An Indecisive Indian

  Since the discontinuance of a separate Budget in 2017, Indian Railways (IR) and its annual budget have lost significance and spotlight. It has been seen by many as something which was done in view of its size being increasingly smaller vis-à-vis the national Budget and by others as a move which has led to greater budgetary support to railways, further pandering to its financial indiscipline.   Well, Budget declarations are important not merely because of the allocation made by the government for various schemes and projects in the coming financial year as well as a review of financial performance of ongoing and coming years, but also because of an affirmation of the policies being followed, or freshly envisaged, by the government in the long term. In the background of the merger with main budget, the budget of the ‘lifeline of the nation’ does not evoke much interest. It may be reduced to four lines in the budget speech of the Finance Minister but railwaymen for life, which...

  The success of Train 18/Vande Bharat express, perceived and real, has transcended all expectations, thanks to its repeated launches by the Prime Minster himself, who fashions it aa a symbol of resurgent and aspirational India. These launches are obviously covered extensively in the media and bring some unintended benefits to me as well as some of these channels cover the story of yours truly and the team which designed and built it. Added to these media stories are narratives floating around on LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube which are certainly very laudatory. Good enough, I am naturally happy about them.   Nearly all the stories which have commanded great viewership or readership are based mainly on certain social media posts, my interviews and   my TEDx talk on the train at Limitless Hyderabad meet of September 2019 which picks up great number of views with every launch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvDLYZ1tm7A&t=24s .   The story has been recounted in mor...

  Train 18/Vande Bharat express is constantly in news now-a-days, what with PM Narendra Modi ji himself launching every train. Let us pause and look back. A sterling team of brilliant engineers from Chennai’s Integral Coach factory (ICF) of Indian Railways (IR) and allied railway industry came together with great synergy and conceptualized Train 18/Vande Bharat express in 2018; subsequently, a near world-class train, designed and manufactured entirely in India in just 18 months at a fraction of what it would take both in terms of time and cost anywhere across the globe, was turned out by ICF. This train caught the imagination of the countrymen because they saw it as a symbol of resurgent and aspirational India, paving the way for a whole new ballgame in rail transportation in India. I was the fortunate leader of this team and I have naturally followed the story of proliferation of this train since then.   After the two rakes which were turned out in 2019, there was a per...

  It is not long back that a video of a brawl between passengers on a Bangkok-Kolkata Thai Smile Airways flight went viral. U nable to get to the bottom of the matter by deciphering the media blitz, I was a great deal flustered. But my confoundment did not last long as, thankfully I could eavesdrop on a tête-à-tête between my great-uncle Shakespeare and the youngest uncle Ghālib on the issue. I shared the insightful dialogue between the two, which brought out many a deep and arcane aspects of the brouhaha in this blog:   http://anindecisiveindian.blogspot.com/2023/01/flight-hai-ya-railway-ka-general-dabba.html   But Indian air carriers and our unexampled passengers are bent upon assailing my sensitivities with some bizarre incident or the other.  An inebriated passenger on the Air India NY-DEL flight urinated on an elderly woman co-passenger in Business Class in end November. Days later, another Air India passenger on CDG-DEL flight urinated on a co-pa...