What is new
Lakhs of Rail Track Deaths Should Trigger Safety Reforms
- Published on 27 October 2018
(A slide from Rail Safety Presentation. Image Courtesy: RDSO)
“Could there have been an auditory distraction on approach to the signal”?
“Was there anything related to the cab environment that could have distracted the loco pilot”?
“Is there evidence that the loco pilot was distracted by any in cab activity, such as reading a document...”?
These are three questions out of the 57 standard questions that form part of any departmental inquiry into any accident due to signal passing at danger (SPAD).
Such questions would get rephrased if Modi Government orders an independent probe into Amritsar tragedy in which a speeding train mowed down 62 persons. The victims were watching effigies burning & fireworks at Dussehra ground adjoining railway lines.
In this instant case, a few relevant issues that must be answered to public are:
Were loco pilots distracted by light and noise of Dussehra festivities? Was Vigilance Control Device (VCD) functioning or was it deactivated by loco pilots?
VCD records actions of loco pilots and alerts them for their deviant behavior.
VCD can automatically apply emergency brakes, if pilots ignore its warnings. A passenger train moving at speed of 100 Kilometres/hour requires emergency braking distance of 750 metres.
PMJAY Symbolizes ModiJi’s Magic of Disruptive Development
- Published on 07 October 2018
Dr. Manmohan Singh and P Chidambaram “destroyed” the country with their “intelligence and bookish knowledge”, stated Narendra Modi on 30th November 2013 at a political rally in Delhi.
After becoming Prime Minister, Mr. Modi has been undoing the so-called destruction with clinical disruption. Free from disadvantage of bookish knowledge, he has used his political pragmatism to peddle hard his model of disruptive development.
He, for instance, rocked the economy in 2016 through demonetization. He has transformed goods and service tax (GST) into a forms-filling, burdensome tax, which shows no signs of stabilization.
He pushed Aadhar from a mere identity for delivery of welfare benefits to the poor citizens into a big-brother tool to monitor almost everything and anything citizens do. No wonder, the Supreme Court had to rein in his Aadhar web’s intrusion into privacy domain.
NDA Government’s obsession to link one identity number with another one has created ripples of disruption. A case in point is several entities deducting income tax at source (TDS) from the Railways’ income. Mind you, Railways is a Government Department. And Government does not pay income tax.
From British Raj to Swaraj, Garbage Woes Inundate India
- Published on 22 September 2018
(:Landfill Stink Measurement. Iimage Courtesy: CPCB)
"Insufficiency of dustbins tends to encourage the common practice of throwing litter and rubbish from upper windows on to the paved back spaces below and to intensify the lack of sanitation. Even in the sewered aeras, sewage stagnates as a result of blockage of drains and traps with refuse, and the areas at the backs of the lodging-houses seems be seldom clean. The conditions which prevail indicate the need for more stringent municipal administration”.
Anyone might wrongly take this as ‘mohalla negative news’ played up by Modi critics to spoil the ongoing social media-empowered Swachhta Hi Seva (SHS) campaign.
The fact is that the Quote is from the 1931 report of Royal Labour Commission (RLC). And the description relates to Rangoon (now Yangon), which was then part of British India.
What RLC said about the rot bedeviling Indian cities is far more relevant and alarming than what it was in 1930s. British India’s concern over the insanitary conditions is documented in other such reports and laws too as we would find later in this column.
Anyone, with an iota of respect for facts, can drive through any city and any village to find that official claims on Swachhta are a mere puff. Millions of corridors are splashed with paan spits. Countless window slabs and similar structures are littered with broken glasses and construction materials even in decent apartment buildings.
And the monumental proof of sanitation crisis is Delhi’s world-famous Ghazipur waste dump. It spans over 70 acres with maximum height of 62 metres. In November 2017, East Delhi Municipal Corporation sought expression of interest from specialized agencies to cope with fires that erupt at this landfill.
Delhi’s two other such dumps are also a disgrace. North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) has minced no words in articulating garbage crisis.
G20, EU & Other Votaries of Corruption-Free Governance Face Heat
- Published on 22 September 2018
(Edited Image Courtesy: UNODC)
Pressure from within and outside is mounting on global/regional bodies to act credibly against corruption. This follows the realization among anti-bribery stakeholders that global bodies excel in ritualism of issuing communiqué & declarations.
Several member countries of global entities take half-hearted action against hydra-headed corruption in their respective national jurisdictions. Many members such as India prefer passive play and dislike disclosures on their anti-corruption conduct.
The frustration over this sorry state of affairs is palpable from G20 to European Union to Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).
As put by Transparency International (TI) in a release issued last month, “Despite more than 60 anti-corruption commitments from G20 leaders in the last few years, there is little evidence of any real progress”.
In an earlier report issued during April 2018, TI exposed shocking laxity by G20 leaders in honouring their 2014 promise to act against anonymous companies.