Good stuff, though I think I have a better pig analogy:
It’s like trying to mud-wrestle with a pig. There is no point, you get dirty, and the pig enjoys it.

Atanu’s response: Hooser, you are too late to the party. Check out Mud wrestling with pigs, a post from way back when in Dec 2004. That post concluded with, “Anyway, I struggle on. It is a futile endeavor, like mud-wrestling with a pig—it is a waste of time because you cannot win and the pig enjoys it. Or even, to put it another way, like trying to teach a pig to sing: it cannot be done and it annoys the pig.”

trust me this is quite possible… although the un-consumer is an endangered species in urban india.

Why do you insist on keep flying “Indian” even though their service is so bad?

BTW, would love to meet you when you are down in Bangalore next to discuss your plans for improving the education system with the help of technology.

Cheers,
Abhinav

1. suggested reading: “Rural Infrastructure & Services Commons”

2. a person who figures out a way to find local consumption alternatives has in effect redesigned his life… it also creates whole new local economies. nobody has done an energy audit on the life of a toffee wrapper yet so we still don’t know what the real economies of scale are.

3. believe it or not… good education leads to good public transport and also creates brighter, socially aware consumers. (you may suddenly picture our “baa baa black sheep” system of rote and repeat… but you don’t know about seriously undervalued teaching methods like vigyan ashram and the school of hard knocks)

4. “we” are all us new-generation toffee-eaters… go figure.

p.s. if i’ve figured you right… the gujju spin on mba = “mane badhu aawde”

1. you have yourself nullified your genuinely well-intentioned bicycle “project” proposal by qualifying it with time constraints. we *could* have safe and exclusive cycling paths parallel to the main roads – but this and not subway/railway systems seems utopian to me in india’s context of road infrastructure and requisite land acquistions.

2. “if life design is altered”. it is better to let this IF materialize on its own or do you harbor stalinist social engineering dreams?

3. “it is incredibly easy when the same mainstream feels the nasty pinch of falling for a facade instead of focusing on the fundamentals (sound education, un-consumerism…” how are education and public transport mutually exclusive aims? and what is un-consumerism? seriously, enlighten me, the author and others.

4. the author has expressed his opinion and if you gave the hyperlinks even a perfunctory read – he clearly is not daydreaming, so who are the “we” according to you who are living in their pipe dreams?

I truly believe that your aims are nice, but I am afraid that your conclusions/suggestions (if any) just seemed to make no sense.

…if life design is altered so that the need to move lots of stuff frequently over large distances is reduced.

in other words, more demand for stuff means much more stuff moving around… accompanied by (and driven by) lots of human unsettlement and resettlement in pursuit of more stuff.

… but this is both incredibly hard and incredibly easy because it means changing human behaviour. it is incredibly hard when mainstream (read middle class) thought is fascinated with glossy posters of india shining… it is incredibly easy when the same mainstream feels the nasty pinch of falling for a facade instead of focusing on the fundamentals (sound education, un-consumerism and sustainable living, making+running markets well).

right now we are blissfully living our little pipe dream.

*Some of the criminal charges imposed:
1) Super fast surcharge – Rs. 20 AND many express trains were upgraded as super fast trains )

2) If I book ticket from City A for a travel which is NOT originating in City A, I have to pay Rs. 20 extra. Wonder why?

3) Railways has lots of seats reserved for the zillions of quotas they have and artificially creates demand. Two days before the travel, They release these seats as tatkal BUT charge 150-300 as extra!!!
4) Pathetic stations, highly unhygienic food courts, stinking toilets… Oh my god!!
and many more like this!
HOW ANTI-CONSUMER and CRIMINAL?!!!

But, All I see are consumers hailing this railway budget as “pro-poor” and “landmark” etc. Sad to see netas taking common people for a *literal ride* this time in a train!!

As true as death (if not taxes). Thats exactly what I was thinking but could not articulate

This is slightly unrelated – but what do you think about building Metros in Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Lucknow, (Nagpur?) etc. on a war footing? Besides the economies of scale – there are also many large positive externalities – less pollution, less congestion etc. As India urbanizes (mostly in existing unplanned cities with huge bottlenecks) – building many more roads (which do not have the convenience of being made some feet below the shops and homes) is extremely difficult. Regarding the execution of the Metro project – in New Delhi it has indeed been impressive, so we can go with the same model.

And regarding the source of funding – small additional tax on the sale of light four wheelers. Lest this sounds socialist, let me explain the simple reason: Cars need roads and oil (i.e. time and dollars, respectively), and also create (greater and diffused) pollution – negative externality. Electricity for metro still needs to come from the grid – which comes from the relatively more efficient thermal sources and increasingly also from hydro/nuclear/wind etc.

PS: Capacity underutilization in Hyundai, Tata, Maruti etc. should not be a resultant problem in India’s booming economy. And if yes, export these cheap but (relatively) technologically sound cars. Only problem which I can immediately think of: low-yielding foreign reserves grow faster.

Atanu’s response: Every metropolitan region needs a local mass transit system. The best local mass transit system known to man is a subway. And it is best to anticipate the population growth and be ahead of the curve. But we don’t do look-ahead planning in India. Our planning follows the “close the barn doors after the horses have fled” paradigm. We start considering building, say, an airport terminal only after the current facilities are severely overloaded. Then after due consideration, we take a few more years to work around the idiot commies who don’t want any progress. By then, the system is creaking and almost unusable. Then finally a half-assed terminal is added which from the day it is inaugurated is already inadequate to handle the traffic.

Our poverty is not so much material as it is a poverty of ideas. Ideas matter more than stuff.

No other Railway minister has achieved such a dramatic turnaround.

What is also surprising to me is that he has now donned new clothes — from someone who has been harping on social justice to becoming an avid reformer, going ahead with new privatisation plans. Perhaps Dr. Singh and PC should take some lessons from him.

Atanu’s response: I don’t know what is so creditable about a public sector monopoly making profits. Any monopoly can make a profit. The recipe is simple: be the only game in town and charge an arm and a leg for the shabby show. The village idiot can make a profit if he is the only idiot in the village and everyone is forced to pay him by diktat.