Why High Speed Rail Corridor?

Yesterday Kerala Government announced sanction from Central Railway Ministry for a High Speed Rail Corridor between Thiruvananthapuram and Mangalore. This will considerably reduce travel time between North and South Kerala. The Kerala government has formed a new public limited company, Kerala High Speed Rail Corporation Ltd (KHSRCL), for implementing an ambitious high-speed rail network estimated to cost Rs 77,000

crore. The 630-km network will connect the state capital Thiruvananthapuram with Mangalore in Karnataka.

Unfortunately this will only increase the concentrated urbanisation of Kerala's large cities which are already become saturated.

Suburban Railway System

I think Kerala required a Mumbai like suburban rail system more urgently than the high speed corridor. This will improve mobility of people, reduce stress on road traffic and overall improve state GDP by a large extend. This can be supplemented by a coach manufacturing factory, rail manufacturing factory and accessories manufacturing factory. This will require less investment, and make growth more balanced thru out the state.

Mumbai suburban system handles about 70 lakh travellers daily and spread over 450 kilometers. With the same way, we can run trails at about 5 minutes interval by just upgrading the existing network.

Fuel Price Deregulation

The petrol price is de-regulated in India from 26th June 2010 by central government. Why this is becoming one of the major political issue? And what is meant by de-regulation? What is the effect of de-regulation or removing APM (administered pricing mechanism)?
First off all as the commoner concerned it is simple increase in the price of fuels he use – petrol/diesel/LPG/kerosene. And resulting price inflation of all consumer items.
De-controlling:
Earlier the government was fixing the price for fuels based on the international crude price and local political sensitivity. This was for the PSU oil marketing companies (IOC, HPCL, and BPCL) only. The private players like Reliance, Essar or Shell tried to match the government pricing but on a higher side. Or removing APM will give the OMCs right to price their product based on their expenses and margin.
Taxes, Taxes and Taxes:
A major part of the fuel price in India is the tax component. The main part is the central excise which goes to the central government. Other is the state and local bodies’ taxes. This varies from state to state and city to city. Hence there is a difference in prices at different parts of India. So whenever the price is increases government earns more money through taxes.
How to find an effective solution?
There are two components to control the price of fuel and resulting inflation or burden to common man.

1. Reduce the tax part of the price. Let the central and state governments to share the burden and ready to reduce the tax income from fuel. Any how government is doing some favor to OMCs to compensate their losses. Instead of that let there is a cap on the taxes so that the price is limited.
2. Make the oil marketing companies more efficient. Common man will be surprised by the news that OMCs give huge credit to airlines and finally write off some of them to get the dues.

Epilogue: The Subsidy when started supply only for the elite class
When the petroleum industry started in India, or before 1990s, availability of LPG or usage of petrol was very less and confined to the elites and babus of big cities. Then why government of that time started off to offer discounts or ---to these products?

Nuclear Liability Bill

In India, the recently introduced nuclear liability bill is creating a lot of hype for and against. Those who say OK are pointing to the huge capital inflow to India by MNCs if the bill is passed by setting up Nuclear Power Plants. Those against says that in case of any tragedy, these MNCs will not be liable to compensate on par with the world norms.
Two main events pointing to the industrial liability are the Bhopal Gas Tragedy of 1984 and more recent Oil Spill in BP’s drilling block “Deep Water Horizon” at Mexican sea.
Mexical Oil Spill:
The Mexican Oil Spill came into world focus when president Obama taken an active interest in the issue. The recent news in media shows Mr. Obama and USA asked for a payment of 20 billion dollar compensation from the British Petroleum. The whole issue attracted world attention when media reported president Obama’s “boot in throat” remark on the issue.
Bhopal – the tragedy
The news of Oil spill should be read in the context of the Bhopal tragedy and the most delayed verdict in the case with miniscule compensations and punishments. The then government took extra ordinary hurry to send back the then chairman of Union Carbide Mr. Warren Anderson. Now the blame is going on who is responsible for his safe exit – then PM Mr. Rajiv Gandhi to Home Minister Narsimha Rao to Madhyapradesh CM Arjun Singh.
The issue getting more complicated with then foreign secretary Rastogi’s and American diplomat Gorden Streeb’s foreclosures. Some alleges payment by Dow chemical (the present heir of Union Carbide) to political parties.
The real Tragedy of Bhopal (and India too):
The real issue is not who responsible for the safe passage of Mr. Warren Anderson. Main issue is how much compensation the company paid and how much the affected people received. And the main responsibility is with Indian government or even the Indian nation itself. Because;

• The justice denied to millions of affected people by the delay in court cases for about 25 years. A civilized nation’s important ethics is “justice denied is justice delayed”. Our judiciary recently observed in a case between two large industrial groups that the case is given priority because millions of share holder’s stake involved in it. May be the Bhopal victims are not holding any share or monetary stakes anywhere and their case is dragged so long.



• The Indian authorities failed to facilitate sufficient compensation to the victims. More than taking the criminal actions against company, the authorities should have concentrated in extracting maximum benefit from the company (like Obama doing). They could have blocked the take over of Union carbide by Dow Chemicals before settling the case.



• Present study shows that about 350 tons of toxic waste lays in the now closed factory.

Epilogue – Nuclear Liability:
In the event of Bhopal Tragedy government should have incorporated very stringent monitory liabilities to the Companies. If anybody thinks MNCs will hesitate to invest here because of the liabilities, the answer is simple. That these companies or those behind the bill foresee a Bhopal like tragedy in cooking.
PS:
Look into the Green Peace signature campine link below connecting to the petition sending to PM.
http://www.greenpeace.org/india/stop-another-bhopal

Dwedha.. The start

Quite a long time, I was thinking to share my views on anything and everything under the sun to someone. Even though I do this with my family menbers and friends to an extend, a thought is coming that the sharing is not enough...... So "dwedha.." is created. In samskritham language dwedha means "in two ways" if I am correct. I am not studied enough samskritham (or sanskrit as we call it).
The next thing coming into me is the name of 'sanskrit' commonly used by us. We changed Bombay to Mumbai, Madras to Chennai but still samskritham is sanskrit here. In fact the word samskritham itself means "refined" but like adultering anything, the word samskritham polluted to sanskrit.
So with this I am announcing that I may have something to say to the world and starting it in two ways...
Why it is in two ways? Because whenever we think of some thing a second view naturally come into us. Hence the "Dwedha...."

Yours Narayanan