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Motorman Strike : Why and for what?

Well the current ongoing strike by the motormen of the mumbai local railways has brought almost the entire city to a halt. The motormen are demanding better work conditions, weekly leave and an increase in salary and allowances. And they are threatening to continue the strike until some decision is taken about their stand. The government on the other hand has resorted to some knee jerk reactions like arresting about 170 motormen, suspending a few (40) of them, and an intent to invoke ESMA ( essential service maintenance act) which would make the strike illegal. Also the government has made some emergency provisions that allow for about 15% of the normal trains to be run. I tried to dig through the noise and clutter and culled these things from various sites:

Normally drivers in the Indian railway are recruited for the post of assistant driver, with ITI certificate as minimum qualification. An assistant driver in turn gets promotion to the passenger driver. On the other hand motorman are either directly recruited (with minimum qualification as1st class B.Sc. with math and physics or 3 year diploma in specific branches in Engineering) or recruited through the promotion of main line drivers. The railway board letter no E(NG) II /85/RC2/70 dated 4.1.1990 states that the motorman should be promoted from the passenger driver. In spite of this the motorman is granted the scale of Passenger Driver This is a serious compromise with the safety of Railways. 5.3 Non provision of Assistant driver/co driver. Trains of Indian railways are provided with two drivers in some important trains there are driver and co-driver to share the work and the job responsibility whereas in Mumbai suburban the sole operational responsibility is rested upon the single person that is motorman. This important point of independent responsibility has been ignored while assigning the grade off motorman. Dual charge allowance should also be granted to the motormen. 5.4 Importance of Mumbai suburban – In running cadre the hierarchy of posts has been decided considering the relative importance of trains worked by the staff. For example Goods train driver passenger train driver and mail/express train driver are placed in the hierarchy in ascending order. On the same line Mumbai suburban train driver are assigned grade at par the passenger driver. At this place the EMU Mumbai suburban service has been highly undervalued. In terms of passenger carried in peak hours a 12 car Mumbai suburban train carries the more than 7000 people (official fig.) this is more than any other Indian railway service. In terms of the class of the passenger Mumbai suburban services have considerable number of executive and business class passengers. The maximum speed of Mumbai suburban trains is 100 Kmph that is comparable to other train service of Indian railways. In terms of traffic congestion Mumbai suburban train run on the most congested network of Indian railways. In turn it shows that a minor detention in Mumbai suburban has more severe cyclic effect than other network. Looking at the importance of Mumbai suburban train services the motorman of these services deserve far higher grade and position than that assigned to them. 5.5 Need of perfection in working – in tough working environment – motorman has scheduled stoppages many times more than any other train driver. These stoppages have to be with very fine perfection. All this requires continuous judgment of speed and acceleration/ deceleration and variable load throughout the journey. On average there is one stoppage in every 3 minute. This stress is coupled with pressure of trespassers, maintenance staff on the track and the continuous pressure of punctuality. At a point the motorman has to observe 2-3 signals and in less than 1 minute he has to cross a signal. This is because of very closely placed signals to allow more trains in a section. This condition also leads to heavy mental stress. We strongly feel that these peculiar characteristics of Mumbai suburban train working have been ignored while assigning the grade to the motorman. 5.6 Public Relation related responsibility of the Motorman- The Motorman is in the centre of attraction and curiosity of millions of commuters of Mumbai suburban. The image of the Motorman affects the overall perception about the Railways. Therefore the Motorman has to be all the time careful about his look, action and behavior. Every action of the Motorman is watched by the public very seriously. In case of abnormal working the Motorman has to handle thousands of people while performing his essential duties. This is not the case with any other Railway employee. 5.7 Growth opportunities- Being as a specialized work, growth opportunity is almost nil, so while assigning grades it should be taken in to consideration. 5.8 7 day a week - 365 working days a year - The motorman has to work in schedule of 7 days a week that is without any weekly off. Facility of availing national holidays is not available to the motorman. Therefore (other than his own leaves) he has to work 365 days throughout the year including major religious festivals. At this time when CPC is examining the appropriateness of the 5 days week working (Q no 1 of the questionnaire) is it not the right time to properly compensate to employees who are working 7 days a week.


