The road to e-India

This era of electronic governance has the potential to address the impediments before the framework of Indian administration and to eventually end the lethargic state of affairs infected by the bureau pathologies of red-tapism and corruption. No doubt we have taken some affirmative action but a lot needs to be done!

India is today the second most populous country in the world and on its way to reach the apex soon. This would be a victory which we would not celebrate as it is the beacon of our incapacity to control the exponential rise of our population and the symbol of the coming jeopardy across all domains of human life. Whatsoever be the volume of the citizenship, the government needs to provide certain essential services catering to the needs and aspirations of its people. It becomes a difficult task when the national boundary spans a colossal area and when it represents around 17.5 percent of the world population. As a result, more infrastructure, more human resources and optimal utilization of the resources is required. To add to this, India is a heterogeneous society with numerous ethnicities representing a rainbow of aspirations. Ergo, amidst all these challenges, governance is obstructed with proportionate impediments and only e-Governance can address all these concerns in a fast, efficient and effective manner.

Governance is the exercise of authority over the socio-economic resources of a country in line with the policy objectives formulated by the government of the land. And e-Governance is the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to facilitate governance. This governance is not only carried out by the State but also by various other non-State actors like NGOs, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and other interest groups representing various sections of the population. In a country of the magnitude of India, it is not a choice but an imperative that the non-State actors also participate in the process of governance. But as voluntarism is still a novelty in India, most of the governance is carried out by the government itself. And when government institutions interact with other entities on the electronic forums, we refer to it as e-Government.

As per recent statistics, the overall teledensity of India is nearing 80 per cent which is a remarkable achievement given the ephemeral time period in which this fete has been achieved. More encouraging than this is the fact that the rural teledensity is also rising exponentially as a result of the mushrooming of   service providers after the opening up of telecom sector. Moreover, the number of broadband subscribers has exceeded 15 million depicting the growing awareness among the people of the importance of getting wired to the world of the internet. This encouraging statistics offer us an opportunity to overhaul our governance infrastructure by providing as many services possible by the means of electronic media. In a positive move, the present government drafted the Electronic Delivery of Services Bill, but that is still to see the light of the day.

To understand the relevance and urgency of e-Governance, we need to visualize it as an avenue for the government to facilitate Good Governance. Good Governance was conceptualized by the World Bank which characterized it as governance which is consensus oriented, accountable, transparent, participatory, responsible, responsive and one which facilitates rule of law. All these features can be best guaranteed and achieved by the help of e-Governance as it would unable the government to provide them faster and efficiently.

One of the most conspicuous and instrumental step taken by India towards providing e-Governance is the conceptualization and the ongoing implementation of the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP). The vision of this endeavor is to make all services available via electronic media and this came up as a recommendation of the 2^nd Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC).  This recommendation was given shape by the Department of Information technology in partnership with the Department of Administrative Reforms. It comprises of 27 mission mode projects having various objectives including the creation of several Common Service Centers (CSCs) , State Wide Area Networks (SWANs) and State Date Centers (SDCs). These institutions would create a framework for the electronic delivery of services and that prototype would be replicated across all the departments and government institutions.  Given the large volume of government institutions, it might be a tedious task, but the cornerstones have surely been laid for a promising future of e-Governance.

Creating a unifying thread of e-Governance might be a gigantic task but various states have themselves taken initiatives in this regard instead of just waiting for the union government to consolidate all its efforts. There are various examples of e-Governance across India – e-SLA in Delhi, Gyandoot in Madhya Pradesh, e-SEVA in Andhra Pradesh, Bhulekh in Gujarat, FRIENDS in Kerala etc. These states have become a role model in the field of electronic delivery and are collaborating with the other states to incubate similar initiatives in the rest of the states. This has benefitted the states in two ways – the people are getting better delivery of services and the revenues received by the State departments are on the up. Moreover, with the ease of service delivery, the trust deficit between the people and the state governments is automatically bridged. These electronic forums also facilitate better people participation and thus strengthen the democratic fabric of our country.

