Steam Center Blog

    W hile India is well known for its hospitality, relaxed and gentle people on the positive side; on the negative side it is also known for chaos, disorder and crowding. It is therefore not surprising that similar values have entered one of the largest railway networks of the world, the Indian Railways. While the new Dynamic Prime Minister of India Shri Narendra Modi and the dynamic Rail Minister Shri Suresh Prabhu have done a lot to improve the situation, a lot still remains to be done. Here are four brief suggestions that are easy to implement and would improve the service quality manifold, increase earnings and save costs for the railways 1 Forum for Suggestions A new web portal is needed linked through the IRCTC web site on - Forum for Your Suggestions. The best of services in our world have improved through suggestions of users and there is no reason why the Railways should not do so similarly. It can be Facebook style, where a registered user c...

Every once in a while it happens that after one has written a post one feels later that it may not have the best impact and then it is best to remove it. I had to do that yesterday in this blog.

http://wikieducator.org/File:Ancient_coins.jpg T he denominations in which the notes and coins of any country exist have an impact on daily financial transactions of that country. Selecting the best possible denominations is by no means a random or casual process. It requires deep study and research. Not all countries have that expertise. Fortunately there is an easy way out, learn from the experience of other successful economies and adapt their selection with any necessary modification. The largest and most dynamic economy in the world over the last century or so has been the American one and lessons may be learned from their selection. The Canadians have not only copied their model but also the design of their coins closely varying the print and logo for their own country. The present note is now confined to India. The denomination of notes and coins as prevail are: Coins: ½, 1, 2, 5, 10 Rupees Notes: 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 500 and higher values in Rupees Com...

 https://pixabay.com/en/bengal-tiger-tiger-forestry-bengal-1149535/ Tiger Tiger Save my Fiber A newspaper report today ( see here ) indicated that villagers have expressed a desire to move out of a forest area in order to access more modern infrastructure. In fact many more villages would do so voluntarily provided they are given a good alternative. Herein lies an opportunity for India and the world to achieve three highly laudable goals Expand forests by connecting existing patches that are near to each other thereby improving climate and environment of the planet Create an expanded tiger and other wild animal reserve for rapidly disappearing animals as well as forest flora and bio resources Create model new villages based on innovative new design as suggested earlier by this author ( see here ) Corridors of compassion as described in an earlier post in the blog ( see here ) may then be created for any highways that pass...

Countries that have low levels of corruption have a high quality of life and much beauty I t is widely recognized that corruption is a major cause that holds back development in India and perpetuates poverty. More than ten years ago, this author published a note that described a mathematical relationship between levels of corruption and levels of poverty that prevail in different parts of the world. It is in the public domain online. The new Government of Shri Narendra Modi has been seized of the problem. One of its achievements has been elimination of big ticket top level corruption. While this is sure to have an impact over the long term, in the immediate future it seems that at lower levels corruption shall continue to increase as it has over the last several decades. Today a report in the Times of India described that it has increased by 5% in 2015. Corrupt officials at the lower level are like carnivorous animals that once having tasted human blood cannot live withou...

http://coinindia.com/galleries-britishimperial.html An update on November 2016 demonetization in India added at end of this note H aving lived and worked in both the west and India, one thing has never ceased to amaze this author more than the utter chaos that prevails in the design of Indian notes and coinage ever since a decade or so after independence from British Rule. It was not so when India was part of the British Empire. Then the design of Indian rupee coin remained essentially unchanged for decades. What changed was the image of the ruling Monarch on the coin. Ever since then, the design of the Indian one rupee coin has changed with great rapidity so many times that it is difficult to keep count. So has the design of other coins so that if one was past forty one would have to pull out one’s specs to make out which is which. It is hard to distinguish between a one and two rupee coin without reading what is on it. Compare this to the US where even a blind p...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bhagirathi_River_at_Gangotri.JPG When Ma Ganga flows, pure it brings prosperity to lands it flows through, otherwise it brings misery to the same lands; the more the pollution, the greater the misery.    T he Ganges River has been the foremost lifeline of Northern India ever since the disappearance of the Saraswati River more than three thousand years ago. Lives of millions depend upon it. However, sadly, it has become one of the most polluted rivers of the world. According to Wikipedia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganges ) The Ganges was ranked as the fifth most polluted river of the world in 2007. Pollution threatens not only humans, but also more than 140 fish species, 90 amphibian species and the endangered Ganges river dolphin The Ganga Action Plan, an environmental initiative to clean up the river, has been a major failure thus far due to corruption, lack of technical expertise, poor environmental planning, ...