The article welcomes the Islamabad’s confession that the Mumbai terror plot was planned on its soil and Pakistani national were involved in the attacks. At the same time author also insists that pressure should be kept on Islamabad to dismantle the entire terror infrastructure especially in the North Western Frontier Province.
Although a positive step by Islamabad, the tension between two countries is far from easing out. It will take a lot many credible and result-oriented steps for Islamabad to resume the dialogue. Pakistan would have to dismantle the entire terror infrastructure especially in the NWFP which is a breeding house for Taliban and Al Qaeda and the country finds itself the victim of terror. Although the international pressure is there at this point of time, but New Delhi has to make sure it continues and doesn’t get out of sight at any moment.
Post-Parliament attack on 13th December 2001, Pakistan banned LeT but it resumed the terror activities under the name of Jamaat-ud-Dawa. New Delhi has to make sure the mistake doesn’t get repeated this time.
The article talks about the interim rail budget by Lalu Prasad Yadav that brought in the populist measures considering the election year. However, the article tries to justify the Lalu success by the economic upturn as well as initiatives by his predecessor Nitish Kumar on which he capitalized.
Besides 2% reduction in A/C, 2nd and Sleeper classes, it was the concept of bullet trains that caught the attention of everyone. The freight traffic is targeted to increase to 850m tones in 08-09 from 793m tones last year which is a welcome sign for downturn hit industry. The budget is fairly accurate pointer to Lalu’s performance in his tenure with improved infrastructure, expansion of train services and improved passenger volume. But the credit for this also goes for the economic growth over the past years, change in accounting format, initiatives taken by the predecessor Nitish Kumar in the domains of increased freight load per train as well as retrenchment – an imperative for increased efficiency and revenue savings. However, increased freight load has invited some skepticism with recent complaints on increased rail fractures and train damage.
However, this doesn’t undermine Lalu’s efforts. But increased OR has raised some concerns. But IR has proved Nitish’s vision of Railways being a viable commercially viable venture.
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