India's Road To The Future 278
Paul 03244 writes "Historians, economists and technologists agree that movement of ideas, goods and services are fundamental to trade & advancement of the human condition. Today's online version of the NYT has a rather lengthy but fascinating article on the construction of a modern highway system in India that details some of the social & cultural changes being brought about by this highway project." Interesting to look at the parallels between the spread of tech and services in India and the same process in the U.S.
Re:Remember what Hihgways are (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.snopes.com/autos/law/airstrip.asp [snopes.com]
The highways/interstates were never intended as landing strips. Besides, when's the last time you heard of traffic being shut down/diverted for the practice landings?
Re:Remember what Hihgways are (Score:1, Informative)
Nonsense! Re:Remember what Hihgways are (Score:5, Informative)
excuse to get the road built then the military abandons it.
And you are wrong about Hitler, the Autobahn projects were actually started (1926) BEFORE hitler came to power and Hitler didnt think of them he had really nothing to do with their conception. The first autobahn was started in 1929 and was completed in 1932 BEFORE hitler came to power. Oddly enough the war actually STOPPED contruction of the autobahn.
You are a fake. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Remember what Hihgways are (Score:3, Informative)
The Autobahn as a tool of the Blitzkrieg sounds good, but in fact they were thought up in the 1920s in Germany and Switzerland and they were limited in scope even during the build up of the 1930s. The first section from Frankfurt am Main to Darmstadt opening in 1935. This straight section was used for high speed record attempts by the Grand Prix racing teams of Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union. During World War II, the central reservation of some autobahns was paved to allow their conversion into auxiliary airports. However, for the most part, the autobahns were not militarily significant, and most military and economic freight continued to be carried by rail. Thousands of kilometers of autobahns remained unfinished, their construction brought to a halt by 1942 due to the increasing demands of the war effort, as Germany always had manpower issues even with all the slave labor they used.
The interstate system was authorized by the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 and championed by Eisenhower. In 1919 Ike had been involved in a National Defense planning operation to move units across the United States and it took months, similar operations by Patton before the war showed a need for better highway infrasturcture in the US. One potential civil defense use of the Interstate Highway System is for the emergency evacuation of cities in the event of a potential nuclear war.
http://www.tfhrc.gov/pubrds/mayjun00/onemileinfiv
"I have no idea where the one-out-of-five claim originated. Perhaps it is giving too much credit to whoever originated this "fact" to suggest that it began with a misreading of history. Under a provision of the Defense Highway Act of 1941, the Army Air Force and the Public Roads Administration (PRA), now the Federal Highway Administration, operated a flight strip program. In a 1943 presentation to the American Association of State Highway Officials, Commissioner of Public Roads Thomas H. MacDonald explained how it worked.
"A flight strip consists of one runway, laid down in the direction of the prevailing wind, and a shelter with telephone for the custodians at the site and for itinerant flyers in an emergency. Fuel storage facilities are not provided unless airplanes are based there permanently. Instead, oil companies will keep stocks of aviation gasoline at gas stations along the highway and truck it to the flight strip as it is needed."
The flight strips were designed for easy access to public highways and to provide unmistakable landmarks that could be followed easily by a pilot. Flight strips varied in size. The smallest -- 150 feet (46 meters) wide and 4,000 feet (1,220 meters) long with the length increased by 500 feet (152 meters) for each 1,000 feet (305 meters) of elevation -- were designed for tactical aircraft such as medium bombers. A larger flight strip could accommodate heavy bombers such as the B-17 and B-24, while still larger strips were designed for heavier classes of aircraft.
The benefits weren't expected to be entirely military. As MacDonald explained, "The close coordination of our highways and airways is becoming a vital necessity to assist the economic growth of this country."
In that spirit, Congress considered including a flight strip program in the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944 -- the law that authorized designation of a "National System of Interstate Highways." However, the 1944 act did not include the flight strip program."
Re:Remember what Hihgways are (Score:3, Informative)
Rail was used extensively for moving materials in previous wars. Rail is good as a backbone, for constantly moving large amounts of materials through secured terrain (eg heavy equipment from the midwest to coastal harbors). Rail does not give you the flexibility of motor transport, requires constant control (two trains on the same track = bad), and an existing secure infrastructure (you need trucks on the front lines).
Both rail and road are moderately vulnerable to enemy bombing.
Rail is far more vulnerable to enemy bombing/sabatoge. With roads, vehicles can move off the road if needed to get around an obstacle, if rail is damaged, you can't move off the rail for a short stretch, the rail has to be repaired.
Re:Corruption... ? (Score:5, Informative)
However, there is no real strong "communist" party in India - the existing government is being supported by the Communist Party of India, they have minimal say. The thing is, until about 30 years ago, India and the Soviet Union were fairly close. And as a newly independent nation, a government that had equal parts public and private sectors seemed like a good idea at the time.