Lately there have been numerous cases of corruption, graft and embezzlement unearthed from every nook and corner of our country.  Interestingly, e-Governance is also a remedy for the pathology of corruption. In an organization where all actions and transactions are quantified and collated, the extent of administrative discretion can be reduced to a great extent thus restricting the avenues for rent-seeking behavior by our government institutions.  Moreover as all the information is out in the open and accessible to the people of this country, this would facilitate transparency and accountability. The availability of information to the higher echelons of bureaucracy would facilitate better decision-making which was previously eclipsed by red-tapism and formalism. This would be extremely useful to further expand the utility of Right to Information which has already bought a revolution of transparency in the governance of our country.

Another major problem which can be addressed by this IT revolution is the provision of services in the rural areas of the country still comprising of 60 per cent of our population. The idea of Village Resource Centres (VRCs) which would provide electronic services to all nearby villages is revolutionary in itself. These areas do not usually have the human resources to dispense educational and medical services to the local inhabitants. This can be taken care of by the provision of tele-medicine and tele-education services. Thus, the human resources of the urban areas who are often unwilling to relocate themselves in rural areas can be utilized to cater to the needs of the backwards areas. This e-Governance would also lead to the inclusion of these left-out sections from the process of development.

From a futuristic point, the era of m-Governance stands next in line where the State would utilize the high teledensity of the country to gather information and to dispense relevant information and services to the citizens of the country. As most people would be having a mobile device, the government institutions can directly reach them for the provision of services. An ongoing project called “Dr.SMS” in Kerala is an excellent example of m-Governance where people can obtain any health related information via SMS services. Many States also provides weather information to the farmers via SMS services in order to aid them in their agricultural activities. All these initiatives promise a forthcoming era of m-Governance.

The mission mode implementation of the Unique Identification (UID) is a key to link all the electronic services into one thread. This would allow the government to uniquely indentify the citizens and to transfer the benefits to weaker sections by the scheme of Direct Benefits Transfers (DBT). All these initiatives have huge potential to address the current problems of India but at the same time we need to be aware of the dangers as well.  This IT revolution has also given rise to Cyber Crimes, Cyber thefts, Identity thefts and numerous novel avenues of money laundering. To tackle these vagaries of e-Governance we currently do not have regulatory mechanisms and infrastructure. The government recognizing this has conceptualized various organizations like Computer Emergency Response Team of India (CERT-IN) but they are still in their infancy and lack sophistication of operation. The road to e-India presents a plethora of innovative solutions but first we need to create check posts to safeguard them and take every e-step with utter caution!

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Devi Shetty – The Henry Ford of Healthcare

In the era of medical tourism and grandiose hospital chains where good healthcare has been jazzed up to levels only affordable to the upper class, one man stands outs. He rebelled against the growing commercialization of medicine and conceptualized a model for low cost high quality healthcare. The people of India owe it big to this miracle healer- Devi Shetty!

Once a small boy in a village of Karnataka who was studying at a school, heard from his teacher about the world’s first heart transplant which was performed in South Africa. Overwhelmed by fascination, he resolved to become a heart surgeon even before he decided to become a doctor. Also he wanted to take better care of his parents and this reinforced his resolve. And rest is history. Devi Shetty today is known across the world as one of the best cardiac surgeons in the world and also as a medical philanthropist. After completing his graduate degree and post-graduate work in India, we went to United Kingdom to receive training in cardiac surgery. That helped him immensely to learn how such operations are done at big scales and also the importance of equity i.e. everyone should be provided healthcare services irrespective of his economic state.  Devi Shetty once in an interview famously remarked that healthcare should become a fundamental right. He believes that even though the country produces a large number of doctors and health practitioners and can facilitate the needed infrastructure, it is not giving any results mainly because the services are not affordable for majority of our population. The still prevalent poverty is a big challenge to universal healthcare. He say, “If a solution is not affordable, it’s not a solution”.

