Trip to India - How India is fast becoming a cashless society & info for NRIs on how to participate in this

 I have been extremely impressed by how fast India has become a cashless society. Of course, most of us in the west carry very little cash and use our credit cards and increasingly the mobile devices to pay. So why am I so impressed. It is because of the brilliant technology and associated security that has made this to be so ubiquitous here in such a short time. For those who are not familiar, it is practically everywhere. Even all the street vendors participate in this and there are jokes that even some of the beggers do.

First, a bit about the technical details. What powers all of this is UPI or Universal Payment Interface. You can read here a nice and short explanation about it. In short, UPI involves a payer and a recipient. A payer can pay what is due to any recipient who has set up their UPI. You can pay in a few different ways. The most prevalent method is scanning a unique qr code that the recipient displays and entering the amount you need to pay through a UPI app. You can also pay by the person's registered phone number or a unique UPI ID associated with them. Like bill pay you can schedule to pay your bills as well as recharge your phone.

It would be impossible these days to find places where UPI is not accepted. Perhaps temples. They should set up the Hundis to to be UPI compatible, which apparently has been in the works. As we know many wash off their sins by donating a boat load of their black money, so cash must still remain an option. Everything through UPI is immensely traceable!

In order to participate in this technology revolution, you need to have some basic things:

• A local phone. It can be a physical phone from another country that is unlocked and you manage to get a local SIM and a local number.
  
  
• A local bank account

If you are an NRI having both is kind of challenging. Though the Indian government has promised that NRI accounts can be linked to UPI systems, it has not happened yet, so having an NRO or NRE account is not helpful. You need an account in a local bank. And that is no easy task.

• In order to create a local bank account, you need an Aadhaar card. Most NRIs don't have it, so tough luck!
  
  
• The next option is to use your PAN card, which a lot of NRIs have. But there is a catch. You need to own a property here and present proof of address such as an electric bill. This also is not applicable for many.

If these two don't apply to you as an NRI, you can stop right here! You can use your credit card itself in many places, but it is not accepted everywhere. There are some places where "foreign" credit card will fail to process. And touch luck with street vendors. I you give them cash, many look at you like you are from another planet. Once a street vendor, 80 or so years old woman, asked me for my phone so she could teach me how to use Google Pay on it to pay her! I had to tell her it doesn't work, but she thought I am a luddite who didn't know how to use it.

There are many UPI clients available all of which work fine. This is yet another beauty of the system. They are all tied to a central registry of UPI IDs. GPay, PayTM and PhonePe are the most popular. By the way, if you retained your US phone, the new versions of Google Pay do provide a way to scan and pay, but when you scan, it will look for UPI setup to pay and you will fail.

To start, you should have a phone with local number. This again requires Aadhar card, though there is a mention that you can get local number as a foreign national. When I tried once, this didn't work because they wanted some proof of association with a local address. Wherever you are required to have Aadhar, like, using it to get a phone,  they take photographs, fingerprint scans (or eye scan) to validate that the right person is involved. Mind blowing security which makes all these trustworthy. With the local phone number in hand, you get to your bank.

Once you have the proof required, getting a local account set up is a piece of cake, but there are a lot of terminology that everyone assumes you know, but you are unlikely to. I, to date, don't understand what a current account is! We took one of our relatives to the bank where they have an account and it was immensely helpful. So many procedures are local and no one explains what they are and you are supposed to know. At the time you apply for the local account you should link it to your local phone number. This link is vital for UPI.

You cannot set up UPI on your phone yet. You need to receive a debit card from the bank first. They either can send it to you by courier or you can pick it up in the bank. In our case, there was a miscommunication and as a result delay. Apparently the bank wanted us to come and pick up the passbook and the card in person, but we were waiting for the courier.

All the banks have their own apps, so you download that and set it up. Their security is rock solid. You need to set up a login PIN and a transaction PIN which need to be two different sequence of numbers. They don't tell you until you fail a couple of times! I was so eager to set up the UPI without realizing that I needed my debit card. I tried a few things and failed repeatedly and was locked out for 24 hours! Yuck.

Once you have a debit card, you need to first activate it on an ATM machine. Then you can proceed to set up your UPI information, where, you need to enter the last 6 digits of debit card and expiry date. After you complete all these and set up a UPI ID, you are ready.

PayTM and GPay can be invoked and you can provide some basic information, such as your mobile number and the bank info and they gather necessary information automatically and you are READY!

All through the process you will get a million OTP messages on your local phone that you need to be prepared for. I was very impressed how this whole thing has worked flawlessly so far! And, man, the security is pretty tight. I HIGHLY recommend it for those for whom the basic requirements can be met. It is so easy and fulfilling.

