City Striked!

"If the battle for civilisation comes down to the wimps versus the barbarians, the barbarians are going to win." ~ Thomas Sowell

Again, another Indian city was bombed. On the evening of 24th August, two bombs ripped through Hyderabad city that took lives of at least 40 people. The cops also recovered a live bomb on Saturday and defused it in time to avert another tragedy.

What was appalling was the lip-service paid by the leaders that are supposed to be in power to protect the lives of ordinary citizens. Andhra Pradesh CM, YS Rajashekhar Reddy(whose security cover reportedly costs the state exchequer over Rs 400 million a year) admitted that the police machinery was ill-equipped to handle counter intelligence. Also there was a 'bandh'(forced strike called by usually a political party) called by the state unit of the Bhartiya Janata Party, which added to the woes of the people still reeling from the aftershocks of the blasts and brought life to a stand-still in an otherwise vibrant and industrious city known for the strides it has made in IT and infrastructure. A bandh is just terrorism of a different kind, they are 'protesting' against the state machinery by clipping the city's economy. Many daily-wage labourers have to go hungry in times of a bandh. But they are not too important a vote bank, are they? Now would they like us to believe that they would have provided a better security infrastructure if they were in power? Of course not. They just want to flex some muscle when they have an issue they can cash in on. 40 innocent lives, including those of many engineering students from a college in Maharashtra were taken away and the security agencies are still groping in the dark and releasing vague information such as ' terrorist groups based in Pakistan and Bangladesh'. Why do I feel I should have known that?

What is worrying is that the bombings are getting frequent. Any place might be bombed any day. I travel by the suburban trains in Bombay and you never know what the person next to you might be carrying in his bag... I guess this is true for almost any city in the world. Even the London Underground was bombed. Recently there were reports that Bombay's water supply might be the next to be hit. Imagine half of the city being poisoned by terrorists. The thought sends a shiver down my spine. Having absolutely impotent leaders, starting from the very top, Lutyens' Delhi, Raisina Hill, 7 Racecourse Road and their likes has been the biggest bane to this country. Our PM is a very respected economist and a statesman but that does not make one a good leader.

The worst thing is, people have short memory. And we tend to forget what has happened and get on with our lives. I remember, when the news of the blasts flashed, my mother swallowed a gulp and changed the channel to watch her soap and forgot all about it. And that is the saddest part. They have become so routine that it does not come as a surprise to anyone, anymore.

I hope we will see a day when someone up at the highest echelons of the powers that be stands up to face the country and says, we will get them!
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I for Identity

"This blog has moved." ~ Amar Mainkar

And why did it move? I was sick of having a pseudonym. I mean, what's the point? Blogging offers a channel for people to express themselves. Many famous bloggers blog under a pseudonym but I have come to believe that being under the cloak of anonymity is like accepting that you could be panned for your posts that might rub a few people the wrong way, so you must hide your identity.

Many of my posts discuss burning issues the country faces and many a times I am merciless when it comes to making my feelings public. I should not be worried about they will be received and I have a right to speak out. So for me, having a another identity equals living under fear. Not in India, but in many countries, bloggers have been jailed and tortured for their posts. India is a democracy and a free country and I have right to express myself just like anyone else.

But shedding pseudonyms and changing blog addresses brings more to me than simply a change of an internet identity. It means my thoughts and opinions are now public. So I now shoulder a certain responsibility. That I need to be more responsible and level-headed, also nonpartisan when it comes to having an opinion on an issue. I am now accountable for my posts and take full responsibility for what I write.

I have had instances when people were not quite in agreement with what I wrote, and I have had my share of brickbats, and I am sure I am going to have some more. But that's what it is all about isn't it? Having a meaningful conversation with rest of the world through your blog.

So I'd like to see how this blog shapes up in its new avatar. But no matter how it goes from here. you know it will be tagging along with me...

Say I!
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Crane & Able

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air. . . .
Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

— John Gillespie Magee, Jr

I don't know in which grade we had it, but I remember this was one of my favourite poems in school.

One event in the recent weeks I believe did not receive the amount of newsprint it deserved, was that the indigenously designed civilian aircraft SARAS has entered its final prototype version PT-3 and is now ready for clearance by the DGCA. The new improved prototype is 500 kgs lighter than the previous versions and is more fuel efficient and thus has a longer range and payload capacity.

SARAS, named after the saras crane, is India's first indigenous civilian aircraft, developed by the National Aerospace Laboratories, designed to fit into multiple roles such as dropping rations over flood affected areas, serving as an air ambulance, serving regions that may not be accessible by larger civilian aircraft and as an air taxi. It is an aircraft that uses a pusher propeller configuration that allows it to use minimal taxiway during take-off and landing. Its capacity can a maximum of 14 people. Read more about the SARAS programme on the NAL website.


The history of SARAS is chequered with delays and funding problems. It has suffered years of delays as is the case with most of the projects undertaken by public sector enterprises. But what is heartening to know is that the project is finally nearing completion, and it has also generated a lot of interest among other countries since the biggest advantage of developing an indigenous technology would obviously be exploiting it for commercial use. So even though the project has been delayed, NAL can press the aircraft into commercial production and exploit the huge cost advantage that India offers. Also it can spur the development of a domestic market for civilian aircraft as the economy develops and more regions of the country need to be connected. Most of the transportation in the country takes place in Bell and Sirosky choppers that have been purchased many years ago, and some of them are so old that it can be dangerous to push them into flight. Also they are definitely not as fuel efficient as the SARAS.