After his return to India, he started his practice in Kolkata which proved to be the place that would define his preferences and priorities. It is here that he realized that even though a lot of people come to him with their heart problems but none could afford the cost of surgery. It is here ergo that he resolved to come up with a remedy for this problem of high surgery cost. It is here that he was asked to attend to the ailing Mother Teresa and stayed as her physician for a long time. She has had a great impact on him and he acknowledges the teachings that he learnt from her. One that is closest to him and which he often quotes “Hands that serve are more sacred than the lips that pray”. One could clearly see the influence of Mother Teresa on the initiatives that he took in later times. Subsequently he setup the Manipal Heart Foundation and then founded the Narayana Hridayalaya Hospital near Bangalore.

The main idea behind Narayana Hridayalaya was to give shape to his notion of affordable healthcare without compromising on the qualities by making large hospitals running on innovative solutions and working by economies of scale. His vision was to disassociate healthcare from affluence. Today the healthcare infrastructure is concentrated in the urban agglomerations and the infrastructure is entirely missing from the rural areas where still our majority of population resides. The generation X doctors are not interested or do not find any incentive in working in rural areas. This is resulting in pathetic state of the Primary Health Centers across the length and breadth of India. Devi Shetty is of the opinion that this is happening because of the absence of government medical colleges and the abundance of private medical colleges. There have been substantial capital infusion by these private organizations and therefore the cost at which they provide education cannot be afforded by the poor. Only government colleges would ensure that even poor people could become doctors. He firmly believes that if the government transforms all the district headquarters hospitals as medical colleges, Indian healthcare would be transformed in the span of six years.

His model of healthcare is entirely different from the mainstream upscale metropolitan hospitals which are slowly mushrooming through the tier one cities of India catering to the upper and middle classes of the country. They are glorifying the way medical services are delivered and adding a pinch of luxury into it. Their infrastructures resemble those of the posh hotels and they provide all goods and services no less than a shopping plaza. But Devi Shetty’s point here is that such lavish expenditures inflate the medical bills of the patients unnecessarily. So if we devise smart and economical ways to run a medical facility, the cost of healthcare would go down by considerable amount. That would mean that the surpluses generated can be used in the treatment of the destitute fraction who cannot afford even small amounts. As he says, “the objective is to only keep the nose above the water level”.

His model of affordable healthcare has some unique features that are attracting attention from all corners of the world. The major capital investment in hospitals is towards the hi-tech and latest machinery for carrying out various procedures and even operations. This cost is so high that it impacts the cost of medication incurred on the patients for a long time. But if you visit Narayana Hridayalaya, you will find that they have a policy of asking the manufacturing companies to park their machines instead of actually buying from them. The hospital then pays for the consumables for the machines and thus it turns out to be a win-win situation for both the hospital and the manufacturing company. The hospital saves a lot of capital and the manufacturing company makes stable revenues from the consumables. This has immensely helped in cutting the capital investments of the hospitals.

Shetty was also concerned about those poor sections among people who would not be able to travel to his hospitals and thus he came up of with the idea to make full use of the telemedicine technology to reach to them. This idea soon materialized with a tie-up with Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) and since then he has treated over three lakh people by making use of telemedicine technology. Moreover, when it comes to the recovery process, Shetty has a very peculiar viewpoint regarding nursing. He considers the role of nurses as far more paramount than that of the doctors themselves as the doctors only spent 1% of their time but the nurses are involved throughout. He is very adamant on not providing chairs for nurses as they would bring the efficiency down by considerable amount. He believes that the nurses have to be attentive all the time and presses upon the importance of discipline and dedication in their jobs. In his hospitals, he has ensured the best training facilities for the nursing staff and an overwhelming portion of the workforce in his hospitals are from the nursing department.

