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IRMS: A Comedy of Errors, Revisions, and Re-Revisions

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  Disclaimer: What I write today is a modified version of this blog: https://anindecisiveindian.blogspot.com/2024/11/the-great-irms-hoopla-from-backbones-to.html Four years ago, the Indian Railways Management Service (IRMS) was launched with great fanfare, its ambition pitched as high as a mountain peak: to fuse eight quarrelsome railway services into one harmonious brotherhood and finally banish the ancient ghost of departmentalism. But the lofty vision soon sprouted cracks wide enough to run a Bullet train through without slowing down. After a circus of somersaults that would make seasoned acrobats weep with professional envy, the government hit the reset button and returned to the familiar embrace of CSE and ESE—an old habit burnished as a breathtaking innovation. And to crown the absurdity, the buzzword IRMS —a term that somehow meant everything and nothing—was not retired but triumphantly retained, as though mere nomenclature could mask the retreat. Officers will now brandish ...
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Of Bullets, Bureaucrats and Broken Signals: The HSR Train May Yet Redeem the Wait

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  When news surfaced that China had tested its new-generation CR450 trains, social media went into hyperdrive. Facts and fiction whizzed past each other faster than the trains themselves. The wildest claim? That China had achieved a speed of 896 kmph. Well, no — this isn’t a MagLev. The CR450 runs on wheels, and wheels doing 896 kmph would be less “train” and more “missile on holiday”. In reality, the 896 kmph was the combined relative speed when two CR450s crossed paths during testing; the highest actual speed clocked was 453 kmph. Still, the train’s planned operating speed of 400 kmph will make it the fastest wheel-on-rail service on Earth. (China’s record-holding 432 kmph MagLev, after all, floats above the rails.) Even at 400 kmph, the feat is awe-inspiring — and, for us Indians, a little painful. For while China streaks ahead, our own Mumbai–Ahmedabad High-Speed Rail (HSR) project has spent nearly a decade still trying to leave the station. While India had debated and ...
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Among My Own, and Proud: Recognition that Rings True

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  I recently wrote in this blog, https://anindecisiveindian.blogspot.com/2025/09/awarded-rewarded-and-thoroughly.html that there are many folks like me, sporting a few half-plucked feathers in our caps, who periodically get invited to be both honoured and humiliated at the same time. Honours for lesser mortals like me are like confetti, pretty, harmless, and soon swept away or worse still, like those glittery party-balloons that hover for a while, bobbing smugly above your head, and then, at the precise moment you try to look dignified, they slip, explode, and leave you with a face full of helium and the smell of fried samosas. My many experiences involved an invitation to be both bedizened and bemused, lauded and at once mortified in public, a ceremonial two-step I’ve come to call “the garlanded casualty” waltz, a dance I now perform with the grace of an arthritic ballerina and the resignation of a government file. I have, therefore, with time, become a trifle philosophical too an...
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Logistics and Rail Freight Portfolio, Part 1: The Mirage of Falling Logistics Costs

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  India’s logistics ecosystem sits at a pivotal juncture. The National Logistics Policy (NLP), launched in September 2022, was designed to transform the sector from a costly, fragmented system into an integrated, technology-driven network, aiming to reduce logistics costs from 13–14 per cent to 8 per cent of GDP by 2030, thereby boosting trade competitiveness, productivity, and employment. Complementing this has been the PM Gati Shakti National Master Plan (2021), which seeks to knit multiple modes of transport into a seamless grid of connectivity, anchored by multimodal logistics parks and coordinated infrastructure planning.   Indian Railways (IR), by far the greenest and most energy-efficient mode, was expected to be the backbone of this transformation. Policy targets such as raising the rail share of freight from 27 to 45 per cent, doubling average freight speeds from 25 to 50 km/h, and achieving 3,000 million tonnes of originating loading by 2027 were embedded in the ...
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Har Ik Pal Ka Shayar: Sahir on Stage, Dreams in Motion

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  Maiñ pal do pal kā shā'ir huuñ pal do pal mirī kahānī hai pal do pal merī hastī hai pal do pal mirī javānī hai Translated with a bit of poetic license : I am a poet—of but a fleeting moment. A tale that shimmers… then glimmers… and vanishes with the wind. My existence, ah, just a sigh in the vast silence of time. My youth only a heartbeat, blazing bright… then fading into dark shadows. These immortal lines of Sahir Ludhianvi lit a spark in countless hearts, inspiring dreamers, lovers, rebels, and cine-goers across generations. Sahir! A life lived in verse, a heart that pulsed in rebellion, a pen that carved eternal songs of love, loss, and longing. He was the shā'ir (poet) who gave voice to an age. Sahir–Har Ik Pal Ka Shayar , our musical play, attempts to bring alive the tumultuous yet tender journey of this legendary Urdu poet. Draped in the fragrance of his poetry, illuminated by the fire of his romances, and shadowed by the anguish of his internal and externa...
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Awarded, Rewarded and Thoroughly Insulted: Ghālib & Shakespeare on Dais to Disgrace

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  There are many like me—folks with some half-plucked feathers in the cap—who periodically get invited to be both honoured and humiliated at the same time. This blog is my humble service to that fraternity of ' garlanded causalities: glitter outside, slap inside'  so that they can smell the insult like stale samosas behind the garland.  After all, even Shakespeare’s Angelo in Measure for Measure knew this chimera of honours and awards, saying , “...Most dangerous Is that temptation that doth goad us on To sin in loving virtue...” . This menace peaks around Engineers’ Day—our annual silly season when engineers like me are dragged out of mothballs and decorated like Diwali lanterns, only to discover the fuse is still attached. A caveat though, some organizations do honour you with dignity, by Central Cabinet Ministers, et alia , but let’s exclude those rare gems. What follows is the slapstick side of the saga with ‘To Do and Not To Do list’ . Chachā (uncle) Ghālib knew...
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