Reflections of Rajaram Bojji

PPP projects Indian Railways> - Those who do not know can be taught if willing to learn. Those who know but unwilling to do, you cannot teach them. Our case is the later. Extreme intelligence, perhaps best in the country, and full awareness represent our railway engineers. Our finance officers too lead and head other BOT organisations successfully in the country. Our Traffic officers successfully played in the market to leverage market forces to get what their organisations which they were heading to get what they want. Our mechanical engineers too played the game of export markets. It is not a matter of knowledge. It is a matter of system. A predominantly operations & maintenance organisation designed to maintain status quo to keep the wheels running day in and day out, where even the Cabinet Minister is under tension, of getting a mid night phone call and truly scared of it, ( as confided to me by a Railway Minister, who told me it is so easy to manage other ministries but in...

Montek Singh our man, is recently honoured in LSE and the lecture he gave was excellent. India will concentrate more on domestic demand growth rather than depend on export promotion. If all outside countries are poor, and cannot afford, then what is the point in expecting export oriented growth? PPP models will have to be reviewed too for the excessive capital costs wantonly built in, expecting lots of aid money and also financed by the government through increased fiscal deficit. The real capital cost is getting boosted by two to three times to take care of interests of political, bureaucratic and business players serving the development of infrastructure in the nation. The simplest example is to compare the figures cost of Delhi Metro itself--our show piece. In Goa, at a total cost of Rs 34 cr per r. km( double line) elevated metro for Standard and broad gauge , with very deep pile foundations, all pre-stressed structure, was constructed which included station, air conditioning , rol...

Govt looks at direct role for Army against Naxals Article Comments (16) Post a Comment TOP COMMENT B Rajaram Hyderabad/Herndon 2 Jun, 2010 0347hrs IST Back seat driving by politicians made police ineffective in fighting the Maoists/Naxals. Now talking of deploying Army is fraught with lots of concerns. Army will also get demoralised soon. Rapid action forces, commando trained special units, CRPF are all well well trained but caught in the web of limited mandate as per our more than equal status of Naxals who enjoy all the constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech and action, including carrying arms against state(?), whereas the men in uniform suffer the indignity of having to account for every bullet that exits from his rifle and has to be extremely cautious while using his fire arms., afraid of some special investigative team of Supreme Court also going after them for some alleged abuse of power. In all likelihood being thus sandwiched between Naxals and the state law, the troo...

Comment on: Gulf Coast reeling as BP 'top kill' effort fails at 5/30/2010 2:09 PM EDT Liquid nitrogen in tanks to be lowered down to the area and released near the blow out and around the pipe there to freeze the water body into a thick ice block stopping the gushing oil has been my suggestion to BP. Simple and effective but will give immediate relief. Having controlled ecological disasater engineering repairs can continue. Intermettent supply of liquid nitrogen will keep the frozen water mass seal at minus 30 deg . BP is not listening. Hope some one can get head of BP to listen. Comment on: BP readies mud and robots to try to plug oil well at 5/25/2010 3:47 PM EDT I would imagine the fastest solution could have been to lower 5 to 6 tankers of liquid nitrogen , arranged in circular formation to surround the oil blow out, and release remotely the hatchets. This would freeze the entire water mass around into frozen mass, not allowing any oil to leak out. It gives time to put in...

The death of 70 persons in Midnapore is avoidable had there been just a minute of gap between the crossing of goods train at the location of derailment, if only ACDs are available on the trains. There is no other international technology available at any cost to address this type of accident to protect lives, except ACD. All of Railway Board are well aware of the proven functionalities of the ACD. It is a pity all the more that ultimately the very person who initiated ACD, Mamata Didi in 2000 , is unable to get benefit of the same. Her own people in Midnapore could have been saved. It is pity and karma of my countrymen that all good people look so helpless tied with strings and tapes of files, while lives are lost. Whatever chance we can give for people to survive we should strive to give. Else it is the greatest disservice to our nation, that too in an organised manner. May the souls rest in peace.

The People's Bank of China said in a statement that a Financial Times report that the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) was concerned about its exposure to euro zone debt was groundless. The central bank said Europe would remain one of China's main investment markets and Beijing would support actions to help the European Union resolve its debt crisis . The 16-nation single currency, which has lost more than 8 percent against the dollar this month, rose more than 1 percent after falling to a day low of $1.2154 on the FT report. European stocks also rose by 2 percent after a 3 percent jump on Wednesday.