THE HORRENDOUS # of PEOPLE KILLED in one city alone!
This is horrendous. Imagine 3,404 poor unfortunate human beings killed in 2006, in ONE CITY ALONE (Mumbai/Bombay) in the city's train!!! This is very sad, very sad indeed if this is true. Humans are humans, regardless of who we are born of. It makes the Tokyo train suicides look pale in comparison. An average of 10 people killed EACH DAY, and rising each year! I've been on these trains a few times...
Source: Wall Street Journal
By ERIC BELLMAN
April 19, 2007; Page A1
MUMBAI, India -- There was a time, just a few years ago, when Jagdish Malwankar had no problem getting a seat on the Valsad express commuter train that takes him to work in the city center.
Today, Mumbai's trains are so overcrowded that one morning in January when he stumbled getting off a train, 10 people fell on him and he broke his foot. Another day recently, in the crush to board, fellow commuters shoved him onto the tracks. Two train cars passed over him before anyone noticed he had fallen.
Often, Mr. Malwankar, who is an education inspector for the western state of Maharashtra, witnesses something much worse. In January, he says, he saw two fellow commuters fall off the roof of the train and get sliced in half. And he saw a body on the platform missing its arms and legs. "Once or twice a month, I see people killed or injured on the tracks," says the 45-year-old Mr. Malwankar.
See footage of people in India trying to squeeze into old trains.
India's economic growth in the past several years has brought new wealth and a higher standard of living to many in this metropolis of 18 million. But it also has created suburban sprawl that is adding more people to a rail network that has seen few new trains or tracks added in the past 30 years.
Indian officials have a new term to describe the 2.5 times capacity crowds that now ride at peak hours: Super-Dense Crush Load. That is, 550 people crammed into a car built for 200.
The result is what may be the world's most dangerous commute. According to Mumbai police: 3,404 people, or about 13 each weekday, were killed in 2006 scrambling across the tracks, tumbling off packed trains, slipping off platforms, or sticking their heads out open doors and windows for air.
The toll has been increasing as daily ridership has increased to more than six million people a day. Last year's tally was up 10% from the year before. Accidents are so common that stations stock sheets to cover corpses.
The commute in many Indian cities has been getting worse as throngs flock from the countryside to urban centers in search of work, and housing developments create a new suburbia.
In Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay, the railway system has long been a problem. But with ticket prices set artificially low by the federal government -- the one-hour trip from the southern tip of Mumbai to Mr. Malwankar's station costs less than 25 cents -- it is a money-losing business.
The federal and state governments have squabbled in the past over who is responsible for improvements. Now, a $2 billion upgrade is under way, partly financed by a loan from the World Bank. But that will take at least another five years to finish.
Meanwhile, the network's tracks carry 20,000 passengers a day for each kilometer, or 0.62 mile, of rail, eclipsing even Tokyo -- famous for its gloved pushers who cram passengers into cars -- where the system carries 15,000 per kilometer. In New York, the Long Island Rail Road's comparable number is 420, according to the Mumbai Railway Vikas Corp.
Even after the current expansion plans add 113 miles, or 22%, to the existing railways and 147, or 74%, more trains, Mumbai's commuter trains will still have to carry 1.5 times their capacity during peak hours.
The overcrowding has overwhelmed Mumbai's police. Around 200 officers spend most of their time dealing with deaths on the rails, says R.E. Pawar, a deputy commissioner of police in charge of the railways. The police have to first collect the bodies and bring them to the hospital to be confirmed dead by doctors. "Even if they are in four pieces, we are not able to certify whether they are dead," says Mr. Pawar.
[hanging out the doors]
Eric Bellman
India's rail commuters hang out the doors of overcrowded trains.
Officers then take photos and clothing samples to put into a gruesome computer database so the victims' families can identify the bodies. Morgues don't have enough refrigerated spaces to keep all the bodies, and after seven days the police bury or cremate bodies. Even with the database, more than a third of the bodies are never claimed.
Many of the railway casualties are people crossing the tracks, too rushed or tired to use packed pedestrian overpasses. Mr. Pawar's officers fined more than 30,000 people $22 each for crossing the tracks last year and 1,712 for riding on top of trains. If a family can prove a victim was a commuter not a track trespasser, it is entitled to damages -- usually less than $10,000 -- from the Railway Claims Tribunal.
Frustrated commuters riot a few times each year, rampaging through stations, lighting trains on fire and throwing rocks at police. "The [train] engineer is the first target," Mr. Pawar says. "They catch him and they beat him."
The soft-spoken Mr. Malwankar, who smiles even as he recounts his troubles, usually begins his morning commute at 8:30, when he arrives at Borivali Station 30 minutes early so he can start working his way through the crowds. He bought his apartment near the station, which is at the end of the line in Mumbai's northern suburbs in the hopes it would make it easier for him to get a seat.
