An Indecisive Indian

  High-Speed Talgo Trains in Uzbekistan Much faster than Vande Bharat! Sudhanshu Mani I recently visited Uzbekistan with my wife and some friends. For me, a lifelong wish to experience the land of the invader Amir Timur, or Tamerlane (1336-1405), who never lost a battle and to decipher the intrigue. A Turco-Mongol conqueror who founded the Timurid in areas which are now Central Asia, Agghanistan, Iran and even Russia, o ne of the greatest, albeit also one of the most brutal, military leader in history, yet also reputed as a great patron of art and architecture. He was the only one to have defeated the Ottomons and of course, we all know about his plunder and massacres in India after defeating the Rajputs and the Delhi sultanate in India. And added to this intrigue was the quest to know about Babur, his much-maligned descendant, who conquered Delhi and established the Mughal empire.   The experience was quite rewa...

It’s not all cricket! Shakespeare and Ghālib trade poetic punches Sudhanshu Mani Once upon a time, the cricketing saga between India and England was as bitter as an unripe lemon, as colonial echoes reverberated through the rivalry like an outdated playlist. But the times have changed! It all kicked off in '71 when Ajit Wadekar's squad waltzed into England and left with a victorious swagger. Fast forward to July 2002, and we witnessed the rather funny image of Sourav Ganguly celebrating a NatWest series win by twirling his jersey like a cricket-themed Beyoncé on the Lord's balcony as the mighty target of 326 in the final over crumbled like a poorly constructed sandcastle.   Over the years, more than a hundred ODIs have been waged, and oh, the drama! Tempers flared hotter than any Indian curry, banter flowed smoother than tea at a British garden party, and competitiveness hung in the air like a well-tossed googly. But by the time the recent Cricket World Cup approached, t...

  I had written earlier that Balasore appeared to be an aberration as the safety record of IR had improved significantly in the last five/six years due to elimination of all unmanned level crossings and increased attention to track maintenance. Sadly, I spoke too soon! The recent spate of rail tragedies, the latest being the accident of Visakhapatnam-Rayagada Passenger ramming the rear of Visakhapatnam-Palasa Passenger near Vizianagaram with 14 people dead, calls for serious   introspection by Indian Railways (IR).   It started with the Balasore accident this June. A catastrophic accident, the worst in the last 28 years with 300 dead and a thousand injured. T he interlocking of signals was tampered with by a manual interposition to signal Coromandel Express via main line while its route was set to an occupied loop line, resulting in a three-way collision. There had been a series of human errors which caused the accident: 1) Erroneous Signalling circuit alteration and ...

Wheels are in news again! They were so last year when the first lot of wheels for Train 18/Vande Bharat express, which had been ordered on a company in Ukraine, was stuck in the war zone.   I have reproduced two of the recent news items and two blogs I wrote, in the end. I will draw upon them to write a brief here and those interested in more details can go through them too.   Although use of forged wheels in high speed passenger trains is the norm the world over, its superiority over cast wheels is not so straightforward from engineering standpoint; it is also a matter of legacy of development of railroad wheels by countries and companies. Regrettably, Indian Railways (IR) mechanical engineers lack the courage to experiment with cast wheels in spite of their stellar performance on freight stocks and therefore, let us avoid this academic discussion; the decision to use forged wheels in passenger trains is firmly set in stone.   Forged wheels for passenger coaches and loco...

Justin Trudeau is not a mere joker! He is worse, say Shakespeare and Ghālib The week-long escapade of Justin Trudeau, the Canadian Prime Minister, and his family in India in 2018 was nothing short of a calamitous comedy. The Washington Post described it aptly saying that it was like he took the title of "world's favorite liberal mascot" a tad too seriously, thinking he could charm India with his movie-star good looks and overdone Indian traditional dresses and a barrage of namastes ( Indian greeting with folded hands ). In a bid to outdo himself, Trudeau has earlier dabbled in linguistic acrobatics, replacing "mankind" with "peoplekind" in his political lexicon. But alas, this linguistic gymnastics routine fell flat in the face of India's discerning masses. Trudeau's attempt to immerse himself in Indian culture came off as a bizarre, choreographed tamasha (spectacle) that was faker than a Bollywood plot twist. The elaborate Indian attire and t...