India------ low cost= satisfaction

Indians have a habit of starting ventures enthusiastically and loosing steam half-way through. We have the BMWs/Bentleys etc coming into the country with no roads to drive them on. Hell we have cars and no road discipline. Indian industry still believe that if the consumer is given goods at a cheap price- safety & service can be compromised. The Indian consumer too is oriented to think that once I get something at a reasonable cost its a sin to ask for decent service and safety. Case in point:

1) Indian Airline Industry: it exploded with low cost airlines coming into the picture to replace train travel. Wonderful. The Indian middle class had access to flying like never before. What we have forgotten over the past few years is that-

a) Our airports are not in a position to handle air traffic- infrastructure, manpower and expertise wise. There are animals roaming on the runway and new international route airports are perfect for smuggling goods into/out of the country.
b) Saw a documentary on Headlines today which said there were 40 pilots found to be drunk right before they were to fly. These figures are from Jan-June 2008. What is more scary is that the minister of civil aviation when asked what he felt about this issue dismissed it as a petty matter. Petty? Wonder if we can have an alcoholic pilot flying his planes.
c) Pilot crunch in the sector leads to pilot fatigue. TOI this morning reported that both pilots on a Jaipur-Mumbai flight slept off and overshot the destination. They were half way to Goa when they woke up.
d) Have heard rumors of the Delhi ATC going off-line for about an hour and a flight landing at Chennai and taking off while still in motion because there was another plane on the runway....

All airlines btw have declared losses this year. Flights have been canceled to quite a few destinations. Laloo must be smiling to himself.
Let's wait till a plane crashes into a big mountain, maybe then we can have sober and rested pilots, operational ATC and animal less runways.........for a little while at least.

Coming soon----Telecom Industry

Racism

Centuries of persecution of the black man is ending with a vengeance (almost). Politically correct white people are in a frenzy to set things right. Another impossible attempt to wipe out centuries of persecution, oppression, lynching etc of black people. The English language is changing too. "They", "you people" etc which were used frivolously are now swear words. Be careful what you say.
Brown is the new black. Post 9/11 (the world revolves around the USA) brown is the new colour of hate, prejudice and fear. A black man can walk through the airport security without fear of being rechecked or humiliated, else it would be a racist act. Brown people on the other hand can be stripped, humiliated and abused.
I assume its a phase. Brown people will be under the scanner for time to come and add to it the ignorance and laziness of the west to sit and find out the diversity that brown brings to the table.
The funny part is that ICC has adopted the racial abuse code literally and is blind to reason. Case in point the Harbhajan-Symonds case in Australia. Harbhajan got away because he referred to Symond's mothers privates, which by the way exist and are none of Harbhajan's business. But calling him and animal- "monkey" which Symonds isn't would warrant a harsher punishment that the reference to his mother.
Logic it seems is missing with almost all decisions the human race takes...be it religion or racism.