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7.36.46 The present cadre of Loco Running Staff is as under:-

	(in Rs.)
Assistant Loco Pilot (Diesel/Electric)	3050-4590
Loco Pilot (Shunting) II/Senior Assistant Loco Pilot (Diesel/Electric)	4000-6000
Loco Pilot (Goods) II/Senior Loco Pilot (Shunting) I	5000-8000
Loco Pilot (Passenger) II /Motorman/Loco Pilot (Goods) I	5500-9000
Loco Pilot Mail Express, Loco Pilot Passenger I, Sr Motorman	6000-9800
Asst Loco foreman/Traction Loco Controller/Driving  Inspector/Power Controller/Loco Inspector/Loco Foreman ‘B’/Fuel Inspector ‘B’	6500-10500
Chief Traction Loco Controller/Chief Power Controller/Chief Loco Inspector/Loco Foreman ‘A’/Fuel Inspector ‘A’/Driving Inspector	7450-11500

7.36.47 Higher pay scales for Loco pilots have been demanded on the ground of their job profile, responsibilities, physical and mental efforts and hazards related to job. Loco pilots (mail/express, passenger I and senior motormen) are in the scale Rs.6000-9800. The scale of Rs.6500-10500 has been demanded for them. Due to introduction of Rajdhani/Shatabdi and other super fast trains, a special grade of Loco pilot (high speed/super fast) has also been demanded.

7.36.48  Upgradation of two grades above the present grade for Motor men of the Mumbai Suburban Local trains have been sought on the ground that they work in the most overstressed network in the world.

7.36.49  An insurance cover of Rs.15 lakh for all Loco running staff has been demanded. Various allowances like Risk allowance, High tension allowance, Break down allowance, National Holiday Allowance, Night duty allowance, etc. have also been sought.

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However the following report appeared in Hindustan times [ http://www.hindustantimes.com/rssfeed/mumbai/Some-motormen-earn-up-to-Rs-1-lakh-a-month/Article1-500348.aspx ]

Motormen on Mumbai’s suburban trains are reportedly paid better than their bosses.

According to records for latest salaries, there are five motormen on CR and five on WR, whose monthly payments have exceeded Rs 1 lakh and a large number of them earn between Rs 70,000 and 90,000. Besides regular duty, they get paid more per shift.

So, if a motorman decides to continue the shift and work longer, he gets more money.

Devendra Yadav, president of the joint action forum of Central and Western Railway, refuted this. “The big money that you see is not the salary, but various arrears and dues kept pending by the administration and given collectively.”

The average scheduled working hours of motormen is 6.25 hours per day and their average monthly pay structure, including allowances and overtime are approximately Rs. 60,000.

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Now i am none the wiser after reading through all these articles.And neither have i been able to make up my mind regarding who is on the wrong side. I know only this: it takes a lot of guts to rise against everyone and hold the entire city to ransom...whatever be the reasons... going on strike is never an easy call to make. Right now i am just watching the events play themselves out. And a question - Is a WIN/ WIN strategy possible in this case?? Or is the win/win strategy merely a management hogwash? 

Pale Blue Dot : Carl Sagan

[ Seen from 6 billion kilometres (3.7 billion miles), Earth appears as a tiny dot (the blueish-white speck approximately halfway down the brown band to the right) within the darkness of deep space.]

Here is a wonderful piece of writing by Carl Sagan which tries to put things into perspective.Enjoy!

The spacecraft was a long way from home.

I thought it would be a good idea, just after Saturn, to have them take one last glance homeward.  From Saturn, the Earth would appear too small for Voyager to make out any detail.  Our planet would be just a point of light, a lonely pixel hardly distinguishable from the other points of light Voyager would see, nearby planets, far off suns.  But precisely because of the obscurity of our world thus revealed, such a picture might be worth having.

It had been well understood by the scientists and philosophers of classical antiquity that the Earth was a mere point in t vast encompassing cosmos-but no one had ever seen it as such.  Here was our first chance, and perhaps also our last for decades to come.

So, here they are: a mosaic of squares laid down on top of the planets in a background smattering of more distant stars.  Because of the reflection of sunlight on the spacecraft, the Earth seems to be sitting in a beam of light, as if there were some special significance to this small world; but it’s just an accident of geometry and optics.  There is no sign of humans in this picture: not our reworking of the Earth’s surface; not our machines; not ourselves.  From this vantage point, our obsession with nationalisms is nowhere in evidence.  We are too small.  On the scale of worlds, humans are inconsequential:  a thin film of life on an obscure and solitary lump of rock and metal.

Consider again that dot.  That’s here.  That’s home.  That’s us.  On it, everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you’ve ever hear of, every human being who ever was lived out their lives.  The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings; thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines; every hunter and forager; every hero and coward; every creator and destroyer of our civilizations; every king and peasant; every young couple in love; every mother and father; hopeful child; inventor and explorer; every teacher of morals; every corrupt politician; every supreme leader; every superstar; every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena.

Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner.  How frequent their misunderstandings; how eager they are to kill one another; how fervent their hatreds.  Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.  Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.

Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark.  In our obscurity-in all this vastness-there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.  Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience.  There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world.  It underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the only home we’ve ever known.

The pale blue dot.

Earthquakes on the rise in 2010?

There's no news like the bad news, and earthquakes surely fall into that category. And so the news media world over has been reporting earthquakes like there was no tomorrow. Is it really that bad? Has the earth started shaking a little too frequently to be cause for concern?

The answers to that line of questioning is overwhelmingly NO. There has been no increase in either the frequency  or the magnitude of earthquakes. The earth is behaving in it's old pattern. The earth consists of seven major and seven minor plates. These plates consist of entire continent in some cases to entire water bodies, or a part of both. And all these plates have been in motion since time immemorial ( Thanks to wagner for pointing this out.). So it is natural that when plates move they interact in any of the following three ways:

1. They drift apart from each other allowing the lava or magma from the depths below to come up. They are very stable in the sense that they do not lead to any  earth tremors, just slow upwelling of lavas. This is pretty commonplace in Iceland. And these plate boundaries are called divergent plate boundaries.

2. They slide past each other leading to faults. Also not dangerous ( in terms of EQ's)

3. And the final one is convergent plate boundaries wherein two plates collide face to face ( ah don't take it too literally). This is the reason for so many violent shakings of  the earth. When two plates collide something has to give. [ Himalayas are the creation of one such plate collision. The highest mountains in the world are remnants of  some river valley propped up by the collision] The denser of the two plates subducts beneath the lesser denser plate and the plate boundaries experience incidence of vulcanism and EQ's.

The pacific ring of fire is one such hot zone. It accounts for 90% of all EQ's encountered annually. And we record thousands of EQ's every year.Let’s take a look at how many earthquakes occur each year on average. The USGS has a fascinating page of earthquake facts and statistics, with the following table:

Magnitude	Average Annually
8 and higher	1 ¹
7 – 7.9	17 ²
6 – 6.9	134 ²
5 – 5.9	1319 ²
4 – 4.9	13,000 (estimated)
3 – 3.9	130,000 (estimated)
2 – 2.9	1,300,000 (estimated)

¹ Based on observations since 1900.

² Based on observations since 1990.

So it seems that the EQ's are commonplace after all. It is only due to the widely networked world that EQ's are getting published more regularly and we have started noticing them. When we see the news of Haiti, Chile and California earthquakes at a frequent interval we tend to draw associations where none exist. It is all a part of our psyche- where we try to make meaning of the world by some simple rule of thumb. We read more about the EQ's so they must be happening more often. Alas the real world is more complex and more random. [ Despite all the progress made by science we can't still predict when and where will an EQ occur. It is still in the realms of psychics, fortune tellers and animals.]

Nothing in particular

It was after a long time that i found myself wandering again on the stone ramparts keeping the sea at bay from human habitation. Though what exactly do they protect is a nice thought: the sea from the humans or humans from the sea? So just out of habit i clicked a few pictures. Here they are ( April Fool's day, 2010):

If i were to name this photograph, it would be: The solitary tree... not that it is solitary by any means, there are a number of other trees planted some distance apart, but there is something about the tree that screams lonliness to me. On this thought I would like to share this poem of Wordsworth:

I WANDERED lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

And here is another picture of the marine drive: 

Be Well!

Darkening Sky

It's really great when you come to discover a good song when you least expect it. So it happened to me. he Mentalist is one of the shows that i enjoy watching on the television, and it was in it's one of the episodes that's i came across this song by Peterr Bradely Adams. The episode's title was His right hand ( The main antagonist Red John's right hand ). And to say: I was hooked! Great song, wonderful lyrics!

Women Reservation Bill : Few words

Sure God created man before woman.  But then you always make a rough draft before the final masterpiece. So goes the quotation whose author has been lost in the annals of history. Sure he would have been a proponent for the Women' Reservation bill which may soon enough change the face of indian legislature. The bill calls for 33.3% or one third of the seats to be reserved for the women. And thought the historic bill was supposed to be passed on 8th of march on the centenary year of international women's day, the loss of nerve by the congress government saw it delayed by a day.
Whether reservation is the panacea to all ills is a different subject matter and i would like to go into it at some later point of time. The point currently is 181 seats in the lok sabha are to be reserved for women. Similarly one third of the seats will be reserved in RS and state governments as well as local governments. There is already reservation at place in the panchayati raj institutions. Recent findings by a government body have shown that:

• The positive impact of entering politics and working as a Panchayati Raj functionary is evident from the fact that a sizeable proportion of women representatives perceive enhancement in their self-esteem (79%), confidence (81%) and decision-making ability (74%).
• Becoming a Pradhan or Ward Member augments respect within the family (67%) as well as in the community at large (82%). Encouragingly, this change is more perceptible in the case of elected women representatives who also perceive an increased voice in decisions related to economic matters and other issues in their family (66-71%).
• Beyond the household domain, and in the professional environment, an increase in attention from local government (64%), responsiveness of the Block Panchayat (60%) and recognition from other Panchayat Members (65%) is reported by a slightly higher proportion of female Pradhans. While no gender discrimination in the panchayat is reported by 60 percent of elected women representatives, acceptability in panchayat meetings and enabling them to raise issues freely was mentioned by 94 percent." A supportive professional environment evidently motivates elected women representatives to perform better, as 60-64 percent reported an increase in their interaction with line departments and parallel bodies. Even the participation of common women citizens in various activities such as attending Gram Sabha meeting, etc. has reportedly increased (68-78%)." A large proportion (72%) reported having been actively involved in providing civic amenities, while 62% said they made efforts in increasing enrolment and mitigating domestic violence.

There were some other interesting findings too. The level of education seemed to have direct bearing on performance. Illiterates did not perform well. Also the younger age category performed better than those over 35. And also the fact that 85% women were first timers and only 15% of the women candidates got re-elected once the seat was de-reserved.

The study calls for scrapping of the rotation of seats and has this to say for final word: 

• The data show that the duration (in years) of political involvement is directly proportionate to the performance of women representatives. As women progress in their political career, they become better performers by virtue of being politically more aware and experienced. Thus, the effort should be made not only to maintain the representation of women in politics in terms of their percentage, but also their ability to remain in politics.

Now back to the reservation bill. We know that there is already a reservation of 22.5% for SC/ST. And add 33.3% reservation for women to that. Bingo you get 55% of the seats of the world's largest democracy reserved. That would work contrary to the spirit of the democratic set up according to me. One way to overcome is to provide quota within quota but that may become too complicated. Western countries have highly evolved societies in which gender equality has been addressed and fought for by the feminist movements. They came up by working their way up and not by some quota system. That may be the natural order of doing things. Quotas only weaken the targeted group in the longer run. Quotas for short duration may work, but being india, we can not have anything that is not built to last. Politics will invariably come into play and the reservation bill that is supposed to be only for 15 years will get extended indefinitely.

No, i am not against the reservation system.I feel that the representation by women will take India to new heights. I only have few certain apprehensions regarding the manner of imposition of the women's reservation bill.

            The law ministry has prepared two drafts of the Women's Reservation Bill.

The first envisages reservation of 33.3 percent seats for women within the existing strength of the two Houses of Parliament.

The second calls for increasing the strength of the two Houses by 33.3 percent. The existing 545 seats in the Lok Sabha will increase to 900 if this draft of the Bill is enacted.

 The other troubling fact is the so called rotation of the one third of the seats after each election. Imagine that 181 seats of the LS would be rotated each election. No one knows which male candidate will have to forego his seat. Moreover the winning women candidate may not be able to win from the same seat once it is de-reserved. What would be the motivation for the elected candidate to work for that constituency? You arn't getting elected again from that constituency anyway. Then the vast uneducated masses of india that refuse to look away from normal caste or petty politics line. Oh, i know indian masses have surprised everyone over time, but, their memory is short and caste lines etched too deep into their consciousness.
One provision that definitely needs to be added is that no serving politicians kin can contest election from any reserved seat. ( Imagine Pakistan has already got 33% reservation for women in it's senate.)


Now for the process. Article 368 of the indian constitution stipulates that for such broad sweeping changes to be made in constitution the following steps have to be followed:


* An introduction of the bill in either house of the parliament (introduced and passed in Rajya Sabha already), and the bill to be passed in each house by a majority of the total membership of that House and by a majority of not less than two thirds of the members of that House present and voting.


** The amendment then has to be ratified by the legislatures of not less than half of the states.


*** Then it is presented to the president and upon whose assent it becomes a law.


So there is a long process ahead but a significant beginning has been made and the ruling party seems to have the necessary numbers to force through the bill, but one,this is politics and two, this is India.


We already had a strong PM in form of Indira Gandhi, a serving president in form of Ms. Patil, a strong chairperson of the ruling party in form of Ms Sonia Gandhi, a lady speaker for LS : all without reservation. Women are beginning to break into the man's world on their own. Is it necessary to take their fight away from them and instead provide crutches?


I leave that assessment to you. 

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