A High-Tech Titan Plagued by Potholes

Despite this nation’s rise as a technology titan with some of the world’s best engineering minds, India’s full economic potential is stifled by potholed roadways, collapsing bridges, rickety railroads and a power grid so unreliable that many modern office buildings run their own diesel generators to make sure the lights and computers stay on.

It is not for want of money. The Indian government aims to spend $500 billion on infrastructure by 2012 and twice that amount in the following five years.

The problem is a dearth of engineers — or at least the civil engineers with the skill and expertise to make sure those ambitious projects are done on time and up to specifications.

Civil engineering was once an elite occupation in India, not only during the British colonial era of carving roads and laying train tracks, but also long after independence as part of the civil service. These days, though, India’s best and brightest know there is more money and prestige in writing software for foreign customers than in building roadways for their nation.

And so it is that 26-year-old Vishal Mandvekar, despite his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering, now writes software code for a Japanese automaker.

Mr. Mandvekar works in an air-conditioned building with Silicon Valley amenities here in Pune, a boomtown about 100 miles east of Mumbai. But getting to and from work requires him to spend a vexing hour on his motorcycle, navigating the crowded, cratered roads between home and his office a mere nine miles away.

During the monsoon season, the many potholes “are filled with water and you can’t tell how deep they are until you hit one,” he said.

Fixing all that, though, will remain some other engineer’s problem.

Mr. Mandvekar earns a salary of about $765 a month. That is more than three times what he made during his short stint for a commercial contractor, supervising construction of lodging for a Sikh religious group, after he earned his degree in 2006.

“It was fun doing that,” he said of the construction job. “My only dissatisfaction was the pay package.”

Young Indians’ preference for software over steel and concrete poses an economic conundrum for India. Its much-envied information technology industry generates tens of thousands of relatively well-paying jobs every year. But that lure also continues the exodus of people qualified to build the infrastructure it desperately needs to improve living conditions for the rest of its one billion people — and to bolster the sort of industries that require good highways and railroads more than high-speed Internet links to the West.

In 1990, civil engineering programs had the capacity to enroll 13,500 students, while computer science and information technology departments could accept but 12,100. Yet by 2007, after a period of incredible growth in India’s software outsourcing business, computer science and other information technology programs ballooned to 193,500; civil engineering climbed to only 22,700. Often, those admitted to civil engineering programs were applicants passed over for highly competitive computer science tracks.

There are various other reasons that India has struggled to build a modern infrastructure, including poor planning, political meddling and outright corruption. But the shortage of civil engineers is an important factor. In 2008, the World Bank estimated that India would need to train three times as many civil engineers as it does now to meet its infrastructure needs.

The government has “kick-started a massive infrastructure development program without checking on the manpower supply,” said Atul Bhobe, managing director of S. N. Bhobe & Associates, a civil engineering design company. “The government is willing to spend $1 trillion,” he said, “but you don’t have the wherewithal to spend that kind of money.”

Sujay Kalele, an executive with Kolte-Patil, a Pune-based developer of residential and commercial buildings, said the company’s projects could be completed as much as three months faster if it could find enough skilled engineers.

“If we need 10 good-quality civil engineers, we may get four or five,” Mr. Kalele said.

Beyond construction delays and potholes, experts say, the engineering shortfall poses outright dangers. Last year, for example, an elevated span that was part of New Delhi’s much-lauded metro rail system collapsed, killing six people and injuring more than a dozen workers. A government report partly blamed faulty design for the accident; metro officials said they would now require an additional review of all designs by independent engineers.

Acknowledging India’s chronic shortage of civil engineers and other specialists, the national government is building 30 universities and considering letting foreign institutions set up campuses in the country.

“India has embarked on its largest education expansion program since independence,” the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, said in a speech last year in Washington.

But the government may have only so much influence on what students study. And while the Indian government runs or finances some of the country’s most prestigious universities, like the Indian Institutes of Technology, fast-growing private institutions now train more students. About three-quarters of engineering students study at private colleges.

Moreover, many civil engineers who earn degrees in the discipline never work in the profession or — like Mr. Mandvekar — leave it soon after they graduate to take better-paying jobs in information technology, management consulting or financial services.

Industry experts say a big obstacle to attracting more civil engineers is the paltry entry-level pay. The field was considered relatively lucrative until the 1990s, when it was eclipsed by the pay in commercial software engineering.

Ravi Sinha, a civil engineering professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, says professionals in his field with five years of experience make about as much as their counterparts at information technology companies. But those starting can make as little as half the pay of their technology peers.