But at the same time he is very concerned about the government policy about the training and career progression of nurses. He is of the view that due to absence of such policies, the human resource availability for nursing is discouraged and in the coming years it would be a great challenge to find nurses for the hospitals. When asked about the big plans of government with the launch of National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) to tackle the problem of high Maternal Mortality rates (MMRs) he simply points out that one needs to go to the root of the problem. He adds, “For institutional deliveries along with the awareness and infrastructure, the government should create human resource which is the main missing ingredient and should ensure that we have adequate gynecologists to cater to the still high birth rate”. Such great vision and innovations are part of Narayana Hridayalaya which makes it possible to provide low cost healthcare without compromising on the quality. As a result his work has received praise from all corners of the world and is attracting a lot of attention. With the good word already spread all around, he receives patients from all corners of the world and especially from Middle Eastern countries and Africa. Recent trends also show inflow from US and Europe as well.

All these features make his innovative model very unique and special but there are some things about Devi Shetty that even make him a unique healer. He is totally devoted to the cause of cardiac surgery and says he wants to retire as a heart surgeon. His daily routine comprises of meeting at least 70 patients, performing two or three heart surgeries. Apart from this he also sees patients from across the country by video conferencing. He has performed more than 15,000 heart surgeries and has saved more than thousand people’s lives. He is the first heart surgeon in India to enter into neo-natal open-heart surgery, the first doctor in the world to perform open-heart surgery to close a hole in the heart and the first user of an artificial heart in India. Moreover, his ambitions and goals have been achieved to some extent as by his innovative methodologies he has been able to bring down the cost of heart surgeries tremendously. In his hospitals, the cost of such surgeries is only one-tenth of what it costs in US and almost half the cost charged in other private hospitals in India. Apart from this, in his operation theatres one would always find some kind of soft music playing as he believes in the healing powers of music. He is of the opinion that the doctor-patient relationship should not be artificial and formal and makes a point to ensure personal attention to his patients. He accepts that he is a spiritual person and one hears the chanting of ‘Om’ sounds in his cabin where he sees his patients.

He is confident that India will become the first country in the world to dissociate healthcare from affluence and within ten years every Indian will have access to high-tech healthcare with dignity. He claims that this is possible only because we produce the largest number of doctors, nurses and medical technicians in the world. Outside the U.S, ours is the only country to have the largest number of USFDA-approved drug manufacturing units in the world. We have everything going for a phenomenal healthcare delivery model. The only missing link is that patients do not have enough money for healthcare. He has a solution even for this and adds , “For example, around 10 years ago, we convinced the state of Karnataka to launch a health insurance plan called ‘Yashaswini Micro Health Insurance’, which operates on a premium of five rupees per month. Today, we have close to 4,000,000 farmers who have availed the benefits of this insurance scheme. Over a period of 10 years, more than 450,000 patients have undergone various types of operations, including major heart operations, at a cost of just Rs 5 per month”.  Shetty also has plans to convince our policy-makers to float a scheme through which every mobile phone subscriber in India pays 20 rupees over and above the regular bill, thereby enabling us to create the most robust and scalable health insurance program in the world. Poor people in isolation are very weak, but together they are very strong. The solution is that simple!

 His work has been greatly recognized throughout India and even abroad.  A large number of Indian States want to sign a MoU with him to open big hospitals running on his low cost models. He has signed an MOU with Karnataka Government for building a hospital with 5000 beds in a budget of 1000 crores. His business model has also received praise abroad and he has inked a contract with one the biggest non-profit hospital chain in US to build a medical city in Cayman Islands in the East end. Interestingly there are many other such initiatives in India viz. Vaatsalya, Glocal Healthcare and Eye-Q etc. These collectively do give us the hope that low-cost universal healthcare in India can be reality soon.

Devi Shetty serves as a role model not only in the field of healthcare but to all other entrepreneurs who would like to create such business model based on economics of scale so as to provide affordable solutions for all classes of people. Meanwhile his business model grows exponentially he is busy doing what he is best at, healing hearts. For all that he has done for humanity, one thing is for sure, he has touched more hearts than he has healed!

