In India, we have always treated the doctor as a form of God, always trusting in his / her judgement, and never questioning their statements or actions. However, in today’s world, where hospitals are essentially commerical activities (with hospital companies being listed on stock exchanges as well), and with high charges for serious treatment regimes, people are slowly starting to treat hospital treatment as protected by consumer rights, and are pushing this more and more.
Currently, hospitals are suspected of inflating charges, making patients do extra tests for more money, and in fact, charging more per room than a 5 star hotel. With these high charges, it is but natural that people will want the best of treatment, and will raise a stink if they feel that they are not getting the best.
In a ruling by the National Consumer Commission, Apollo Hospital and a consultant eye surgeon to pay Rs. 2 lakh to a retired Indian Government official who lost his right eye after a successful surgery. He developed fungal complications after the surgery, and with the doctor not available easily for follow-up post the surgery, the fungal infection forced removal of his right eye.
The negative side of this is that the medical profession is one where mistakes can prove deadly, and sometimes mistakes do happen. If more legal actions happen for cases of mistakes or missed diagnosis (as opposed to the present case of carelessness), then hospitals will get more cautious and this will force up charges. It is a tricky balance.

Typically, for a lot of industries and departments, especially when it comes to services, there is the concept of an ombudsman. This is a person to whom customers can go with complaints, and typically get their problems resolved. The concept of ombudsmen already exists for financial services, and serves as a cost-efficient way to get complaints and issues resolved.
Now the cellular companies in India have come together to set up the office of an ombudsman, setting up an institution where a person can go with his complaint, and directly handle the process without the overhead of lawyers. In a plus, the decision of the ombudsman will be binding on the service provider, but the complainant has the discretion to go elsewhere to file his/her complaint if not satisfied.

I was reading this article in the Times of India that dealt with a stock investor getting swindled by a stock broking company in Bombay. In a shocking case, the lady had been dealing with the Religare Securities Limited for about one year. She had a deposit to the tune of Rs. 3 lakhs. One day she got a record of transactions totalling Rs. 3 crore that had been done in her account.
Initially the company had confirmed that these transactions were as a result of server error, and that these transactions would be reversed. However, after a couple of weeks, the Regional Head went back on this deal and told her that no matter what the case was, she would have to bear the burden.
This is a very strange case. If this happens in a country where the consumer system is more strict, there would have been court cases against the company and it would be facing enquiries and fines. Now the lady has filed a police case, and also cases with the SEBI and National Stock Exchange of India.

One discovers a lot of thing while crawling around the internet. One of the things that I discovered was this website: A grievance site from the Government of India. This was a surprise, one would not have expected the Government of India to do something like this.
One look at the counter running on the web page discloses the counter to running at 65,000 visits plus. The feedback that I got from the location which gave me this website was that people have reported complaints on this website and got a positive feedback. Now the best way to experience such a site is to try it out with a genuine problem, and then evaluate the response. So, readers, if you have any problems with the following Government departments, then please use this website.

I had a simple quest, that of ordering some pizza at home. The spouse and me thought that it had been quite some time since we had pizza, and now was as good a occasion as any to enjoy the pleasure of a nice hot pizza.
Living in East Delhi, we have preferred the Pizza Hut pizza (as opposed to Pizza Corner and Domino’s). Somehow the taste buds are more tickled by the pizzas from Pizza Hut. But I think that we are now done with Pizza Hut, or rather, they are done with us.
Pizza Hut was located in Wave’s Kaushambi outlet, and calling over there was a pretty easy affair. This time I tried calling the 3 numbers that I had, and found out that the numbers do not exist. Felt a bit suspicious, maybe the joint had closed down (but numbers do change sometimes). Went to the Pizza Hut India website, and there were 4 outlets in Ghaziabad listed. Okay, this sounds better. Wait, all the numbers were Gurgaon numbers, so maybe there is a centralized call center that handles all Pizza Hut. This started seeming like a local expedition in hunting down stuff.
I called the Gurgaon number, and the guy started asking me about where I live. When I told him that I live in East Delhi, he was confused as to why I was calling him, and gave me a number in East Delhi. This roundabout started getting me irritated. Then I called this number, and found out that the Waves outlet had closed down and a new one opened in East Delhi Mall. The beauty of the situation was that this new outlet was at at the same distance from my home, but now they no longer deliver to my location.
This did not make sense to me, but obviously since they are not willing to deliver to my place, I can’t force them. Hence no more Pizza Hut for me, instead I will switch onto Pizza Corner or Domino’s. I did not think that a mass outlet company such as Pizza Hut forces away their customers like this, but who knows.