Mamata on Rails...

Indian Railways has hit a new low with the toll going to 13 accidents in 2010 and over 200 dead since Ms. Mamata Banerjee became Railway Minister for the second time. It amazes me that accident after accident our present government is keeping quiet and not even finding time to correct the wrongs of one of the most important ministry in their cabinet. 'Safety and security will be our principal concern' just to recall last years' railway budget speech. One needs to address issues of solutions, responsibility and accountability in that order.

1. Anti-Collision devices patented by Konkan Railway Corporation were duly tested and passed in 1999 by the parliament. 11 years and many governments later, Ministers and railway board officials still talk as if it is a new device which needs testing. In 2002, during the NDA regime anti-collision devices were retested and even commissioned on North Eastern Frontier railway. After a successful pilot, NDA government budgeted 17,000 crores for the implementation. Konkan Railway has also installed these devices on its 760 km long single line network. If minsters and stakeholders in the Indian government and parliament stop colliding with each other after every incident to gain political mileage, I am sure they can find the time and will to implement Anti-Collision devices throughout Indian Railway Network.

2. 4 of the 13 incidents in early part of 2010 were due to fog. Anti-Fog systems are also facing the same fate as Anti-Collision devices. IRCON international Ltd which is a public-sector enterprise has developed Anti-Fog systems and even implemented the same in other nations like Syria and Iraq but our rails are still awaiting an action.

3. On 7 February 2010, Ms. Mamata Banerjee announced start of nineteen new train services. Maximisation of revenue cannot be done at the cost of safety and security. Every minister of railways feels that their principal responsibility to their state and public can only be fulfilled by new trains. Such new trains weaken the already week infrastructure and are unnecessary drain on resources needed to fix larger issues.

4. It has become a common practice in our country for opposition to demand resignation and minister in-charge claiming sabotage and assuring enquiry. Between these two tracks, voice and issues of common man never reach their destination. It will be wrong for any party or person to demand resignation as that does not in any way end this series of accidents. We need to be asking for solutions not heads. Two accidents in a month in Bengal and all we get to hear from Ms. Mamata Banerjee is sabotage. How convenient it is to blame incidents on dead? As the Chairman and Minster have put all blame on the driver of the train in the incident yesterday. They should know better than to make statements like 'why did not the dead driver jump?' People serving at such high-echelons also need a lesson in not to think out loud in public. Coming to enquiry, Standing committee for railways has only railway officials on the board, so we can well imagine fate of the enquiry. Also, this committee then reports to Minister of Civil Aviation. Why? It is beyond my understanding.

5. We should be proud of having single largest rail network in the world but after 60 years of independence and many a governments, we still do not have a Disaster Management Team in place. Our minister yesterday called for Army to be deployed for the relief and rescue work. Calling Army for railway accidents that is like calling UN peace keeping force for unrest in a state. Someone needs to remind such people the role of different government bodies. Indian Army's role is to safeguard boundaries of our nation and not to add weight to ill-actions of railways or politicians.

6. Senior statesman and our finance minister Pranb Mukherjee who himself hails from Bengal says 'accident is an accident and cannot be foreseen'. Well that for me is wisdom personified. With the Bengal election around the corner in 2011, Congress has no option but to keep Trinamool congress as its political ally and can ill-afford to lose Ms. Mamata Banerjee if they have any chance of keeping CPI(M) away from the office. Railway minister should choose either 'Governance in Delhi' or 'Politics in Calcutta'. A ministry like Railway cannot be run like a BPO with the use of communication devices.

To serve public, one needs 'Excellent Time management', 'High Energy level' and 'Competence'. Even if we are ready to grant all these to the minster, where is the 'Accountability' which is the single most important factor? 

Let us not ask for her resignation but we sure do have a right to ask for accountability.

Indian railway accidents chronology in 2010

1. January 2, 2010. The first of three accidents in Uttar Pradesh on this day takes place near the town of Etawah, about 170 miles (270 kilometers) southwest of Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh state, when the Lichchavi Express entering the station in heavy fog runs into the stationary Magadh Express train stopped there. Ten people, including the driver of one of the trains, are injured. At least 10 people were reported to have been killed.

2.January 2, 2010. The Gorakhdham Express and Prayagraj Express collide near the Panki railway station in Kanpur, about 100 kilometres (62 mi) southwest of Lucknow, leave five people dead and about 40 others injured.

