Author: Kobo-Daishi
Date: 02-20-12 20:02
Dear all,
The following is a February 20, 2012 article titled "India railway failings 'like massacre'" found at the BBC News web site:
Lax safety standards on India's railway lines have caused thousands of deaths, a government committee has said, calling the deaths a "massacre".
The committee said 15,000 people are killed by trains every year trying to cross tracks that are not fenced off.
Almost half of the deaths occur in Mumbai, where the report said there were not enough pedestrian crossings.
The report criticised state-owned railway network India Railways for failing to implement safety measures.
It called for urgent investment to prevent the "unacceptable massacre".
The BBC's Rajesh Joshi in Delhi says that the report has come down heavily on Indian Railways. It argues that no civilised society can accept such high casualty levels.
The group of experts on the committee noted that Indian Railways is reluctant to acknowledge the deaths as train accidents.
But it has emphasised they were accidents and that they were caused by trains.
The government appointed the group of experts to review railway safety measures in the face of a growing number of casualties in recent years.
The committee, headed by one of the country's foremost scientists, Anil Kakodkar, says people cross railway tracks unlawfully because there are not enough foot bridges provided.
Another contributory factor is inadequate fencing adjacent to the tracks.
The committee has recommended that a high-level task force - involving state governments and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) - should be set up to address the issue.
XXXXX
The article may be found at the following link:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-17102062
Most relevant bit from the article:
The committee said 15,000 people are killed by trains every year trying to cross tracks that are not fenced off.
XXXXXXX
Someone once said one life lost is too many.
How much greater a loss of 15,000 per year must be.
I remember China being raked over the coals when two bullet trains collided last year resulting in the deaths of 35 passengers.
This is like 428 of that tragedy.
To put this in some kind of perspective.
According to an old, November 30, 2009 (slightly more than 2 years back), article titled "Why They Hate Us (II): How Many Muslims Has The U.S. Killed In The Past 30 Years?" found at the Foreign Policy magazine web site, about 10,325 Americans
have been killed by Muslims over the last 30 years.
The article may be found at the following link:
http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/11/30/why_they_hate_us_ii_how_many_muslims_has_the_us_killed_in_the_past_30_years
And that includes Desert Storm of 1990/1991, 9-11, Iraqi Freedom, Afghanistan and a whole list of smaller terrorist attacks.
And that's over a 30 year period. And during major wars.
And yet that number is less than the number of Indians killed in a single year by trains.
Over 30 years the number of Indians killed by trains would equate to 450,000 or nearly half a million.
In peacetime.
Gordon G. Rushdie (Kobo's new pseudonym).
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