An Indecisive Indian

  IRMS, often humorously dubbed the Indian Railway Mismanagement Service, serves a rather unique purpose—one might say it is the ultimate Innovative Redundancy Management Scheme . It keeps the practically redundant railway executives in a state of confused bliss, humorously elevating them with a sense of importance even as their roles are being made increasingly marginalised. I have explored this subject extensively in my blogs and newspaper columns, both with serious analysis and a tongue-in-cheek approach (some references in the end). Soon, I resigned to the realization that the IRMS was a dice too firmly cast or a goose too far cooked and held my peace. But recently, my interest was reignited upon stumbling across this intriguing news item:   https://theprint.in/india/governance/as-reform-of-railway-services-merger-unravels-murmurs-of-demerger-gain-ground/2242702/   A bit of background, very briefly.  No one can downplay the need for a positive resolution of...

  Air travel might be soaring in India, but so is the sheer pandemonium at our airports and aboard our airborne chariots. The government is all gung-ho and hyped about getting us airborne, but the airlines? Well, they seem determined to make every flight feel like an audition for a role in a slapstick comedy. Between the turbulence on the tarmac and the chaos in the cabin, you’d think they were filming the sequel to ‘A Comedy of Errors’ at 35,000 feet. Amidst this madness, who better to untangle the mess in our skies than our esteemed connoisseurs of chaos— Ghālib and Shakespeare? These two wordsmiths have seen it all, from the love-struck to the battle-weary, but today they are taking on a new literary diversion: deciphering the curious case of Indian air travel. What follows is a slice of their razor-sharp repartee, complete with news links, pithy heedfulness, and the wit of the ages. Welcome to the excerpts from this enlightened, and at once exalted,  tête-à-tête :  ...

We have been hearing a lot about Aluminum (Al) trains ever since Integral Coach Factory (ICF) issued a tender for twenty train sets in 2017—aggressively named Train 20 with a view to turn it out from ICF by end 2020. By the end of 2018, though, the project was all but shelved. The issue resurfaced when Indian Railways (IR) issued a tender for 100 Al-bodied, 16-coach train sets capable of operating at speeds up to 200 km/h. The 200 km/h goal seemed overly ambitious, considering that India currently lacks the tracks for such speeds and is unlikely to build them in the foreseeable future but nevertheless, a bold move. There was a buzz in the global arena that India was finally waking up to its potential for expansion into modern passenger transportation, leveraging the volume game like China did two decades ago—a strategy that only large countries can afford.   During my visit to InnoTrans 2022 in Berlin, I observed and wrote:   The gap between where India stood and where...