3. January 2, 2010. At Pratapgarh, 61 kilometres (38 mi) from Allahabad, the Sarayu Express plows into a tractor trailer at an unmanned railway crossing. Though nobody is injured, the engine of the train is severely damaged.

4. January 2, 2010. All seven coaches of the Arunachal Pradesh Express, running between Murkongselek and Rangiya derail between Helem and Nij Bogaon in Assam, India in the early hours of the day. No passengers are hurt. 

5. January 16, 2010. Three people die and around a dozen are injured when two express trains collide in thick fog near Tundla, 25 kilometres (16 mi) from Agra, in India's northern state of Uttar Pradesh. The driver of one of the trains apparently did not react to a signal, slamming his train into another on the same track.

6. January 17, 2010. The Lucknow-Sultanpur Harihar Nath Express strikes a car at an unmanned railway crossing under Haidergarh police station area on Sunday afternoon in Barabanki district, India. Two persons traveling in the car die on the spot and four others who sustained serious injuries were referred to Trauma Centre in Lucknow. Train traffic on this route is disrupted for nearly two hours after the accident. This is the fifth accident in a series of similar accidents in the area.

7. January 22, 2010. Three bogies of a goods train derail at Sathiyaon station near Azamgarh, in Uttar Pradesh, disrupting rail traffic in the region. No one is injured. Traffic is disrupted on the busy Varanasi–Azamgarh–Gorakhpur route. 

8. May 25, 2010. A passenger train derails at Naugachia, injuring eleven people.

9. May 28, 2010. A train derails in the West Midnapore district of West Bengal, India, caused by either sabotage or a bomb that damaged the railway track, and is struck by an oncoming goods train, resulting in at least 90 passenger deaths.

10. June 18, 2010. Eight coaches and two engines of the Vasco-Howrah Amaravati Express (8048) derailed near Koppal in Karnataka, India, on Friday after the train hit a road roller at an unmanned level-crossing.Six persons, including the drivers of the road roller and the train, were injured in the accident.

11. July 19, 2010. At 2:00am, on the morning of July 19, about 50 people died and about 100 others were injured in a train collision. 2 coaches and a luggage car were crushed to splinters as ahigh speed train, hit a train standing local train at Sainthia station in West Bengal. Another coach was flung onto an over-head bridge at the station and was also smashed by the violent impact forces. The town is 200 kilometres north of the state capital, Kolkata (Calcutta).

Technorati: Sincerity amazes me 'Y358ZRGZDBPC'

Being a Sunday and all, I thought why not to do something worthwhile with "India First" blog and came though one of the most referred site online for blogs http://technorati.com. For the uninitiated ones, it's a Blog Search engine, Tags Aggregator and does Online Bookmarking. But then one cannot just visit, register and submit, well not so easy. I have been on it for past three hours and if you consider this an ordinary post, it's not. I am supposed to insert 'Y358ZRGZDBPC' to one of my posts to claim the blog.

I have always been a process person, although I am impressed with the process Technorati is following but it's the sincerity with which they are doing it forced me to write something about them. With Web, we are in an age and time that there is a plethora of websites almost begging to register users and happy to make web even more difficult for people looking for some quality information. Case in point, for everything I search nowadays with Google throws over a million results at least.

Here is a site (Technorati) that gives no registration or claim your blog link on any of their pages and one has to go deep looking for it. The process involves following steps:

1. Go to Technorati.com and log in

2. Fill the form and Click ’Join’ button

3. Verifying the confirmation link in email

4. Submitting the blog URL and ‘Begin Claim’

5. Copy the code and post it as a blog post

6. Manual review process

This is where I am right now. I am told that a human editor will review my submission and get back to me. I’ll let you know how that went. :)

Shailendra Chauhan

A must for Indo-Pak resolution

Whole of Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India. Indian sovereignty is constitutionally applicable to this entire area. The Parliament of India had reiterated its position by a resolution in 1993. It is surprising that in several rounds of Indo-Pak talk or at any other international forum India has not raised this issue even for once. Have we decided to forget it? On the contrary, India recaptured a part of POK In 1965 war and after the war returned the area. If we talk of making LOC the international border, this offer dose not have international legal sanctity. Even today we stand by the resolution passed by our parliament in 1993 that whole of J&K is an integral part of India. POK is strategically important as a geopolitical area.  

