The Indian budget every year has always been an eagerly awaited event. For many decades, the best minds in economics, finance, tax, business and industry throng the media house to analyze the provisions shared by the Financial Minister.
Sometimes major events completely disconnected may be data points for the plans of the different powers around the world. The challenge is to discern what purpose they serve? More critically, what are we moving towards?
When the US Ambassador threatened India's "Strategic Autonomy" policy over India's friendship with Russia - much more than meets the eye was at stake. Let us unpack how the Ukraine war has fundamentally changed the US and the world. And why are we here anyway?
118 people had died in 2013-14 due to railway crossings being unmanned in India. Due to the work by the railway ministry in the Modi Government, the deaths due to Unmanned Level Crossing (UMLCs) in 6 months ending September 2018, had come down to just THREE.
The Railway Minister, Piyush Goyal has promised that the entire Indian railways network will be free of UMLCs by the end of the year.
From 2014-17, the railways eliminated about 1,100 unmanned level crossings every year. There were around 5,500 unmanned level crossings on the rail network across the country out of which, around 5,000 have been eliminated as of September 30. The remaining 474 would be eliminated by December.
Working along those lines of promise, the Southern Railways announced today that it had become UMLC free.
The Southern Railway Saturday said it has become “Unmanned Level Crossing (UMLC) Free Zone,” by implementing a 2010 policy decision, eliminating over 1,000 such level crossings.
Until now, things which did not impact the rich and the strong did not have any importance in the work of the ministries. People who died in hundreds were usually villagers or poor or unsuspecting folks who were stuck in the wrong place at the wrong time. Deaths which could be avoided with some planning and work. Which is what must be appreciated about what the Railway Ministry has achieved!
Here are some statistics to consider from a study by UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP)
And although dated, here is a table with the fatalities and the number of accidents.
How has this work been done? Well, here are some of the steps taken:
Accordingly, the elimination of all 1054 UMLCs were planned by offering alternate modes of crossing the track by provision of subways, diversion to adjacent manned level crossings, subways, road under bridges and outright closure due to low road traffic, it added.
Now, think about this again. We are now looking at crossings which will now be smooth flow of traffic, both for trains and local road transport, as a subway was created or an overbridge was created. That the deaths will be eliminated and avoided is obvious. But even the time taken for the traffic will be changed substantially as the stops have been eliminated. That is what is needed in thinking of the Government of the day.
The Indian budget every year has always been an eagerly awaited event. For many decades, the best minds in economics, finance, tax, business and industry throng the media house to analyze the provisions shared by the Financial Minister.
When the US Ambassador threatened India's "Strategic Autonomy" policy over India's friendship with Russia - much more than meets the eye was at stake. Let us unpack how the Ukraine war has fundamentally changed the US and the world. And why are we here anyway?
This visit of India left me with many questions. Many observations and inputs from different people and sections. Food for thought that I have tried to contemplate on and make sense of. Sharing all that with you.
When you analyze the last 60 years of the economic miracles of Singapore, South Korea and Malaysia versus the continued impoverished Indian economy, you get very interesting lessons. Can Indians have the wherewithal in them to do in one generation so that the coming generations may rise?
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