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Veiled Joy!

I was woken from my slumber,

Perhaps by the cold,

All these layers of comfort,

But warmth they could not hold.

Bored with the pretentious game,

I decided to give up.

Soon to realize that,

They were voices that woke me up.

Voices of joy,

of happiness and laughter.

Voices of irrational exuberance,

of renewed enthusiasm.

Little, soft and pristine,

Precious whites descended,

From the skys, and millions of them.

All of a sudden, it was all quite.

The voices were gone,

As all were lost,

At the beauty of the sight,

With the snow covering all,

We bid adieu to the cold night!

It all looked so sparkling,

It all looked so white,

The elderly were concerned,

While the kids slid around.

All looked so joyous,

And even the nature smiled!

As the beautiful day dusked,

Our fleets retreated.

Still soaked in the beauty,

Still wet with joy.

They all went back, to those layers,

Of comfort and of warmth,

Satisfied with the harmony,

We portrayed that night.

But few had the vision,

That dawn was to unveil.

The soothing light was to be,

The uncovering heal.

As the white layer diminished,

the truth was coming out,

shameful and filth.

The snow left us,

Deep in disgrace.

The ubiquitous garbage,

Created by the human greed,

Smirked at the mankind!

“What have you done,

Why have you ruined your mother?

How long could have,

The pretty snow covered your filth?

How long?”, it said.

Embarrassed, some sighed.

But for most,

it didn't matter,

it never did, never will,

and the mankind would perish someday,

beneath this veiled joy!

[Book review] The Elephant Paradigm * * *

The Elephant paradigm

By Gurcharan Das

Someone once told me that one the greatest lucid and through description of Indian economy right from the eve of independence to the reform years was in the book “India Unbound” by this author. So as soon as I got the opportunity I grabbed this book and once I got started with it, I could not keep it down. Impressed by the writing style of the author, I recently caught hold of this book which apparently takes the story forward and describes the nervous nineties of India post the reforms.

The basic problem is that you miss the flow you enjoyed in author’s other writings essentially because this is more like a collection of his essays rather than a monolithic rambling. Another problem some people might face is that he gets unnecessarily philosophical at places which does not go well with the theme of the book.

Nevertheless, it again has the hints of the lucid writings in his previous book and helps a great deal in understanding how our decade after the reforms went and what lies ahead. Mr. Narayan Murthy is quite right in saying that this book should be made part of the curriculum of every Indian student.

Some great lines from this book…..

“The Americans, who more than others, tend to live in the present , have made an industry of characterizing their decades- ‘ the roaring twenties’; ‘the swinging sixties’. If I had to do the same for the 1990s in India, I would call the decade ‘our liberating nineties’ “.

“And in the end, India is not a tiger, and change will always be slower than in East Asia. India is an elephant which has stirred from its slumber and has finally began to move ahead with a degree of determination. However, unlike a sprinting tiger that runs out of steam, the elephant has stamina”.

“The 19^th century belonged to Europe, the 20^th went to America, and many believe that the 21^st is likely to be Asia’s”.

“When you bribe, your work gets done in east Asia. In India, even after paying a bribe, you are never sure!”

“In my thirty years of active business, I did not meet a single bureaucrat who really understood my business yet he had the power to ruin it”.

“It was strange to read of the rise of Hindu fundamentalism because Hinduism is a religion without fundamentals”.

“Grace mark is a disgraceful feature of our academic life”.

“It is, in the end, some sort of irony that Rajiv Gandhi was willing to ditch his grandfather’s socialist vision and embrace Mahatma Gandhi’s vision of village governance”.

Book Review: Himalayan Blunder * * *

About the author

         Brigadier J.P.Dalvi was born in Basra (Iraq)on 3^rd July 1920 where his father was serving with the British Administration. In 1929, he came to India and completed his school and college education in Bombay. At the outbreak of the 2^nd World War, he quit his education and decided to join the Army. In January 1962 he volunteered to command 7 Infantry Brigade in the North-east Frontier Agency Sector of Towang. He was captured by the Chinese Forces on 22^nd October and repatriated in May 1963. It was in their custody that he formed the general outline of the book that would tell the real story of the biggest blunder in Indian military history.