I feel proud of the engineers at the NAL when I read one more newspiece about their favourite project. It is another feather in the cap of India. I'd like to see an Indian enterprise giving Boeing and Airbus Industrie a run for their money in the large commercial aircraft market. Hopefully, one day that too will happen.
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Another Day in Paradise

"She calls out to the man on the street,
He can see she's been crying
She's got blisters on the soles of her feet,
Can't walk but she's trying... "

~from Another Day in Paradise
by Phil Collins

Phil Collins could well have been referring to India when he came out with this mesmerising single towards the end of 1989, to highlight the plight of the homeless across the world... The soulful composition and the gut-wrenching video can be a splendid metaphor for the state of our country. Sixty years into independence but still far away from freedom from poverty, hunger and deprivation.

I feel proud to have been born in India. It is a great country and I have lived most of my life in Bombay, which is in itself a great city. While every country has its share of problems, we in India seem to have more than what we bargained for when we broke the shackles of imperialism 60 years ago. The India for which thousands laid down their lives still eludes 700 million unfortunate souls, who hope that a day will come when they will be heard and have a share in the spoils of economic prosperity in the increasingly globalised world.

India has turned out better than how most believed it would when we won our independence. Nobody really gave us chance. The general opinion among the world community was that India will be another Africa and will forever depend on aid, will be swarmed with goons and hooligans, will be a hellhole with political instability, civil wars, military coups, strifes and total anarchy.

Nothing of that sorts happened. Though as a nation we have had our moments when the people of the country have disgraced the nation with their reprehensible acts, like the Emergency, terrorism in Punjab, terrorism in Kashmir, the Naxalite movement, we have also had moments of glory such as the Green Revolution, the Economic Liberalisation of the early 90's, explosion of Information Technology enabled services, the telecom revolution, Operation Flood, nuclear capability and development of some of the finest institutions like, free press, democracy, highly disciplined armed forces, multi-lingual and multi-religious culture, and civil organisations like the Supreme Court, the Election Commission, and world renowned educational institutions like TIFR, IISc, JNU, and the IITs and the IIMs.

But you might not expect this to be unusual for the country of our size. Still sixty years is a long time and we could have certainly done better. We have certainly done better than most of the countries that became independent around the same time as we did. This is closer to the truth if we look at our neighbours. We are better off from where we started compared to them . Now I would not have liked to have been born in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal or Myanmar. I am sure not many would.

But all said and done, I want this Independence Day to pass off peacefully without any untoward incident in any part of the country. We cannot experience true freedom if we live in the shadow of fear and in submission to the enemies of the state. Happy Birthday India! Rock on!

"Oh think twice, it's another day for
You and me in paradise,
Oh think twice, it's just another day for you,
You and me in paradise..."

Happy Independence Day, Jai Hind!
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India's Eyes in the Sky

"The point to remember is that a giant leap into space can be a giant leap towards peace below." ~ Willy Ley

I have blogged fairly extensively on India's space programme. Space is something that has fascinated me since I was a kid. I remember watching programmes on the Discovery Channel and NGC alone in my bedroom with just the glow from the TV in front of my eyes and the presenter's voice falling on my ears, and mesmersing images of far away worlds taken by NASA's Great Observatories. Science never seemed more exciting and I took pride in the fact that I could understand everything that was said, and my sister could not.

Coming to the topic of the post, the Indian Space Research Organisation plans to launch Cartosat-2A, India's first official military satellite by the end of the year. The original launch scheduled in August has been postponed to September or October. It is high time India had her eyes in the sky. The US and the Russian Federation has scores of spy satellites up in space. If the launch is a success, India will join a select club(it seems to do that everytime ISRO sends one up in space) of nations that have the capability to spy on the globe. Earlier India had to buy satellite images from the CIA or Russian military intelligence to keep a tab on our nutty neighbours. But now that we have our own spy satellite ready to take high resolution images of the military and strategic installation in the neighbouring countries, it will be a shot in the arm for our defence forces, who will be able to plan defence and attack strategies better in the light of the new information that will be made available by the satellite. Still being in the polar orbit, it will not be able to keep a watch 24x7, so India plans to launch two more satellites by the end of next year, so that we can keep a tab on the entire globe.


The spatial resolution of Cartosat-2A has been augmented and is a lot more than Cartosat 1 which was mainly for cartographic purposes. The first satellite launched by India for experimental military reconnaissance was the Technology Experiment Satellite-1 in October 2001. It sent back images of troop movements of US forces in Afghanistan. The need has been especially felt since such a reconnaissance satellite will help to prevent another Kargil.

The programme has been hush-hush so far and the exact details of the kind of images and resolution that the satellite is capable of are not known, ISRO sources reveal that the satellite can take pictures even through a thick cloud cover, like during the monsoons.

Cartosat-2A will be accompanied by an Israeli military satellite, POLARIS. It will take ISRO's commercial launch capabilities further. Let's raise a toast to the scientists and engineers who worked hard to make an Indian military satellite a reality.

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