I use GPay, so I scan the QR code and pay. I have set up UPI lite where I don't need to provide PIN if the purchase is a small amount, which is great. For larger purchases, I need to provide the UPI pin, which you have to set up. It is cute that in most cases, when you finish paying, there is a little machine through which the recipient hears that the transaction is complete (in English). In a few cases, I needed to show my phone to the vendor. 

Also, based on a recommendation from a friend, I don't keep a lot of money in my local bank account to avoid fraudsters stealing the funds. I have no idea how this happens honestly but it is better to be cautious.

Again, the brilliance of all of this is that the system operates with pretty light tech for those involved. Vendors can display these QR codes wherever there is good cell signal because thats all you need. And cell signal here is fantastic... No need for credit card machines and all that jazz. 

Now, I have always wondered what would stop a fraudster from sticking their QR code on top of a vendor's QR code. Of course, the payer will pay once and the vendor will not receive it, so it will be caught soon. If it is a very busy place, the vendor may just look the phones of people for positive payments and say OK until after a few transactions realizes that something is not right. 

One of my relatives explained that it is not that simple. If a vendor detects is soon, they can force the payer to pay them regardless before the goods are delivered and the onus is on the payer to report and request a reversal. But most importantly, the security is so tight that the fraudster must use a bank account that is tied to an aadhaar number, so the authorities can catch the fraudster! 

This is a major difference compared to the US, where there are so many electronic banks where accounts can be set up through stolen or fake credentials such as social security numbers and the fraudster closes the accounts and moves on. 

Now taht I have UPI all set up and working beautifully,  I can go back to the street vendor, the 80 plus old woman, and look straight in her eyes and scan and pay! My pride has been restored!!!

 

Trip to India - My Opinions on Metro (Awesome) Ride Hailing Services like Ola and Uber (They Suck!)

We have been in India for about 2 weeks now, about a week of it in Chennai. Getting around in Chennai to visit friends and family or attending music concerts during the December season requires transportation as we do not have our own vehicle. This is about my brief experience.

Metro is Fantastic

The good news is that the Chennai Metro service is fabulous. It is clean, timely and gets you from place to place much faster than any other means. I have taken it a few times from the Ashok Nagar station to various other locations, such as Thirumangalam, Central Station/Ripon Building etc. I want to try out some of the other routes and plan to take one to Alandur and switch to the line that runs to the beach to get off in the Thirumaylai station.

I am not sure how the locals feel about the cost, but for me it seems very reasonable. Ashok Nagar to Thirumangalam one way costs Rs 30 and to Central costs Rs 40. The wayfinding in the stations are fabulous and it is very accessible for those with handicaps. There are "lifts" in all stations and escalators. "Lifts" can be operated without the use of hands (a COVID time innovation). There is a pedal you press to get the elevator to come to the floor you are in. Once you get in, no need to press any buttons as it stops in each floor (maximum of 4 I have seen). Of course, unless you are the fidgety type and you want the doors to close faster.

I just LOVE traveling by them.

The catch - even the Ashok Nagar station is 15 minutes by walk from where we are staying and the lines and stops are carefully selected based on likely demand. As a result, you will not find that it covers the entire gamut, which is a near impossibility anyways. Sometimes you can take an auto to a nearby station and then hop on the metro.

Ride Hailing Services - A Disaster!

I hate them! But they are a necessary evil for reasons I mentioned above. 

• They just don't work as intended. I get it that it will never work in India the way it works in western countries, but it is a mess.
  
  
• Typically, you go to the app and ask for a vehicle. It takes a good chunk of time to get one, so build enough lead time. It is easier to get one if the distances are longer and you want to get to some of the more popular spots (where they can get other riders).
  
  
• Always, the driver calls after accepting the ride to make sure that you are paying cash! OK, I do, but forcing me to do this is a failure of the system. Drivers always have a story to tell as to how if it is any other method, the money first goes to Uber or Ola and it takes them a lot of time to credit the drivers the money. They also complain that the division of money between them and these companies are unfair. OK, then why did you sign up with Uber or Ola? 
  
  
• I never get cars that look anything like what they portray in the app. More often than not, they are beat up cars, with seats torn, very little or no A/C (despite the fact we ask for a vehicle with one), and one thing I can't stand - they are smelly (so I double mask at an additional cost to me).
  
