Lufthansa CEO's crassness

"Berlin: No security "in the world" could protect an airline from the kind of action taken by a co-pilot who French authorities say appears to have deliberately crashed a Germanwings plane, the head of its parent company said Thursday.

"Whatever safety provisions you have in a company, however high the standards, such an isolated case cannot be completely ruled out," Lufthansa chief executive Carsten Spohr told reporters.

"No system in the world can rule it out." "

AFP.

Carsten Spohr could not have made a more insensitive statement. It is understood that Andreas Lubitz, the co-pilot of the flight 4U 9525 of Germanwings, the budget airline of Lufthansa which crashed into the Alps, was suffering from severe depression. Air pilots are required to be tested for their physical and mental fitness. If a mental condition like severe depression cannot be identified, what are the tests for? Lufthansa cannot disown its abject negligence in exposing the lives of its passengers to such a grave risk as pilot's depression, schizophrenia, bi-polar syndrome and the like.

The CEO may have to be tested for psychopathic tendency in view of his inability to empathise. The CEO cannot be unaware that the American regulator requires the mandatory presence of atleast two crew members in the cockpit at any point of time. So systems are available to prevent the 9525-like accidents.

How safe is air travel?

150 persons died when an Airbus operated by Lufthansa's budget airline crashed in a remote snowy area of the French Alps on Tuesday, 24th of March. Air accidents have become so common, and therefore so less-newsworthy, that many newspapers have relegated this news to their inner pages. Kamal Hassan's criticism of Central Board of Film Certification and Twitter Samvad have received more prominence even in sedate newspapers like The Hindu.

Capt.A.Ranganathan delivered a talk on safety in air travel on 13th March at the Sanskrit College in Chennai. His lecture was revealing. He explained how many pilots may not be in their best cognitive state on account of their recreational habits. The MH 370 pilot who is supposed to have deliberately crashed the ill-fated flight was deeply indebted, in adversarial relationship with the Malaysian government and supposed to have sworn to teach the government a lesson.

Back in India, the authorities do not hesitate to tax the pilots in excess of normal hours. Physical tiredness and consequent mental inattentiveness are a serious risk for domestic passengers. The airports in Kozhicode and Mangalore are too small for failsafe takeoffs and landings. 

Manmohan Singh arraigned

The special court hearing the coal case has asked the former prime minister to appear before it. Manmohan Singh admits that he is upset though he is always ready for legal scrutiny. Congress leaders including Sonia Gandhi marched to his house in a show of solidarity.

The learned judge, Bharat Parashar, has needlessly explained, "This court had to act with a heavy conscience and with full realisation what the present order will have over the morale of the country as a whole". The judge has gone out of the way to assure that he has made a detailed analysis before asking for Singh's presence. The former prime minister will doubtless appreciate that all are equal before the law and that it is but inevitable that a person in the thick of scam after scam, conniving or turning a conveniently blind eye, will be made answerable sometime or the other.

Plans are afoot to appeal to the Supreme Court to cancel the summons. It is hoped that the Supreme Court will not bend the law however mighty the arraigned applicant is.

We do not know how history will judge Manmohan Singh. But a scrupulous judiciary has no option but to find him guilty of dereliction of constitutional duty and betrayal of nation's confidence.

Budget 2015 - 16

I had reservations about Arun Jaitley's first full-fledged budget till I saw Manmohan Singh's comment. As The Hindu reports, he has said, "My worry about the budget is that it has good intentions but it does not have an adequate road map and framework to implement the initiatives".

Good intentions are anathema to Manmohan Singh and P.Chidambaram. So the words in italics (italics mine) convinced me that this year's budget is intentionally different from the  budgets for past ten years.

However, good intentions alone are not enough. There are many proposals which need to be meticulously followed up by the Finance Minister lest they remain only as promises. For example, 5 new Ultra Mega Power Projects are proposed this year, that too in Plug and Play mode. Nice to hear. Our experience is not reassuring. If earlier budgetary commitments had fructified, we would have had 12 UMPPs in 2012 itself. We now have only two.

The government has accepted the 14th Finance Commission's recommendation and therefore 42% (instead of 32% as earlier) of net proceeds of union tax revenues are transferred to states. Correspondingly, plan and non-plan assistance to states has been pruned. This sleight of hand would not have been foreseen by the Finance Commission.

Borrowings account for 24% of government's receipts. Low tax-GDP ratio continues to be worrisome. Revenue loss from direct taxes is Rs.8,315 crore. There is gain in indirect taxes for Rs.23,383 crore. This is undeniably regressive.

Service Tax goes up from 12.36% to 14% This effectively means that cost of services increases by 1.46% rightaway. Because service tax is now levied almost on all monetary transactions, the inflationary impact is all too sinister. As if this is not cruel enough, the Budget has indicated that a 2% Swatchch Bharat cess on service tax may become operative if necessary.

Added on 3rd March:
Narendra Modi has praised the budget (does he have a choice?) as progressive, positive, practical, pragmatic and prudent (5 p's?) Would he tell us what has happened to the much vaunted 3p company promoted with Rs.5,000 crore corpus in the 2014-15 budget presented by Arun Jaitley? (3p was supposed to stand for PPP, the infrastructure model.)

An insult to judiciary

An application for anticipatory bail was filed in the Supreme Court by activist Teesta Setalvad.  Ms.Setalvad is accused of misappropriating contributions received apparently for post-Godhra riot victims. Gujarat state police contends that the accused is not forthcoming with details of accounts and therefore seeks custodial questioning. Gujarat state government and Setalvad are sworn enemies. So, it is difficult to comment on merits of their respective contentions.

But what is astonishing and in fact disgusting is the way in which proceedings have started in the Supreme Court. The petitioner questioned the objectivity of the two judges constituting the Division Bench because Narendra Modi had attended the marriages of children of these two judges! This is at best a ridiculous reason and is certainly a condemnable contention. By the same logic, one may say that Teesta Setalvad's grand-father M.C.Setalvad was a legal luminary connected one way or the other to all justices of the court and therefore no judge can hear a petition filed by her.

The Bench was reconstituted in an inexplicable act of compromise of judicial dignity. Prashant Bhushan waxed proud: "It has been brought to my notice that Mr. Narendra Modi was an invitee of, and recently attended, the weddings of the children of Justices Mukhopadhaya and Ramana, who are hearing the case of Teesta Setalvad. The allegation of Teesta in this case is that she is being hounded by the Gujarat Police since she had played a leading role in exposing the role of Modi in the Gujarat carnage of 2002, and is seeking accountability for it. In these circumstances, the question has arisen whether it would be appropriate for these judges to hear this case”.

Delhi Shock

Arvind Muffler has produced the Delhi Shock the gravity of which was not anticipated even by political pundits. Winning 67 out of 70 assembly seats is a typical Black Swan event. It is also a wake-up call to Narendra Modi and Amit Shah emphasising the reality that no one has mastered the electoral arithmetic of democratic India.

Delhi is geographically small, but politically large. Modi could have viewed the exit polls with grace. On the contrary, he arrogantly dismissed them as 'lies'. In a way, he was right. The exit polls indicated only 45 to 50 seats for Aam Aadmi whereas the party snatched as many as 67 seats.

Present indications are that Arvind Kejriwal has become a seasoned politician and is more likely to adopt pragmatic policies rather than rabble rousing polemics. It will be interesting to watch how these results alter Modi's tactics. Will he become more or less of a reformer?

A B C in Delhi

It looks like AAP, BJP and Congress in that declining order in Delhi elections. A B C in D ?