That is partly because of the lead set by government departments, where salaries for civil engineers are often fixed according to nearly immutable civil service formulas.

And in the private sector, developers and construction companies have often been reluctant to pay more and invest in the training of young engineers, because executives believe that new graduates do not contribute enough to merit more money or that they will leave for other jobs anyway.

“If companies take a holistic view,” Mr. Sinha said, “they have the opportunity to develop the next generation’s leaders.”

In fact, a construction boom in recent years has led to higher salaries in private industry. Kolte-Patil now pays junior engineers $425 a month, nearly twice the level of five years ago.

Larsen & Toubro, a Mumbai-based engineering company that builds airports, power projects and other infrastructure, offers Build India Scholarships for students who want to pursue a master’s degree in construction technology and management. The program produces 50 to 60 graduates a year, who are hired by the company.

“You don’t get the best quality in civil engineers, because today the first choice for students is other branches” of engineering, said K. P. Raghavan, an executive vice president in L.& T.’s construction division. “We are compensating with lots of training.”

By VIKAS BAJAJ (NYT)

Indian Generals of Character

After getting freedom, a meeting was organized to select the first General of the Indian Army. Jawahar Lal Nehru was heading that meeting. Leaders and Army officers were discussing to whom this responsibility should be given. In between the discussion Nehru said, "I think we should appoint a British officer as a General of Indian Army as we don't have enough experience to lead the same."
Everybody supported Nehru because if the PM was suggesting something, how could they not agree.
But one of the army officers abruptly said, "I have a point, sir."
Nehru said, "Yes, gentleman. You are free to speak."
He said, "You see, sir, we don't have enough experience to lead a nation too, so shouldn't we appoint a British person as first PM of India?"
The meeting hall suddenly went quiet.
Then, Nehru said, "Are you ready to be the first General of the Indian Army." He got a golden chance to accept the offer but he refused the same and said, "Sir, we have a very talented army officer, my senior, Lt Gen Cariappa, who is the most deserving among us".
The army officer who raised his voice against the PM was Lt Gen Nathu Singh Rathore, the 1st Lt Gen of the Indian Army.
That is the professionalism and character the Indian Military "was" made of...

Rich Beggars of Mumbai

Name : Massu or Malana, 60 yrs

Massu's Assets:

Rs.30,00000 in properties alone
Day's earnings Rs.1,000 to Rs.1,500

Begs at : Lokhandwala. Mostly outside high-end restaurants visited by TV and film stars.
Working hours : 8.00 p.m. to 3.00 a.m.
Home is : A duplex flat at Amboli in Andheri (west). He owns another 1 BHK nearby.
Family : Wife, two sons and a daughter-in-law share the apartment with him.
Day's earnings : Rs 1000 to 1500.
Assets : Rs 30 lakh in just properties. One son makes and sells brooms, while the other hawks knick-knacks near Andheri station. He has substantial savings, but would not reveal details.

Cool quotient : Massu is dressed in spotless clothes when he takes an auto-rickshaw to Lokhandwala every evening. He changes into his beggar attire near Ad Labs. During his working hours, he has a complete sway over the area. You will never find another beggar in his vicinity. He takes an auto on his way home too. Stops at Yashraj Studios for a change of clothes.



Name: Krishna Kumar Gite, 42 yrs

Krishna 's Assets:

Rs50 lakh in properties alone
Day's earnings: Rs 1500 to 2000

Begs at: CP Tank, Charni Road
Working hours: Early morning to late evening
Home is : I BHK apartment at Nallasopara, which he shares with his brother.
Family : Brother, sister-in-law and their children.
Day's earnings : Rs 1500 to 2000.
His worth : The Nallasopara apartment is worth nearly Rs 5 lakh. Krishna claimed he has substantial savings but would not put a figure to it. 'My brother manages everything,' he said.

Cool quotient : Claims he can't be bothered with money matters. He retires every evening to his Nallasopara home and hands over the day's earnings to his brother. 'My bhabhi and brother know best what to do with the money.'



Name : Bharat Jain, 45 yrs

Bharat'sAssets:

Rs70 lakh in properties alone
Day's earnings Rs 2000 to 2500

Begs at : Azad Maidan and Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus.
Working hours : Early morning to late evening.
Home is : Two adjacent 1 BHK apartments in Parel, where his family stays. Bharat, however, visits home only once in a week. His family, which deals in school notebooks and other study material, has tried on many occasions to get Bharat to give up begging and join the family business. The Bhandup shop the family has rented out to a juice centre.