  
• Regardless of the vehicle you get, soon after accepting the ride, in addition to confirming the payment as cash, they ask you what is the app showing as the payment. Apparently they don't see it. This drives me up the wall and I refuse to say it. Some cancel the ride and move on.
  
  
• Depending on how desperate I am, I ask them how much do they think the ride is worth and if it is within a reasonable range I tell them no problem, even if it is higher.
  
  
• When I go alone, I really prefer autos. They are airy, and air washes off any bad smells for the most part, except when you are stuck in traffic and the smell of the surroundings is an issue. Mask handles it. In auto you encounter external smells infrequently due to things like open sewers nearby or Koovam etc. which no one can control.
  
  
• Every single time, the driver will tell us that due to metro they are being diverted and it costs them petrol and "ஏதாவது பாத்து குடுங்க சார்". Well, when you accepted the ride, did you not know this???
  
  
• I always pay them more than what the app says, but it irks me that they have these excuses to ask for more that makes no sense. I double what the app says if the driver does not call me to ask what the app says or has a sob story. So far this has happened twice.
  
  
• Now, why this whole thing sucks in addition - these companies are doing a disservice to the drivers. When a ride from KK Nagar to Mylapore in an auto is priced at Rs 130, I feel it is really low. The local folks, please don't shoot me if you feel othersie.
  
  
• I understand it is demand pricing, but even at peak I have seen this go only to Rs 180 or so. Uber is worse than Ola in lowballing these. As a result my success rate in finding a ride is far better in Ola than Uber.

In short, with all these ways drivers are finding to defeat the system, I am really not sure how this whole thing is working. Many a time I see no difference, especially with autos, going to the corner of the street and hailing one rather than using the app. Once I took one guy from the corner of the street who was fabulous. I took his info and use WhatsApp to ask if he is here and available. Much better.

IMHO - What does Chennai need

With all the advances in technologies driving India, the ground transportation is HORRIBLE. Roads are a mess and bumpy in most areas. The roads are crowded always. No one follows rules, because if they did, they will take days to go from one place to the next.

And there is absolutely no place to expand the roads. So, let us innovate on vertical transport. I don't mean building flyovers or an entire road system that is elevated. It is costly and will take eons to complete and will cause tremendous to current traffic.

So, let us explore drone transportation system. If interested read "13 Manned Passenger Drones and Drone Taxis That Carry Humans (Updated July 2021)" Photo taken from this article.

It will be so cool. There can be a hop on hop off during the Music season where you can go from one Sabha to another. Actually the drone can hover over briefly so we can sample the music for a little to decide whether to get off or not :)

My Fascination with Science - PCR Tests - 5. Cycle 2 - All three steps

 

So, this is the result from the end of the first step. We then begin the cycle of denaturing, extension and annealing.

When denatured, they separate. For convenience, I have reorganized the strands. I have also added the primers to the right end for brevity.

Here is how things will look when extended. I have added a number to each of the strands for clarity in the next step. Look at strands 5 and 7. This is exactly the secuence that we are interested in. When annealed, at the end of the second step, we will have one double stranded DNA fragment of interest, just like that!

This is the beauty of the whole process. But wait until the next step.

My Fascination with Science - PCR Tests - 5. Cycle 1 - Step 3 - Extension Step 1

Extension - This is where the exciting thing happens where copies of the snippet are made. I suggest you be patient and go through each of these steps carefully yo understand whats going on. You will find some stuff repeated from before for completeness.

Here is the separated strands of a denatured DNA with the 5' and 3' ends marked and the snippet we want to copy is indicated.

Here is where I show the primers paired with the single strands of the denatured DNA. This association happens during the annealing step.

In the extension step, polymerase goes to work. In short, DNA polymerase looks for 3' end of a single stranded fragment of a DNA and adds complimentary nucleotide to make double stranded DNA. This is important to understand. For one, you need to have a single stranded potion of the DNA and secondly you need a 3' end open for the extension. As you see in the diagram below, this is exactly what the primer addition provides for both of the separated strands of the original DNA. Secondly, you need a tons of nucleotide for polymerase to add. So, in this step, the scientists add a ton of nucleotide. The temperature where this takes place is also very important it is typically in the mid 70's. DNA Polymerase is a generic term and there are a lot of different polymerases. The one that fits the bill here becaue of the temperature is a naturally occuring polymerase called Taq Polymerase. So, the original DNA, primers, LOTS of nucelotides, and Taq polymerase constitute the mixture. For reasons of stability and efficiency etc. additional chemicals such as a buffer are added. Scientists have figured out that this step should be carried out in the 72 - 76°C.

When done, you will get this.

