Daily Lessons from Life 23 May 2010 - Air crash puts focus on India infrastructure, safety

"Air crash puts focus on India infrastructure, safety - Sun, May 23, 2010 AsiaOne

NEW DELHI - An air crash in India that killed 158 people has underlined fears about safety gaps in the country's booming airline industry and raised doubts about whether infrastructure can keep pace with rapid economic growth.

It was not clear what caused Saturday's crash, but pilots and aviation experts say regulatory oversight of safety and quality control are often poor. Staff training standards are also falling, they say.

Although India has had few major accidents in recent years, some half a dozen mid-air misses over the past year has underscored that safety issues exist.

Indian media regularly reports about routine checks finding pilots reporting drunk for duty and in one instance last year pilots and crew were involved in a mid-air scuffle, leaving the aircraft to fly on its own for sometime.

"The Air India Express crash was waiting to happen," said A. Ranganathan, an airline safety consultant and pilot instructor."

Someone asked me, in fact, many people asked me, when they found out I have lived and worked in China for about 6 years and had spent time travelling to India regularly in the past, on how China and India compared; and my answer is always consistently: 2 different systems, 2 different approaches to foreign talents (so far), and very different participants!

Lessons for me are:

1. systems - China is one-party ruled while India is a 'democracy with strong regional influences and classical pork barrel politics', so the central government in China is powerful while at in India is NOT as powerful. Big infrastructure projects will be by regions and not as coordinated and forcefully executed with funding and oversight from the central government;

2. foreign talents - China is accepting, up to now anyway, while India is a proud country with a strong traditional English language capability that is the fundamental business language of the developed world and is keener among the two to try to localize quickly!;

3. participants - both China and India have diverse participants but the significant difference is that the Indians are a lot more vocal and enjoy expression of their 'freedom of choice and rights' vigorously! Protests or boycott by India unions or whoever are NOT normally put down with force by the authority! So when there are critical divergence of views on certain sensitive topics or actions, the sparks that flew when the forces collided can be dramatic and very damaging! Maybe some wise Chinese statesmen and women were right to comment that 'when the majority are not fully educated and aware of the democratic process - power for good as well as for destruction', it is better to proceed cautiously!

May those who perished this time rest in peace while those that survived embrace their good fortune, leave on and seek psychological help if needed to cope with the traumas!