Family : Wife, two sons -- one studying in class X and the other in class XII -- father and brother.
Day's earnings : Rs 2000 to 2500.
His worth : The family apartments are worth close to Rs 60 lakh. The family also has rented out a shop in Bhandup to a juice centre and gets Rs 7,000-a-month in rent. The rent is collected every month by Bharat's wife.

Cool quotient : Bharat speaks impeccable English. He is soft spoken and you will never find him harassing people for alms.



Name : Doesn't matter, A Software Engineer (Double Graduate :D)

S/W Enggr 's Assets : Some old C++, Java, Cryptography Books worth 10,000 INR. Rest of all his Assets are based on EMI's (Easy Monthly Installment). So it's the bank that owns it and not him.

Day's earning : Peanuts :)

Working Hours : Day and Night

Family : 1 intel Pentium 4, 3.8 GHz Notebook.

His worth : Depends on the Tester. If tester files several critical bugs @ a time then he's useless :)

Cool Quotient : Whenever he opens his mouth he knows to speak only C, C++ and Java. Never fires anyone, only he gets fired everywhere. The only time he stays cool is when he gulps down two large shots of JD (Jack Daniels. Obvious someone else is paying for those shots :D)...

Tatoo Tales

Impossible is Nothing!

Five good reasons not to take kids to the zoo

Why I Killed Gandhi?

This is a hair raising address of Shri Nathuram Godse which he gave in court during his trial. After reading this address no one can say that he was a fanatic, lunatic, insane or even ignorant but the only thing which comes to mind is that he was a true patriot. He was well read and a perfectly sane person who knew what he was doing and has no regret or remorse for his act. He even refused to give a mercy appeal. What an irony that today when this country needs more patriots the likes of him we find none. Please read his address carefully and till end, that might remove many misconceptions we still have.

From the second day of hearing the Court declared in-camera and people were denied access to his arguments. Murder should not be a weapon to achieve something. Were Godse's forceful arguments published in the newspapers, there would have been a big upheaval and hence the decision to bar press coverage. Nathuram Godse was arrested immediately after he assassinated Gandhiji, based on an FIR. filed by Nandlal Mehta at the Tughlak Road Police station at Delhi. The trial, which was held in camera, began on 27th May 1948 and concluded on 10th February 1949. He was sentenced to death. An appeal to the Punjab High Court, then in session at Shimla, was not favourable and the sentence was upheld. The statement that you are about to read is the last made by Godse before the Court on the 5th of May 1949. Such was the power and eloquence of this statement that one of the judges, G. D. Khosla, later wrote, "I have, however, no doubt that had the audience of that day been constituted into a jury and entrusted with the task of deciding Godse's appeal, they would have brought a verdict of 'Not Guilty' by an overwhelming majority"

A different perspective, whether one likes it or not. It is outstanding and touching speech and something I did not know till I
read the court transcript.

WHY I KILLED GANDHI?

Born in a devotional Brahmin family, I instinctively came to revere Hindu religion, Hindu history, and Hindu culture. I have, therefore, been intensely proud of Hinduism as a whole. As I grew up I developed a tendency to free thinking unfettered by any superstitious allegiance to any isms, political or religious. That is why I worked actively for the eradication of untouchability and the caste system based on birth alone. I openly joined the RSS wing of anti-caste movements and maintained that all Hindus were of equal status as to rights, social status, and religion and should be considered high or low on merit alone and not through the accident of birth in a particular caste or profession. I used to publicly take part in organized anti-caste dinners in which thousands of Hindus, Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, Chamars and Bhangis participated. We broke the caste rules and dined in the company of each other. I have read the speeches and writings of Ravana, Chanakya, Dadabhai Naoroji, Vivekanand, Gokhale, Tilak, along with the books of ancient and modern history of India and some prominent countries like England , France, America and Russia . Moreover I studied the tenets of Socialism and Marxism. But above all I studied very closely whatever Veer Savarkar and Gandhiji had written and spoken, as to my mind these two ideologies have contributed more to the moulding of the thought and action of the Indian people during the last thirty years or so, than any other single factor has done.

All this reading and thinking led me to believe it was my first duty to serve Hinduism and Hindus both as a patriot and as a world citizen. To secure the freedom and to safeguard the just interests of some thirty crores (300 million) of Hindus would automatically constitute the freedom and the well-being of all India, one fifth of human race. This conviction led me naturally to devote myself to the Hindu Sangh ideology and program, which alone, I came to believe, could win and preserve the national
independence of Hindustan , my Motherland, and enable her to render true service to humanity as well.