That completes the first cycle! At the end of this, you have two double stranded DNA with some portions remaining single stranded in one of the two strands. This whole step of mixing everything, denaturing, annealing and extending all takes a few minutes.

In the next post we will look at the subsequent steps. 

My Fascination with Science - PCR Tests - 4. Cycle 1 - Step 2 - Annealing

Annealing - This is a step where you are going to attach two "stops", one each, to the individual strands with the idea that these primers will form double helices (very small ones indeed) at the start and end of the snippets.

Remember that you should know which specific snippet you want to copy. Based on that you create two small single stranded sequences called Primers. We want them to pair up with the beginning of the snippet on one strand and the end of the snippet on the other strand, like shown below.

Credit: Addgene

Remember that pairing them up means creating the primers to have the nucleotides with the complementary bases chained together. For example, say the four bases at the end of the snippet you want to copy is AGGC in the 3' to 5' direction, then the primer that will pair with it should be TCCG, but in the 5' to 3' direction and so on.  This is just an example. Primers are longer generally. Your primers are constructed synthetically by stitching together a sequence of bases that are complimentary to the ends of the snippet you want to copy. As a result they are specific to the snippet you want to extract.

Choosing a proper primer is a complicated business. You can read about how to design best primers here. You want the primers to connect just to the snippet you are interested in and not elsewhere. Given that there are millions of bases in a DNA, there is a high likelihood that unless carefully chosen, there may be other places it will latch on to, something we really don't want. The temperature at which you anneal depends on the primer you choose. It is roughly 3 times the # of G-C pairs plus 2 times the # of A-T pairs you will have when primers bind to the DNA. By carefully reducing the temparature based on the nature of the primer, you get the primers to attach to the single strands in the right place. 

Primers may also attach elsewhere because of the nature of things, but they may not attach exactly the same way, but a little weaker, for example. This is why the annealing temperature is important and chosen in such a way that such weaker connections will be blown away.

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Details that are relevant but you may choose to skip...

Because of the complimentarity of the strands, the sequence of nucleotides youu see in the top primer will be identical to the sequence in the bottom strand of the original DNA. In other words if you were to drop vertical lines at the ends of the top primer down, the base sequence in the bottom strand in the same location will be identical. This is a very important thing to understand from the perspective of how replication/copying will work to produce the snippet.

Here is a bit more colored version of the situation:

• Here are the denatured DNA strands. I have used a random sequence of A, T, G and C for illustrative purposes. I indicate the 5' and 3' ends for each strands. If you look, each base from the top strand will have its complementary base at the bottom. I show some 50 basees in each strand and as I have said before, these are millions of base long, so the dots indicate that.

• In this figure I indicate the snippet that we wish to copy. Again, totally arbitrary.
  
  
• In the figure below, I show examples of two primers. Again, primers are longer than the 6 I used here and they don't necessarily have to be identical in length. However, they must have annealing temperatures that are very close or identical.
• The primer for the top strand is selected to pair with the end of the snippet.  The 6 bases of the snippet is TGCGAC in the 5' to 3' direction. The primer is ACGCTG, but in the 3' to 5' direction. Now, you go vertically down, you will see the same exact 6 base arrangement in the original DNA strand.
• Similarly, the primer that pairs with the strand at the bottom is attaching itself with the "beginning of the snippet". The original strand has TCTTTG as the 6 bases, but because it is the complimentary strand, the direction is 3' to 5'. The primer for it is AGAAAC in the 5' to 3' direction. Look up vertically and you will see it to be identical to the original DNA strand.
• This is obvious once you see it with examples, but not necessarily easily understood with schematic diagram. This is the beauty of complemntarity and the whole PCR procedure takes advantage of it.

My Fascination with Science - PCR Tests - 3. Cycle 1 - Step 1 - Denaturation

Denaturation - Bascially, separate the two stands of DNA. Through various trials, scientists have found that around 94 -96°C the two strands separate while retaining their structural characteristics. Think of the double helix as a zipper and this step bassically unzips the DNA. It is important to understand that each strand of the DNA has a particular direction and for all the rest of the steps, the direction plays a very important role. I have added more details regarding the directionality to the bottom of this for those who are interested.

The zippers we are used to have ends, but in some sense they are identical. But, imagine zippers where the top and bottom stops can be one of two choices, A and B. The left side of the zipper has A and B respectively for as its top and bottom stoppers and the right side has B and A instead. It is likely to be useless as a zipper, but this is the analogy with DNA. Of course, to complicate things further, each tooth of the left zipper can be one of four choices and magically, the right zipper where the top and bottom are reversed has a tooth at every step that is complementary to the left one and they nicely come together. 