Synopsis

         It is not just another book on the corner, it is rather a memoir. A memoir starting in the decade preceding the India-China was in the year 1962.  Dalvi starts with building the premise way before the actual occurrence of the war as the real reasons lay in the historical buildup to the war. Firstly, he discusses the Indian role in the Tibet region and how those historical dealings between the governments of British India and Tibet would lead to disastrous repercussions in the coming decades. Secondly, Dalvi talks in detail about the fibers of Indian Foreign Policy  in the Nehruvian era and how it had a deep impact on the equations of the possible war. Then he describes the half-hearted preparations for the war by the Indian side. Further he describes the war scene in grave detail and how Chinese perceived the Indian side.

Part wise analysis

Part1: The years of credulity and negligence

        This being the genesis of the political plot of the war he goes to the historic origins of the story and details the role of British India in the dealings with Tibet which did not go very well with China. He supports his analysis by the words of India’s distinguished President, Dr. S. Radhakrishnan when he exclaimed, “We have been negligent and credulous”. He talks about the uneasy lull during the first half of the decade of 1950s and how casually Indian Government took the Chinese incursions in those times. He talks about the half-hearted preparations of the army and the fact that in terms of capacity and military might we had already lost the war to China.

Part2:The fateful year 1962

         Here he talks of the wishful thinking of the political bosses and the armchair assumption that the Chinese would never attack. Nehru was of the firm belief  that the Chinese would totally respect the principles of Panchsheel. Here he describes the disastrous “Forward Policy” or the Operation Onkar which gave the Chinese a reason to attack.

Part3: On to the Namka Chu

         Here he neatly describes the pre-war setting and the burgeoning of both forces on either side of the river. The description here is so lively that you actually feel while reading that you are in fact roaming in the battle field and witnessing the preparations for real. Here the author critically discusses the Operation or intention of Indian government to “evict the Chinese from the Indian territories.

Part4: The end of make believe

         Here the author describes the homecoming of our political brass who where on international diplomatic mission at the time of the Chinese incursions. He takes a critical dig at the decisions and pre-occupations of our Prime Minister in those fateful times. He emotionally describes the war-setting chosen by the Indian forces was extremely vulnerable and put the Chinese at a vantage point. He describes the clash at Tseng Jong and the subsequent policy fluctuations on the Indian side.

Part 5: The battle at Namka Chu River

         This part starts with the amended mandate for the forces. Witnessing the Chinese might in the clash at Tseng John, the Indian leadership decides that it would be best to defend the positions rather than mounting an attack on the proven-superior Chinese forces. Here is critically analyzes both the stances and is able to prove to the reader that both where utterly wrong decisions and the right course would have been something else. Moreover, he criticizes the absence of higher leadership at the most crucial time in the war. And lastly he describes the humiliating times when he was a captive of the Chinese Army.

Part6: The reason why

         Moving out from the battlefield, he launches a ruthless and deserving attack on the political leadership of that times. He asserts that the “civil supremacy” cannot be allowed to interfere in matters which are purely strategic and military in nature. Then he compares and contrasts the roles of various Defence Ministers of India in those fateful years.

Critical Evaluation

         Dalvi’s writing is immensely descriptive which makes it more of a memoir than a story.

         His style of presenting pre-analysis and post-analysis helps the reader tremendously to understand the nitty-gritty's of war with ease. Moreover, the various references made by him and the illustrations taken from various works to make the reader understand his own references shows the kind of detailed work that he has undertaken in the making of this wonderful masterpiece. One of the shortcomings though has been the fact that it is conspicuous that the author is not a regular writer and in the process he gives away the gist of the whole event in the early ramblings itself. Also he seem to reassert the same assertions again and again which becomes like tiny road-blocks for the reader. And finally, this brave attempt to tell the truth to the world must be commended eternally.

