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Beyond-A-Boundary

Listed below are comments made by Beyond-A-Boundary between Sunday, 26th April 2009 and Sunday, 26th April 2009.

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About the BBC India Election Train 9:29pm on 26 Apr 2009 I think hiring a special train is a fairly common practice in India. I am told that Indian Railways has a very standard policy. One doesn't have to throw his or her weight around to make it happen. This is a railroad system that the Brits left behind with an amazing penchant for written policy. Anything that is a policy is very easy to happen. Anything that is not, well... it almost never happens. That is the beauty of the system. And that is why it is still chugging along. And growing.
Putting India's election coverage in motion 9:06pm on 26 Apr 2009 I would agree with you, Mr Horrocks. It feels good if you do good work. It feels even better if the world comes to know of it. Unlike most other countries, a train is possibly the cheapest mode of long distance transport in India. It binds the country together. Where else would you find a nurse from Kerala getting to travel nearly 2000 miles in an air-conditioned class for 15 pounds? Without the Railways and the trains in India, I doubt if an effective assimilation of such a pluralistic mass would have taken place. When you travel in India the kind of distances that your teams would be travelling, you must travel by the train. It doesn't matter if it's a chartered train. A mini India lives in each of its Railway stations. By the way, if anyone has still any doubt, BBC is still the harbinger of news in what we call the media dark zones of the country. Generations of small town or countryside kids have grown up with the BBC World Service. If not for BBC for the good work it's doing, it definitely owes that low-cost publicity to the people of India. It doesn't matter where those two-three thousand pounds came from. License fee or BBC World Service adverts. Good work, Mr Horrocks.
Into the heart of India 3:47pm on 26 Apr 2009 MartinDFerry: I must admit that air-conditioning is not a luxury in this country. It's a necessity. It's a different story altogether how many have access to it. But then just because not many have access to something does not make a necessity a luxury. This is the reason why the number of air-conditioned coaches is going up in the trains in India over the years. In fact, I am a frequent traveller. I must tell you that the entry segment of the air-conditioned class is gradually phasing the so-called sleeper class out. I guess Mr Biswas was trying to whip up a little bit of old world romanticism associated with the Indian Railways by using the term 'First Class.' Those that use the trains in India know that there is not a much of class division on Indian Railways any longer.
We're off! 3:41pm on 26 Apr 2009 MartinDFerry: I didn't mean it that way of course. What I meant is that unlike in other parts of the world a train is the best mode of transportation in India. The Railways bind the country together. There are times when you indulge in the symbolic. If I understand the railroad system in India, it is not a specially painted first class train. If BBC had decided to book tickets in regular trains to travel, it might have cost them almost as much. And they won't have been able to do it. Where do you think they would have managed reserved berths for their staffer in a country where they are sold out 90 days in advance in peak summer? I, for one, is not a votary of the airline segment. Not in a country like India. Or for that matter in the US of A. It's a terrible waste in many ways. We could discuss that another day. So that brings us to the point. BBC, to my mind, have done the correct thing by deciding to cover the Indian Elections. Having decided that, it was the best mode of communication. To capture the essence of the country. Have you ever been to a Railway station in this country? Each and every Railway station is a microcosm of the country itself. The publicity in the exterior does not cost much anyway. They deserve that much profligacy. Considering the kind of following that they have in this country. All because of the right reasons. You must see to believe how much of a mad house most Indian media houses can be.
We're off! 1:46pm on 26 Apr 2009 MartinDFerry: "My charitable activities are not relevant but as you ask I make regular monthly contributions to a number of agencies engaged in the alleviation of poverty in South East Asia. Apparently I'm also paying my licence fee so that slum kids playing in open sewers can have a shiny train to admire. I hope they appreciate it."

I guess too much is being made out of the pittance that someone could be paying for a license fee. What about a starred question in the British Parliament? What about restricting the charter for the BBC? And that's a reasonably condescending remark regarding slum kids playing in open sewer. Irrespective of how much and how regular contributions you make for the alleviation of poverty in South East Asia, I do not think you are going to achieve that objective with this kind of an attitude. By the way, what about restricting the BBC to cover Somerset play Durham on a rainy afternoon and incorporating in its charter to contribute the saving generated out of the curtailment to some charity. The best contribution that you would have made is the license fee. You should be proud of your country's contribution to perpetuate free thought and liberal democracy in modern times. You should be proud of the BBC, mate. People like us who belong to fledgling parts of the world and do not contribute much - let alone any license fee - look upto the BBC.
We're off! 1:34pm on 26 Apr 2009 Interesting comments modernRavana. I just want to ask a simple question. India is corrupt. Granted. The poverty situation is alarming. Granted. But if one has to choose from various forms of governance, which one do you think should be opted? Autocracy by some megalomaniac? The communist experiment of the erstwhile Soviet Block? The totalitarian regime of China? If you ask me, I would opt for liberal democracy a thousand and one times. India is a pluralistic society. Yet democracy has by and large survived. There are issues to be addressed. I remember some of the General Elections of the time when I was a child. I see the elections for myself now. Democracy has evolved. The humongous size, the inherent pluralism and the gradual empowerment of the common man makes India's election an interesting exercise. The world might just be interested in the developments here.

And KEVINKAREN: whatever we know of the BBC, I do not think it is trying to influence the voting public. I am not trying to say that the outgoing government was a great one. But it is also a fact that it is incidental that India has made rapid strides in the last five years and the five years before that. I would believe that to be the fruits of a democratic set up which eventually perpetuates the process of free thought and induces development.
Into the heart of India 12:34pm on 26 Apr 2009 By the way, here are some more pictures of the train. The link is: http://www.bbc.co.uk/hindi/specials/1410_trail_pics_pp/index.shtml
Into the heart of India 12:33pm on 26 Apr 2009 Just because a train is chartered does not make it a luxury train. Such a conclusion is presumptuous. The point here is should BBC cover the Indian General Elections? My answer would be a strong YES. License fee or no license fee, I'm sure BBC would be having its internal policies about the working conditions of its staffers. I'm sure when they went to Thailand to cover the psunami, the staffers travelled according to their entitlements. Just because the economy is on a downturn and some people have lost their jobs does not mean that those that have a job start taking recourse to the so-called austerity measures. It is not expected of professionals. Nor should anyone expect it of them. So if BBC must cover the Indian Elections, BBC has to incur a cost. It is good that they have decided to travel by a train. I'm also sure that if they were given a choice, they would have travelled on regular passenger trains. But unfortunately such a situation is not feasible any where else in the world, let alone India. The dates for the elections get annpounced may be a month and half in advance. To travel in and out of 8 cities means 8 different passenger trains or may be more. I get this feeling that they would have ended up using up all their time, energy and yes money on working out the logistics. So I think it was a fantastic idea to book a train, which is a rather normal thing in this part of the world for such occasions, with a well thought of itinerary. What's wrong in advertising on the train that you are travelling in? I'm sure it does not cost much. It was a very original idea. Kudos. I'm not a license fee payer. So I leave it to the license fee payers to delibarate on whether BBC should have covered the Indian Elections. Though quite a lot of people all over the world who look upto the BBC would tend to believe that BBC must cover the event.

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