Since the year 1920, that is, after the demise of Lokamanya Tilak, Gandhiji's influence in the Congress first increased and then became supreme. His activities for public awakening were phenomenal in their intensity and were reinforced by the slogan of truth and non-violence which he paraded ostentatiously before the country. No sensible or enlightened person could object to those slogans. In fact there is nothing new or original in them. They are implicit in every constitutional public movement. But it is nothing but a mere dream if you imagine that the bulk of mankind is, or can ever become, capable of scrupulous adherence to these lofty principles in its normal life from day to day.

In fact, honour, duty, and love of one's own kith and kin and country might often compel us to disregard non-violence and to use force. I could never conceive that an armed resistance to an aggression is unjust. I would consider it a religious and moral duty to resist and, if possible, to overpower such an enemy by use of force. In the Ramayana, Rama killed Ravana in a tumultuous fight and saved Sita. In the Mahabharata], Krishna killed Kansa to end his wickedness; and Arjuna had to fight and
slay quite a number of his friends and relations including the revered Bhishma because the latter was on the side of the aggressor. It is my firm belief that in dubbing Rama, Krishna, and Arjuna as guilty of violence, the Mahatma betrayed a total ignorance of the springs of human action.

In more recent history, it was the heroic fight put up by Chhatrapati Shivaji that first checked and eventually destroyed the Muslim tyranny in India. It was absolutely essentially for Shivaji to overpower and kill an aggressive Afzal Khan, failing which he would have lost his own life. In condemning history's towering warriors like Shivaji, Rana Pratap and Guru Gobind Singh as misguided patriots, Gandhiji has merely exposed his self-conceit. He was, paradoxical as it may appear a violent pacifist who
brought untold calamities on the country in the name of truth and non-violence, while Rana Pratap, Shivaji, and the Guru will remain enshrined in the hearts of their countrymen for ever for the freedom they brought to them.

The accumulating provocation of thirty-two years, culminating in his last pro-Muslim fast, at last goaded me to the conclusion that the existence of Gandhi should be brought to an end immediately. Gandhi had done very well in South Africa to uphold the rights and well-being of the Indian community there. But when he finally returned to India he developed a subjective mentality under which he alone was to be the final judge of what was right or wrong. If the country wanted his leadership, it had to accept his infallibility; if it did not, he would stand aloof from the Congress and carry on his own way.

Against such an attitude there can be no halfway house. Either Congress had to surrender its will to his and had to be content with playing second fiddle to all his eccentricity, whimsicality, metaphysics and primitive vision, or it had to carry on without him.

He alone was the Judge of everyone and every thing; he was the master brain guiding the civil disobedience movement; no other could know the technique of that movement. He alone knew when to begin and when to withdraw it. The movement might succeed or fail, it might bring untold disaster, and political reverses but that could make no difference to the Mahatma's
infallibility. 'A Satyagrahi can never fail' was his formula for declaring his own infallibility and nobody except himself knew what a Satyagrahi is.

Thus, the Mahatma became the judge and jury in his own cause. These childish insanities and obstinacies, coupled with a most severe austerity of life, ceaseless work and lofty character made Gandhi formidable and irresistible.

Many people thought that his politics were irrational but they had either to withdraw from the Congress or place their intelligence at his feet to do with as he liked. In a position of such absolute irresponsibility Gandhi was guilty of blunder after blunder, failure after failure, disaster after disaster. Gandhi's pro-Muslim policy is blatantly in his perverse attitude on the question of the national language of India. It is quite obvious that Hindi has the most prior claim to be accepted as the premier language. In the beginning of his career in India, Gandhi gave a great impetus to Hindi but as he found that the Muslims did not like it, he became a champion of what is called Hindustani. Everybody in India knows that there is no language called Hindustani; it has no grammar; it has no vocabulary. It is a mere dialect; it is spoken, but not written. It is a bastard tongue and
cross-breed between Hindi and Urdu, and not even the Mahatma's sophistication could make it popular. But in his desire to please the Muslims he insisted that Hindustani alone should be the national language of India. His blind followers, of course, supported him and the so-called hybrid language began to be used. The charm and purity of the Hindi language was to be prostituted to please the Muslims. All his experiments were at the expense of the Hindus.

