of pure hell!   Ravenshaw is a grand old institution with 8000 students and 90 faculty members currently, as against a sanctioned strength of 300 faculty. It became a University through an enactment in 2005, and was bo...