Credit: lumen learning

----------------------------- Details that you can skip if not interested

Directionality:

As I wrote earlier, each strand has a particular direction if you look at the atomic level. At some point, the DNA that is millions of base pairs long needs to have ends. The structural characteristics of the end is used to denote diretion. Here is the depiction of a nucleotide and millions of these are connected together to form the DNA. 

Credit: National Human Genome Institute

As you can see, a nucleotode consists of a Phosphate group, a sugar molecule, and one of the bases we discussed earlier (A, T, G or C).

Now, if you look at the detailed figure, you will see a numbering system for the carbon atoms in sugar. The end of a helix where the Phosphate group looks this way (it has this OH group that is the "end") is connected to the carbon designated as 5', that is referred to as the 5' end of a strand. Similarly the O atom you see that is connected to the Carbon designated as 3' turns to OH, that will be called the 3' end.

Credit: Wikipedia

My Fascination with Science - PCR Tests - 2. Some Basics

PCR Stands for Polymerase Chain Reaction. Think of it as a clever copy machine that can create amplified copies of a certain portion of a very dense page and it can produce millions and millions of them in a short time. Where PCR has revolutionized science is in making millions or billions of copies of portions of DNA (genetic material in organisms) quickly. Whenever you think about chemistry and "quickly" it will involve an enzyme, which accelerates chemical reactions. DNA Polymerases are enzymes that help synthesize DNA fast from their components.

Credit: Wikimedia

From Wikipedia - "DNA is is a molecule composed of two polynucleotide chains that coil around each other to form a double helix carrying genetic instructions for the development, functioning, growth and reproduction of all known organisms and many viruses" . In very simple terms, DNAs are extremely long, consists of two strands and have millions of nucleotides.

Each of the two strands is wound as a helix and both are connected using what are referred to as "hydrogen bonds". As complex as they are, they are composed of just four bases (part of a nucleotide), called Adenine (A), Thymine (T), Guanine (G) and Cytosine (C). Further, the base in one strand of the helix dictates what is in the other - A & T are always paired and G and C are always paired. Each strand has a unique directionality to it that are opposite of each other. This is critical in the PCR process. I will talk about this in the next few posts.

Despite the fact that we have only four nucleotides and two unique pairs (four if you want to be strict), the number of combinations you can create when there are millions of them is huge and this is what gives rise to complexities and intersting variations in DNA. 

There are numerous applications where we need to concentrate on a small snippet of this humongously long chain. For example, this small snippet may be relevant to detecting particular diseases, or is unique to a criminal that needs to be matched against samples from a crime scene, or unique to a particular bacteria or virus which can be used to find if someone is infected with a specific disease. Scientists have identified such unique snippets in DNAs of various organisms by now thanks to rapid advances in technology. However, samples tend to have very small quantities of DNA and copying them to get millions of identical copies helps simplify further analysis. 

We have a DNA sample with millions of bases, but depending on the application, we are only intereted in a small snippet of it. Wouldn't it be cool if we can simply make copies of just that portion in enough quantities that it can be easily analyzed further? This is exactly what PCR does. It does this in three steps that are then repeated multiple times:

• As a zeroth step, understand clearly the nucleotide sequence of the snippet that you want to copy.
• Denaturation - where you basically separate the two strands of DNA by heating.
• Annealing - where you add synthesized fragments called Primers. One primer forms the second (complementary) helix at the beginning of the snippet of interest with one of the denatured strand and another which pairs up with the end of the snippet on the other. You make them attach this way by carefully cooling the system.
• Extension - This is where the polymerase swings into action by extending one end of the primer with nucelotides that has been added. At the end of one cycle, you will now have two double helical DNA, but with overhangs of single strand DNA, because of where the primers are and how the polymerase only extends in one direction.
• You repeat this process whereby during each cycle, you double the amount of DNA. But, the beauty of this process, as you will see later, is that after the second cycle, one of the DNA that will get copied this way will be just the snippet of interest. It turns out that after about 30 cycles you will likely have a billion copies, Yes A BILLION! And guess what, this whole process has been automated and each cycle only takes a few minutes each and the entire process can be completed in a few hours. 

Kary Mullis invented this and if you are interested, you can read about him here and I encourage you to watch this video. He invented this in 1983 and received Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this in 1993. I should caution you that there are many videos of him on YouTube, but be careful in choosing which one to watch. At least a couple I watched, while funny, got into how he doesn't believe that there is a global warming issue and I don't want tht to cloud his excellent contributions :)