Some are of the opinion that annexation done by Razakars and tribal people during medieval period was fare. This is not valid. Nor it is validated by any. Our legal sovereignty over this area is valid even today. POK has virtually created strategic cushion. This area of POK created strategic hot-land between India and northern area of Kashmir. This area has common boundaries with Tibet, Xinjiang, Afghanistan and other Central Asian countries are its next door neighbors. Further this has blocked our view to North-West world.

India must raise this issue time and again at international forums as well as Indo-Pak talks.  

New symbol for Indian Rupee

The Indian Rupee gets a symbol designed by D Udaya Kumar, an IIT Post Graduate. It is bold, clean, fusion of Devanagari and Roman script and reflecting the young driven India.

Visual features of the new symbol is based on the "Tricolour" and “Arithmetic Equivalence”. The white space between the two horizontal lines gives the impression of the national flag with the Ashok Chakra and the two bold parallel lines stand for ‘equals to’, representing balance in the economy, both within and with other economies of the world.

The rupee currently uses the symbol of “Rs.”, “Re.” and “INR” in the international markets. The Indian government will introduce the symbol soon and expects that in two years, the symbol will be in regular use.


A Proud Moment For All Indians!

Increase in Indian Ocean levels threaten Glaciers

In a study conducted by researchers from the University of Colorado and the National Centre for Atmospheric Research, Indian ocean levels are rising unevenly putting millions at risk along low-lying coastlines in Bangladesh, Indonesia and Sri Lanka, besides worsening monsoon flooding in India. This is attributed to the rising levels in climate change triggered by warming seas and changes in atmospheric circulation patterns.

Sea levels in general are rising globally by about 3 mm (0.1181 inches) a year. But along the coasts of the northern Indian Ocean, seas have risen by an average of about 0.5 inches, or 13 mm, per decade, the study notes. Oceans absorb a large part of this extra heat, causing them to expand and sea levels to rise. Warmer temperatures are also causing glaciers and parts of the ice blanketing Greenland and West Antarctica to melt.

However, one man is not waiting for governments or organisations to make amends. Chewang Norphel popularly known as 'Glacier man' from North ladakh is a retired civil engineer who has figured out a way to build artificial glaciers in Ladakh. Chewang Norphel at the age of 75, has built 12 new glaciers already and hopes to train more to continue his work and save the worlds “third cap” from being transformed into rivers.

Through his ingenious technique, melt water from glaciers is diverted through a network of pipes into artificial lakes in the shaded side of mountain valleys. An embankment is built to keep in the water, which freezes at night and remains frozen until March, when the start of summer melts the new glacier and releases the water into the rivers below. So far, Norphel’s glaciers have been able to each store up to one million cubic feet of ice, which in turn can irrigate 200 hectares of farm land. For farmers, that can make the difference between crop failure and a bumper crop of more than 1,000 tons of wheat.

Indeed a real life Hero !!! More Ice to Mr. Norphel !!!

PM meets CMs of Naxal-hit states

Our PM made a statement last year: “We are not in favour of using armed forces to fight Naxalism. If the Naxals shed violence, we are willing to talk."

In my view, peace talks after laying down arms is an oxymoron. Just consider a scenario where a mad gunman is pointing gun at a captive. Will there not be the “so-called” negotiations with the gunman, whatever the final action or outcome? Peace talks have happened with the Kashmiri terrorists, ULFA etc. Then, why not with the Naxals? In my view, it is a case of false motives and mixed priorities not to engage in talks without preconditions.

Naxal problem is not just a law and order problem. The problem relates to genuine grievances of the rural poor but is only covered and highlighted when security personnel suffer like 76 men of the CRPF were killed in Dantewada (ChattisgarhState) on 6th April 2010.

The Naxal problem is a pointer to the poor efforts of the GOI and the State Governments in looking after the needs of the rural peasants and the adivasis. As per Indian Constitution, Law and Order is a State Subject but an exception needs to be made, by amending the Constitution forthwith to provide subjects like Naxalism and Terrorism under the Joint List. These two threats are widespread in the nation, requiring Central responsibility and coordination which the Centre cannot shirk.

Prime Minister is meeting leaders from seven Naxal-affected states today to chalk out a fresh strategy to curb Left-wing extremism. Let’s hope we have some fresh minds discussing old issues not otherwise.

Shailendra Chauhan