"There was nothing here until 2001," he says, pointing outside the window of his simple apartment to a view now obstructed by new apartment blocks. "Now we have a big road, traffic and a mall."
The trains that pull into his end-of-the-line station are already full. That's because commuters have started taking them in the wrong direction so they can grab seats when the trains turn around.
On the platform, Mr. Malwankar hooks up with a group of 10 friends -- government workers and bankers mostly -- whom he met on the commute. They now invite one another to weddings and big family meals. It was one of his commuting companions who yanked the emergency cord when Mr. Malwankar fell under the train.
"It's because of these friends that I still have my life," says Mr. Malwankar. "Nobody else would have noticed and I would have been killed."
Once on the train, he tries to move away from the doors where most of the pushing and shoving happen as people jump on and off the train even while it is moving. Three stations before a change of trains, he starts edging toward the door.
After another ride on a different line, two hours after leaving the house, and in temperatures that can reach 104 degrees in the summer, Mr. Malwankar exits at Chembur Station in the center of the city. Then he walks about five minutes to the office.
Since he broke his foot, Mr. Malwankar says he has considered switching to the first-class cars, which have fans and cushions, but they are only slightly less crowded and cost more than five times as much. Even the coaches exclusively for women are packed, which is one of the reasons his wife decided to retire early from her government job this year.
I hate it when authors put the blame on price control when the problem runs far deeper than that.
While I agree that price control is a lousy fix - ridiculous to administer and a gravely inadequate solution, it can't be blamed for a problem that's both chronic and systemic.
First, transit systems should not be a for profit business - PERIOD.
Second, if money wasn't controlled by filthy greedy private banksters, development would take place evenly throughout a country and not in small city centers, which creates artificial demand for real estate and unnecessary demand for dangerously large volumes of commuters.
Aside from these two issues, theres the fundamental problem of why governments should borrow their own fucking money from filthy bankers to build essential public services.
I wonder who does the rest of the "financing" and at what rate of interest?
those bloody motherfuckers won't stop their worldwide plundering until they're swinging by their necks from lamp posts...
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"Money" has no value - people do.
This situation is actually MORE DIRE than this article states. Poverty and Starvation in India is more severe than even Africa....
Rather than focusing on delusions of grandeur, perhaps some thoughts of humanity is better!
Hunger in India alarming
Hunger in India states alarming
Twelve Indian states have “alarming” levels of hunger while the situation is “extremely alarming” in the state of Madhya Pradesh, says a new report.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7669152.
The sources of racism in India go back thousands of years. Most people think of India as one people however, it is conquered land consequently, the indigenous become outcasts. A vast number of the people of India suffer inane discrimination and the economic attach to political racism. Find below an old article I posted here last year about some of the indigenous people of India and their woes.
Thousands of landless farmers and tribal people in India are setting out on a massive protest march to the capital, Delhi.
The march begins on a national holiday marking the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi, the man who introduced the idea of non-violent protest to the nation.
It is intended to raise awareness about land rights and scheduled to last for nearly four weeks.
The organisers hope 25,000 people will take part in the march.
Thousands of people began gathering in the city of Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh, chanting and singing. Most of them are low caste and landless labourers or tribal people demanding legal rights over their land.
They are calling for a national authority to oversee land reform and a system of fast track courts to deal with the long delays and favoritism in resolving land disputes. Land reform is a controversial issue in rural India. The system is often corrupt and unjust.
So over the next few weeks these protestors will walk more than 300km (180 miles) to Delhi, where their leaders hope to meet, among others, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
It is a huge logistical exercise. Those taking part are being broken down into groups of one thousand, to make sure everyone gets fed.
The march has been dubbed Janadesh - People's Verdict - and it is described as non-violent civil disobedience.
Indigenous Peoples in India
While the government of India refers to indigenous peoples as "Scheduled Tribes", Adivasi has become the popular term for India's indigenous or tribal peoples. It is a Sanskrit word meaning "original people". Contrary to the official government position, this term reflects the widely recognised fact that the people in question are the earliest known settlers on the Indian subcontinent and North-East India. The indigenous or tribal peoples of India's north-eastern region (the seven states Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, and Tripura) do not call themselves, nor are they normally referred to in literature, as Adivasi in spite of the fact that the meaning of the term very much applies to the respective people. Representatives of these peoples prefer to use the English term "indigenous peoples".
Population
In the 2001 census, 84.33 million persons were classified as members of Scheduled Tribes, corresponding to 8.2% of the total population. The census lists 461 groups recognised as tribes, while estimates of the number of tribes living in India reach up to 635. While the number of members of the largest tribes, such as the Gonds, Santals, Oraon, Bhils or Nagas go into the millions others, such as the Onge or the Great Andamanese, are on the brink of extinction.