Soothing Jaisalmer

I have been longing to travel to Rajasthan since years and this finally happened last year when I got some free time in December which is incidentally the best time to travel there. I started the trip from Jaipur aka the Pink City and all that jazz. The place has like a zillion forts and a million emporiums keeping the tourist traffic busy all along. But the places I would recommend to you are Albert Hall Museum and Amer Fort. Rest is lackluster in front of these grand creations. And if you want a feel of the pink city walk through the local markets. That sums up Jaipur for me and can be seen in a day or two.

After that I traveled to Jodhpur sometimes also called as the Blue city due the blue paint on the local house when you see that from the city fort. I would  recommend you to travel throughout Rajasthan via the ultra-comfortable volvos being run by the RSRTC. Travelling by road only would give you the feel of real rajsathan. Getting a train ticket is difficult anyways as IRCTC sucks big time. Jodhpur is also traditionally filled with Forts and other architecture which is very similar to those of Jaipur. I would recommend only the Mehrangarh  Fort where Nolan had come once to shoot the Dart Knight Rises. Also, so take a guide in all the forts you see otherwise it would be only seeing dirt and bats. Don't let the city guides fool you to take you to some retrograde gardens filled by bird and monkey shit. Rather walk through the local markets to get a feel of the culture.

My nest destination lies near the western frontiers of the State and is the best place to see in Rajasthan and this is the place which prompted me to blog about Rajasthan. The calm, beautiful and soothing jaisalmer. We again traveled via bus to reach Jaisalmer from Jodhpur which is like five hours journey through the arid yet beautiful terrain of Rajasthan. Luckily we got some reference to one of the hotels in the city called Hotel Haveli which played a big Part in our stay there.

Jaisalmer is a small town closest from the beautiful sad dunes of the Thar and Gobi desert. The settlement is so small that we managed to see the entire city many times on our walking tours. And if you plan to stay at Hotel Haveli, it would be further convenient to you as all the tourist attractions are at a walking distance from this Hotel. Apart from that you would love the hospitality and food at this place. Among things to see in Jaisalmer, there is this beautiful and calm lake gadiser where you can boat your way to calmness. There are some temples and shopping options available alongside the lake which would keep your female companions busy and ergo you can relax and enjoy feeding the catfish and ducks in the lake. This is way better than the crowded and grand lakes of other cities in Rajasthan. It is also best suited for artists and painters.

Then just in front of this lake there is a little museum which has a great collections of ancient entities belonging to this regions and the icing on the cake is the Puppet Shows that they organize in the evenings. Highly recommended! This is solely the initiative of an old retired man who wants to keep this culture alive. Please meet this guy, you would really feed good!

Then like every city in Rajasthan, Jaisalmer also has a fort of its own. This being the only fort where the locals are allowed to live and do business. So, you can go for this one. be careful though of the costs of items in Jaisalmer as everything is overpriced. Do your shopping from Jodhpur and Jaipur instead. Then along with the fort you can visit the nearby Havelis and market on foot. No big deal!

Now comes the most important and beautiful experience of Jaisalmer. The Sam sand dunes which are located about 40 kms away from the city and you have the option of taking a cab which is ultra-boring and the other is that you rent a bike and drive yourself. I did that and the journey is the best one I have taken till date. The road is excellent and so is the landscape on either side of the road. There is some ancient village on the road which you can ignore and go straight to the sam sand dunes. There you should have a pre-booking for your night stay in the tents to avoid any one exploiting you. Then go straight to the sunset point and enjoy the sand dunes till you get soaked in. That is generally followed by some cultural evenings, dinner and then sleep over in the tents. Insist the operators that you want to sleep in the dunes and that would make your trip uber-cool!

So those, yearning to get a real feel of Rajasthan, must go to jaisalmer!