From August 1946 onwards the private armies of the Muslim League began a massacre of the Hindus. The then Viceroy, Lord Wavell, though distressed at what was happening, would not use his powers under the Government of India Act of 1935 to prevent the rape, murder and arson. The Hindu blood began to flow from Bengal to Karachi with some retaliation by the Hindus. The Interim Government formed in September was sabotaged by its Muslim League members right from its inception, but the more they became disloyal and treasonable to the government of which they were a part, the greater was Gandhi's infatuation for them. Lord Wavell had to resign as he could not bring about a settlement and he was succeeded by Lord Mountbatten. King Log was followed by King Stork. The Congress which had boasted of its nationalism and socialism secretly accepted Pakistan literally at the point of the bayonet and abjectly surrendered to Jinnah. India was vivisected and one-third of the Indian
territory became foreign land to us from August 15, 1947.

Lord Mountbatten came to be described in Congress circles as the greatest Viceroy and Governor-General this country ever had. The official date for handing over power was fixed for June 30, 1948, but Mountbatten with his ruthless surgery gave us a gift of vivisected India ten months in advance. This is what Gandhi had achieved after thirty years of undisputed dictatorship and this is what Congress party calls 'freedom' and 'peaceful transfer of power'. The Hindu-Muslim unity bubble was finally burst and a theocratic state was established with the consent of Nehru and his crowd and they have called 'freedom won by them with sacrifice' - whose sacrifice? When top leaders of Congress, with the consent of Gandhi, divided and tore the country - which we consider a deity of worship - my mind was filled with direful anger.

One of the conditions imposed by Gandhi for his breaking of the fast unto death related to the mosques in Delhi occupied by the Hindu refugees. But when Hindus in Pakistan were subjected to violent attacks he did not so much as utter a single word to protest and censure the Pakistan Government or the Muslims concerned. Gandhi was shrewd enough to know that while undertaking a fast unto death, had he imposed for its break some condition on the Muslims in Pakistan, there would have been found hardly any Muslims who could have shown some grief if the fast had ended in his death. It was for this reason that he purposely avoided imposing any condition on the Muslims. He was fully aware of from the experience that Jinnah was not at all perturbed or influenced by his fast and the Muslim League hardly attached any value to the inner voice of Gandhi. Gandhi is being referred to as the Father of the Nation.

But if that is so, he had failed his paternal duty in as much as he has acted very treacherously to the nation by his consenting to the partitioning of it. I stoutly maintain that Gandhi has failed in his duty.

He has proved to be the Father of Pakistan. His inner-voice, his spiritual power and his doctrine of non-violence of which so much is made of, all crumbled before Jinnah's iron will, and proved to be powerless. Briefly speaking, I thought to myself and foresaw I shall be totally ruined, and the only thing I could expect from the people would be nothing but hatred and that I shall have lost my entire honor, even more valuable than my life, if I were to kill Gandhiji. But at the same time I felt that the Indian
politics in the absence of Gandhiji would surely be practical, able to retaliate, and would be powerful with armed forces. No doubt, my own future would be totally ruined, but the nation would be saved from the inroads of Pakistan. People may even call me and dub me as devoid of any sense or foolish, but the nation would be free to follow the course founded on the reason which I consider to be necessary for sound nation-building.

After having fully considered the question, I took the final decision in the matter, but I did not speak about it to anyone whatsoever. I took courage in both my hands and I did fire the shots at Gandhiji on 30th January 1948, on the prayer-grounds of Birla House. I do say that my shots were fired at the person whose policy and action had brought rack and ruin and destruction to millions of Hindus. There was no legal machinery by which such an offender could be brought to book and for this reason I fired those fatal shots. I bear no ill will towards anyone individually but I do say that I had no respect for the present government owing to their policy which was unfairly favorable towards the Muslims. But at the same time I could clearly see that the policy was entirely due to the presence of Gandhi.

I have to say with great regret that Primes Minister Nehru quite forgets that his preaching's and deeds are at times at variances with each other when he talks about India as a secular state in season and out of season, because it is significant to note that Nehru has played a leading role in the establishment of the theocratic state of Pakistan, and his job was made easier by Gandhi's persistent policy of appeasement towards the Muslims. I now stand before the court to accept the full share of my responsibility for what I have done and the judge would, of course, pass against me such orders of sentence as may be considered proper. But I would like to add that I do not desire any mercy to be shown to me, nor do I wish that anyone else
should beg for mercy on my behalf. My confidence about the moral side of my action has not been shaken even by the criticism leveled against it on all sides. I have no doubt that honest writers of history will weigh my act and find the true value thereof some day in future.

Now you decide how history should judge me! Jai Hind!