However, gradually, the public sectors began to be privatized. Sure, the Communist party of India occasionally throws a tantrum, but nobody listens to them anyway. If at all, they have some semblance of power in all of two states, only one of which is consistent.
To be fair, there are some politicians who're above this, and who really understand technology and the need. For instance, the President is a rocket scientist (quite literally) and the Prime Minister is a renowned economist (he was awarded his Ph.D. in economics from Oxford and has been a professor of economics).
Of course, like any system, there are corrupt folks, and folks who refuse to change or adapt to the new system, particularly since it undermines their power and authority. But most of these are at the state level, and the Central (equivalent of Federal) government has a lot more power, and is a lot cleaner, too (relatively speaking, of course).
So, to answer your question - there is some definite corruption and bureacracy, but it's on the decline. More privatization and media exposures have largely made it harder, and folks who're at the helm are a lot more knowledgeable and capable.
Here's hoping for a better India in the days to come!
Re:I Don't Think I Read It Here... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Remember what Hihgways are (Score:1, Informative)
First off, the US highway system (US 1 on the East Coast to 101 on the West Coast, and 2 to 98 north-south) was created in 1926.
After WWI, Eisenhower took an army caravan on the Lincoln Highway across the nation and saw first-hand the horrible condition of the nation's roads, especially in the Plains and Rockies. Twenty-five years later, with his glimpse of the Autobahns in Germany, was where he got the idea for controlled-access multilane divided highways. The Interstate Highway System (with a numbering pattern perfectly opposite that of the federal route system, low numbers in the south/west and high numbers north/east) was signed into law in 1956.
But there were plans under consideration for "Interregional Highways" during WWII. In those plans, you can see a proto-interstate system, including early drafts of major arteries (I-80, I-95, etc.).
"405" (Score:1, Informative)
http://www.405themovie.com/ [405themovie.com]
Re:Corruption... ? (Score:3, Informative)
Corruption and bureaucracy are there. But we don't really worry about the communists so much. Their say is limited to their ruling states of West Bengal and Kerala. Also, even though they are part of the ruling coalition, everyone knows that they cannot withdraw the support to the government as they fear the opposition parties (BJP et al) coming to helm.
The recently [persmin.nic.in] enforced Right to Information Act [rti.gov.in] should help us alot in fighting corruption and red-tape.
Re:Remember what Hihgways are (Score:3, Informative)
from wikipedia: "It is also one of the largest and busiest rail networks in the world, transporting just under five billion passengers and almost 350 million tonnes of freight annually. IR is the world's largest commercial or utility employer, with more than 1.6 million employees."
Some statistics [diehardindian.com]
Wikipedia article on Indian Railways [wikipedia.org]
Re:Remember what Hihgways are (Score:3, Informative)
Sweden does use public roads as military airfields. The idea is to be able to very quickly set up a temporary airfield, resupply the aircraft and then leave again. Not highways, though; it's usually secondary roads with a section straightened and widened, and with a few (normally empty) buildings in the nearby forest. And yes, I've seen a road closed off by air-force guards a few times and a fighter plane come down for landing and takeoff.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Remember what Hihgways are (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I hear the Indians are upset (Score:3, Informative)
*shrug*
There is always a section of populace that does some screwed up, ridiculous things - generalizing such to and across a whole population, or worse yet, a whole nation, is ridiculous at best and offensive at worst.
Not Mahmoud Singh.. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Capitalism Works? (Score:3, Informative)
Anyway, this division made sense at the time of independence because as a newly born democratic state at the end of WW2, with severely depleted resources, it made sense for the government to control core assets and plan infrastructure building. This did work very well for the longest time (check out India's Five Year Plans until about the 70s). Even then, private enterprises did exist in a lot of the domains, just that they had a hard time competing with the government.
The time when the growth started slowing down was about the time Soviet Union died - but this was owing to several factors, particularly a very bad political climate. Even otherwise, the original plan was to slowly privatize parts of the public sector. Such a plan was considered earlier, but was not adopted due to several reasons, some political and some economic.
However, in the 1990s, there was a radical change in the political climate in the world and in India, and private enterprises started picking pace. That, and the fact that India's former ally Russia was facing economic troubles were reasons -- but one of the most important (and often missed easily) reason was the fact that for the first time, India had a significant portion of the middle class of a younger generation with a buying power never seen before. And thus, the free market as you know it was brought into the country in full force.
This changed the economic landscape, bringing forth the change that you see today.
So, India was never really a socialist state in the sense of the word - it was always a mixed economy, taking the middle path (i.e. state controlled where it made sense, privatized where it would fuel economic growth). Even today, the move towards a "capitalist" state is a misleading term - India is still a mixed economy, only that it's leaning more towards capitalism with less of a state control over infrastructure.