Time zone idiocy

I want to be true to my self-image as the ultimate procrastinator. Therefore, as winter is approaching, perhaps delayed by a week or so due to global warming, it is time for me to talk about Daylight Saving Time, the feature in many Western countries applied during summer.

It just so happened that someone wrote about shifting east the reference longitude for the Indian Standard Time and/or adopting a daylight saving time shift during summer hours for the east and northeast states of India as an op-ed piece in The Hindu [1]. I was drawn to this piece because it is somewhat out of the ordinary, not talking about corruption, about politics, about governance (who will be able to offer even a soft definition of governance?), about cultural nationalism, about education, about FDI in retail, about Didi and/or Amma, and other such serious topics. This was about how to reckon time, a daily concern for all of us, particularly office goers like me.

Before I started reading the not-too-long piece (I think it would have been better had it been longer), I went to the end to see who the author is. I found out he is a “senior executive with a consulting firm”. That struck a chord with me, as I too am one, at least fancy myself as one. What he says must be of interest to me, I figured. I dug in.

But, I dug out soon thereafter. Mistakes after mistakes were appearing before my eyes. I am not talking about errors of judgment but about facts and skipping uncomfortable facts, conceptual missteps etc. My immediate impulse was to write to the editor of the paper pointing out that the op-ed page editor was asleep at the controls. But then, I gave that thought a slip. I have seen how letters to the editor hardly ever carry anything beyond the issues that I have tagged above as serious. Then, why waste effort on something that is doomed to voluntarily jump into the dust bin (or, the “deleted” folder as I was planning to send it by email).

After two days of dithering, I finally sent a letter to the editor, after toning down my initial internal outburst. My submission reads, in part,

“The piece is full of factual errors, so much so that its message will be undermined, even if one were to agree with it.”

At least one of the errors is glaring – situating Mumbai east of Delhi! Also, the number of minutes in a degree exceeds sixty! I found it appalling that the writer took it upon himself to educate his readers when he was so careless. He was trying to show how precise he was while being so atrociously inaccurate! He is to be taught that there is world of difference between precision and accuracy. This is what I tried to do in the concluding sentence of my letter:

“…by marking the longitudes at the level of minutes, which implies excessive precision, accuracy at the level of the argument is undermined. Would it matter that Delhi is at 77 degrees plus whatever minutes rather than at 76 degrees when the discussion is about time zones? I think not.”

Then, there was also a conceptual slip when the author says,

“Since India has a single time zone, States located to the west of the Indian Standard Time line of longitude (82.5^o E) have more daylight hours compared to States located to its east.”

If that is not a screwed up understanding, I do not know what is. In this one sentence I have read more imprecision than can be compensated by those precise inaccuracies I had mentioned earlier. Daylight hours are from sunrise to sunset, no matter where you are. What the author must have meant is if the time control longitude is west of where you reside, then you would lose some of the day light asleep, after the sun has risen. Indeed, the author says that advancing the time by one hour would help in “utilizing [my emphasis] more of the daylight hours.” This is OK. He was casual in his earlier formulation possibly given the motivation to adopt daylight savings time or shifting the time zone reference eastward.

It is interesting to spend some time on the history of the idea of daylight saving time. It was mooted by Benjamin Franklin when he was in Paris as a way to reduce candle consumption during summer hours. Even then the claims were severely contested and the idea died prematurely. Yet, over time the idea was resurrected and adopted in various nations, particularly those in the higher latitudes. When day light hours are adopted, it is a nod to the importance of beyond-office-hours activities in the economic and social spheres – shopping, sports and other leisure activities. You get more sunlight hours in the evening by shifting early morning daylight hours to the evening. Even today, some of the states in the US buck the trend and do not shift (the issue is local, as it should be and there is enough leeway for the local authorities) their standard time during summer hours. There are a few lessons in this.

Using measures of time disassociated with the sun is useful only in the context of human activities that span near-simultaneously over many longitudes – standardizing airline schedules, for example. Otherwise, it is solar time that is more useful. You rise with the sun and end the day with sunset. The local logic trumps the purely arithmetical, the purely metronomical metrics. We are born to the Sun and we have evolved and are living under the Sun. This is the unmetronomical reality and why sometimes our religious calendars in the north and south or east and west differ, by a day typically.

The author conveniently sidesteps the issue of the effects of time shifting on the western parts of the country. Time is a zero-sum game. If you take some here and now and you have to give some there and then. If in his analysis had the author included even a passing reference to the effect of shifting IST on the western parts of the country, it would have been fine. He did not and therefore it is not.

This is most evident when he points to China’s governing longitude much to the east of that nation: China keeps “almost the entire country to the west of their (sic) time meridian.” If that be so, and following his logic, I can very easily assert that is the reason why western China is beyond the boondocks in developmental terms! What is good for the goose is good for the gander, after all.

Singapore can be cited as example only for countries like Liechtenstein, Taiwan, Lesotho and no others – just the size, remember. Why Bangladesh has adopted daylight savings time has to be found out, analyzed and conclusions drawn only thereafter. The fact alone leads us nowhere.

While there is a token reference to all the other factors – “location, weather conditions, political leadership, availability of raw materials” – that may play a role in the claimed low productivity of the east and northeastern regions (I eagerly await response from Bengalis among my readership on this clubbing together of their golden state, Sonar Bangla, with the laggards), major blame is put squarely on this time factor. Then, he has to explain why Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh too, states bestriding the governing longitude are also laggards. This he has failed to do.

The article lists out the potential advantages but as I see it, the logic behind the list is flawed. On scouring the literature, I find that the best estimate for electricity saving is minuscule. Benjamin Franklin was wrong, as his critics of his time had pointed out.

I have a proposal of my own. Indian land extent covers about 30^os longitude, from 68^o E to 97^o E. This can be trifurcated, even if not equally, and the edges of the middle portion can be designated the time meridians, the eastern and western. This way we will have two time zones, the eastern and the western.  We may take care to see that the two time meridians have a full hour difference with 0^o that would also ensure one hour time difference between the two.  

The above take us to 75^o and 90^o. We locate urban centres, even going down to the level of population of 100,000 people, very close to these longitudes. Then, we leave it to the individual states to adopt either one of the two time zones. Local preferences come into play which the state governments have to tackle, giving geographic, economic and social justifications for the choice. Is that not the job of state governments, reconciling the conflicts within themselves?

To conclude, I have mercilessly criticized a newspaper article. And, I have dared to put forth a proposal of my own on the issue the article tried to address. Now, this is open to similar no-holds-barred criticism from my readers.

I thank you in advance.   

Raghuram Ekambaram

References

1.    Not in their comfort zone, R Rajkhowa, The Hindu, September 26, 2012 (http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/not-in-their-comfort-zone/article3935889.ece)