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India's Road To The Future
Paul 03244 writes "Historians, economists and technologists agree that movement of ideas, goods and services are fundamental to trade & advancement of the human condition. Today's online version of the NYT has a rather lengthy but fascinating article on the construction of a modern highway system in India that details some of the social & cultural changes being brought about by this highway project." Interesting to look at the parallels between the spread of tech and services in India and the same process in the U.S.
Close, but no cigar:
http://www.snopes.com/autos/law/airstrip.asp
The highways/interstates were never intended as landing strips. Besides, when's the last time you heard of traffic being shut down/diverted for the practice landings?
Many of Americas highways were built BEFORE WWII. The interstates may have been a defense related project but the Turnpikes werent. Commerce is a far bigger motivating factor than war. War is often just the
excuse to get the road built then the military abandons it.
And you are wrong about Hitler, the Autobahn projects were actually started (1926) BEFORE hitler came to power and Hitler didnt think of them he had really nothing to do with their conception. The first autobahn was started in 1929 and was completed in 1932 BEFORE hitler came to power. Oddly enough the war actually STOPPED contruction of the autobahn.
You are not even from India, and you are sifting the anti slash DB for high karma posts to copy and pasting them. Your comment can also be found here.
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
Thats a common belief, but the US Interstate system was being planned during the 1930s, but other capital dam projects tied up men and concreate. Then the Second World War hit and the plan was shelved again.
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The Autobahn as a tool of the Blitzkrieg sounds good, but in fact they were thought up in the 1920s in Germany and Switzerland and they were limited in scope even during the build up of the 1930s. The first section from Frankfurt am Main to Darmstadt opening in 1935. This straight section was used for high speed record attempts by the Grand Prix racing teams of Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union. During World War II, the central reservation of some autobahns was paved to allow their conversion into auxiliary airports. However, for the most part, the autobahns were not militarily significant, and most military and economic freight continued to be carried by rail. Thousands of kilometers of autobahns remained unfinished, their construction brought to a halt by 1942 due to the increasing demands of the war effort, as Germany always had manpower issues even with all the slave labor they used.
The interstate system was authorized by the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 and championed by Eisenhower. In 1919 Ike had been involved in a National Defense planning operation to move units across the United States and it took months, similar operations by Patton before the war showed a need for better highway infrasturcture in the US. One potential civil defense use of the Interstate Highway System is for the emergency evacuation of cities in the event of a potential nuclear war.
http://www.tfhrc.gov/pubrds/mayjun00/onemileinfiv
"I have no idea where the one-out-of-five claim originated. Perhaps it is giving too much credit to whoever originated this "fact" to suggest that it began with a misreading of history. Under a provision of the Defense Highway Act of 1941, the Army Air Force and the Public Roads Administration (PRA), now the Federal Highway Administration, operated a flight strip program. In a 1943 presentation to the American Association of State Highway Officials, Commissioner of Public Roads Thomas H. MacDonald explained how it worked.
"A flight strip consists of one runway, laid down in the direction of the prevailing wind, and a shelter with telephone for the custodians at the site and for itinerant flyers in an emergency. Fuel storage facilities are not provided unless airplanes are based there permanently. Instead, oil companies will keep stocks of aviation gasoline at gas stations along the highway and truck it to the flight strip as it is needed."
The flight strips were designed for easy access to public highways and to provide unmistakable landmarks that could be followed easily by a pilot. Flight strips varied in size. The smallest -- 150 feet (46 meters) wide and 4,000 feet (1,220 meters) long with the length increased by 500 feet (152 meters) for each 1,000 feet (305 meters) of elevation -- were designed for tactical aircraft such as medium bombers. A larger flight strip could accommodate heavy bombers such as the B-17 and B-24, while still larger strips were designed for heavier classes of aircraft.
The benefits weren't expected to be entirely military. As MacDonald explained, "The close coordination of our highways and airways is becoming a vital necessity to assist the economic growth of this country."
In that spirit, Congress considered including a flight strip program in the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944 -- the law that authorized designation of a "National System of Interstate Highways." However, the 1944 act did not include the flight strip program."
Yeah, there is a significant amount of corruption and bureacracy in the system, but for the most part, privitization has helped cut down on that significantly.
:)
However, there is no real strong "communist" party in India - the existing government is being supported by the Communist Party of India, they have minimal say. The thing is, until about 30 years ago, India and the Soviet Union were fairly close. And as a newly independent nation, a government that had equal parts public and private sectors seemed like a good idea at the time.
However, gradually, the public sectors began to be privatized. Sure, the Communist party of India occasionally throws a tantrum, but nobody listens to them anyway. If at all, they have some semblance of power in all of two states, only one of which is consistent.
To be fair, there are some politicians who're above this, and who really understand technology and the need. For instance, the President is a rocket scientist (quite literally) and the Prime Minister is a renowned economist (he was awarded his Ph.D. in economics from Oxford and has been a professor of economics).
Of course, like any system, there are corrupt folks, and folks who refuse to change or adapt to the new system, particularly since it undermines their power and authority. But most of these are at the state level, and the Central (equivalent of Federal) government has a lot more power, and is a lot cleaner, too (relatively speaking, of course).
So, to answer your question - there is some definite corruption and bureacracy, but it's on the decline. More privatization and media exposures have largely made it harder, and folks who're at the helm are a lot more knowledgeable and capable.
Here's hoping for a better India in the days to come!
Corruption and bureaucracy are there. But we don't really worry about the communists so much. Their say is limited to their ruling states of West Bengal and Kerala. Also, even though they are part of the ruling coalition, everyone knows that they cannot withdraw the support to the government as they fear the opposition parties (BJP et al) coming to helm.
The recently enforced Right to Information Act should help us alot in fighting corruption and red-tape.
it should be noted that India does have one of the world's largest railway system (5th as per most statistics). But it is still insufficient for the purposes of trade or transportation of goods.
from wikipedia: "It is also one of the largest and busiest rail networks in the world, transporting just under five billion passengers and almost 350 million tonnes of freight annually. IR is the world's largest commercial or utility employer, with more than 1.6 million employees."
Some statistics
Wikipedia article on Indian Railways
The highways/interstates were never intended as landing strips. Besides, when's the last time you heard of traffic being shut down/diverted for the practice landings?
Sweden does use public roads as military airfields. The idea is to be able to very quickly set up a temporary airfield, resupply the aircraft and then leave again. Not highways, though; it's usually secondary roads with a section straightened and widened, and with a few (normally empty) buildings in the nearby forest. And yes, I've seen a road closed off by air-force guards a few times and a fighter plane come down for landing and takeoff.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
The replacement of indigenous Dravidian languages in the north by an Indo-European dialect brought from an Anatolian or North Pontic urheimat is upheld by nearly all reputable scholars. Now, it's not certain that the speakers of Proto-Indic came with the sword, there instead could have been a more gradual cultural influence, so "Aryan invasion" is a poor choice of terminology.
The correct name is Manmohan Singh who was the finance minister at the time when reforms were kicked off and is currently the prime minister of India.