Below:People: Mishmi
The majority of the indigenous and tribal peoples live in an almost contiguous belt stretching from Gujarat in the west to the seven states in the north-east, with the highest concentration in the central region, where more than 50% of the tribal people live. The highest ethnic diversity among the indigenous and tribal population is in the north-eastern region, where 220 distinct groups have been identified. They comprise approximately 12% of the total indigenous population of India.
Agrarian encroachment
Most of India's indigenous peoples have been forest dwellers for centuries. Traditionally, forests met most of their fodder, food, medicinal and other needs. A long process of turning forest areas into a source of revenue and timber, and exploitation of the mineral resources, has led to deforestation, loss of livelihood and displacement of indigenous peoples. The vast majority of the labour force among scheduled tribes is engaged in the agricultural sector (the figure for all India is 66.84%). This means that almost nine-tenths of tribal families rely on natural resources for their livelihood. The majority of these are engaged in permanent agriculture but shifting cultivation still forms the mainstay of the domestic economy in many upland areas, particularly in the north-east. A few small groups in Central and South India and on the Andaman Islands live almost entirely from hunting, gathering and fishing.
Since tribal communities have been forced off most of the fertile plains they previously inhabited, the majority of tribal farmers cultivate marginal land, using rather extensive methods. Above all, irrigation is absent from most areas, the extensive rice terraces of some indigenous peoples, for example some Naga tribes in the north-east, being the exception. There is a unique relationship between indigenous people and the land. Globilization and subsequent national economic policy has not only displaced 30 million tribal communities and Dalits since Indian independence, but these forces are also using the land in an unsustainable manner, stripping natural resources and destroying local habitat.
DALIT: THE BLACK UNTOUCHABLES OF INDIA
Possibly the most substantial percentage of Asia's Blacks can be identified among India's 160 million "Untouchables" or "Dalits." Frequently they are called "Outcastes." Indian nationalist leader and devout Hindu Mohandas K. Gandhi called them "Harijans," meaning "children of god." The official name given them in India's constitution (1951) is "Scheduled Castes." "Dalit," meaning "crushed and broken," is a name that has come into prominence only within the last four decades. "Dalit" reflects a radically different response to oppression. The Dalit are demonstrating a rapidly expanding awareness of their African ancestry and their relationship to the struggle of Black people throughout the world. They seem particularly enamored of African-Americans.
African-Americans, in general, seem almost idolized by the Dalit, and the Black Panther Party, in particular, is virtually revered. In April 1972, for example, the Dalit Panther Party was formed in Bombay, India. This organization takes its pride and inspiration directly from the Black Panther Party of the United States. This is a highly important development due to the fact that the Untouchables have historically been so systematically terrorized that many of them, even today, live in a perpetual state of extreme fear of their upper caste oppressors. This is especially evident in the villages. The formation of the Dalit Panthers and the corresponding philosophy that accompanies it signals a fundamental change in the annals of resistance, and Dalit Panther organizations have subsequently spread to other parts of India. In August 1972, the Dalit Panthers announced that the 25th anniversary of Indian independence would be celebrated as a day of mourning. In 1981, in Bangalore, India Dravidian journalist V.T. Rajshekar published the first issue of Dalit Voice - the major English journal of the Black Untouchables. In a 1987 publication entitled the African Presence in Early Asia, Rajshekar stated that:
"African- American leaders can give our struggle tremendous support by bringing forth knowledge of the existence of such a huge chunk of Asian Blacks to the notice of both the American Black masses and the Black masses who dwell within the African continent itself." Between the 1940 and 1970, a number of adverse land laws were passed, and much of indigenous land was mortgaged. In 1948, 2.4 million people were evicted from their land. Over a million indigenous people could not obtain any ownership of land, in the ensuing conditions ofpoverty. Many were refused applications to acquire land. The indigenous people were forced into the labour market in order to save money to buy land. Even with those who were able to buy land, the laws were circumvented to dispossess them -their ownership were usually not acknowledged. No records were made of the land transactions, and land bought has later been found to be surplus or useless land not capable os sustaining life. In the 1970`s some laws were amended over a 10 year period, giving ample opportunity for the multinational companies to find loop holes in the land legislation, in regards to allowed acreage of land purchases and land use.
The law now states that the land should be returned to the indigenous tribes however, only a fraction of cases are being investigated. While many complaints are dropped on technicalities; many have been waiting years to be heard. In one area in Maharashtra, only 375 cases resulted in land return to indigenous people, out of 6060 claims.
these children are being murdered - both by international bankers and by their own filthy rich countrymen in a country with an implacable history of racism and supremacism among themselves.
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"Money" has no value - people do.
The WSJ is a "Jew"/Khazar Mouthpiece, know for outright exaggerations and lies..... (I'm stunned!!!).
So, I said it would be terrible if indeed 3,400 died/per year. The WSJ is notorious for their lies and deception ---- a khazar tradition.