Tips for staying alone on Postings

This all happened in hurry and we had to report immediately. There was no negative answer type theory was persisting at that moment. May be the theory persists even today. I being not thought of future like this had initially faced lot of problem. My family too suffered a lot in the beginning as they were not exposed to such situation in past.

One who wears a shoe knows where it pinches. Base upon my own personal experiences, I jotted down few tips to take care by all of us who is proceeding for one year posting if no one is there to take care back home:-

You must carry your Laptop on posting along with a data card for internet connectivity,

Load Skype or Google talk software so that you can talk to your family using this software which will give you a feel at home,

Get all Bills like Elec., Telephone, Property tax, IGL Gas, Credit card bill, Car insurance, Insurance and school fee on line so that payment can be made by you at ease.

Do not forget to handover few signed cheque to your spouse as some time one is in trouble when nothing work out (Most of the school fees are not on line)

Must try to get a local SIM to avoid paying roaming charges or inflated telephone bill as one does more call during your 1^st phase of stay(1^st three months),

Must carry all the service provider Mobile numbers of your home so that when your family or kids are in trouble you can help them out,

Do not forget to carry your Credit and debit card. Also handover one debit card to your spouse so that He/she can withdraw money at ease in your long absence.

If no one is there to start up your car on regular interval, disconnect your car battery to prevent it from discharging,

Spend maximum time in the office to keep yourself engaged instead going back to  AME House/rented home, Being alone at home it is very easy to get depressed,

Get your medicine always at hand so that it is easily accessible in emergency,

Take care of your food habit. Your health is of utmost important. You can not afford to get ill. Leave will be denied. Avoid eating outside,

Every one knows his grey area and here one will have ample time to enhance knowledge in that subject. Do it if you can.

Make your presence felt at the station. Know your right as engineer and take the things in your own hand.

At last, one has to cooperate fully with SM, APM and Staffs for smooth sailing. Initially one may face some problem but at the end of Phase 1(1^st 3 Months) things will get settled.

Be prepared that you are not going to be relieved for 90 days, mentally you will be at peace.

With best wishes.

  

LOK PAL BILL-a birds eye View

LOKPAL BILL, a journey to nowhere since 40 years, was launched by Sh Jayapraksh Narayan to eradicate corruption in our society.

The administrative committee (ARC) recommended in October 1966 the institution of office of a Lokpal at centre and Lokayukta in the states with wide statuary power.

The bill was 1^st introduced in parliament in 1968 to the then Prime minister Smt Indira Gandhi and thereafter it was reintroduced to the prime minister in succession Sh Morarji Desai, Sh Rajiv Gandhi, Sh V P singh, Sh Devegoda and to Sh Atal Bihari Vajpai. Each time bill either lapsed or the format of the bill was changed purposefully to exclude prime minister and MPs. 

Enactment of this bill was initially thought of eradicating/or dealing the cancerous disease which has spread to the nation as a whole. Though it was never thought to be a magic wand but law once passed and implemented in its actual form has enough teeth to curb this disease by more than 95%.

Sh Anna Hazare has a strong belief of if bill passed, as it was on the floor of 1977 loksabha, will become an effective tool to get rid of corruption from our society.

Bills of 1971 empowered the Lokpal to enquire into both a Grievance and an Allegation.

Grievance:-was defined as a claim by a person that he had sustained injustice or hardship in consequence of maladministration.

Allegation:-covered not only corruption or lack of integrity but also abuse of public office to secure gain or to cause harm or hardship to another.

The bill which was further produced in 1977 included a wide definition of Misconduct whereby if any one in public directly or indirectly allows his position to give undue favour to anyone or his known or causes harm or hardship to another are liable to be questioned, investigated and punished.

Thus the 1977 bill includes even Prime minister whereas bill of 1971 was excluding PM. Under it, the government would have no power to prevent an investigation or inquiry from being held if required by any person. It would have no hand in selection of judges and investigating agency.

In a simple word, the bill was empowering any person to make a complaint of misconduct to the governor against a present or past holder of any of the offices specified.

The 1977 Lokpal bill was headed by Sh Shyam Nandan Mishra the then famous foreign minister. JPC found its provision too wide and rejected stating that since MPs do not exercise any executive powers they should not be treated at par with public men exercising such power therefore the concept of misconduct must be different for them.

The bill lapsed on the dissolution of Loksabha in July 1985 and format was amended by then law minister Sh AK Sen when Rajiv Gandhi was the Prime minister. It has been restricted only to the criminal offence of bribery under Indian penal code or the prevention of corruption act 1947.

1985 amended bill read as no prosecution shall lie on any complaint, report, information or otherwise and no court shall take cognisance of any offence on the basis of the same or substantially the same allegations in the complaint.

In other words Lokpal probe would bar prosecution in the courts. The lokpal has no power to award punishment at all. It can do no more than report to a Prime minister or union minister. However in its original format includes all the public man i.ePM to MPs,all the government officials for their misconduct and lokpal was empowered to investigate and punish.

The exact replica of amended bill of 1985 format was produced to successive Lok sabha there on during VP Singh, HD Deve goda, and Atal Bihari Bajpai government whereby if passed an anaemic Lokpal could do no more than report to the prime minister, while ousting the court jurisdiction effectively by a parallel judiciary of sorts.

For an effective Lokpal, The selected person must

 Have Jurisdiction in respect of both maladministration and misconduct,

Be a former judge of the Supreme Court or a former chief justice of High court,

Have a jurisdiction over a wide range of public man (PM, MPs senior civil servants so on)

Have its independent investigating agency not to be dependent on CBI.

Have the power to launch prosecutions himself and order vacating of office

It would be best to mend constitution to give him constitutional status comparable to that of CAG.

Sh Anna Hazare to Baba Ram dev along with million of people have ignited a fire in each heart of our citizen. Now those involved in corruption have started sensing heat of the flame which may be in nascent stage today but fire will be seen soon.

Lokpal bill which has seen many prime ministers in its journey seems to reach to its final destination in one or two years. And that day will be marked as another day of freedom in sovereign India.

Page 2 syndrom

(...take it on lighter side )

Please be aware that you are not getting the symptom of Page 2 Syndrome. Many of us are in the influence of this. It is better to know in detail about the symptom before we are being caught by this disease.

Symptoms of Page 2 Syndrom

Please ensure that you want to listen every moment from your friend that he talks about Page 2 of salary slip,

Whenever you receive a call of your office friend you are talking about PLI and the missing page 2 of salary slip,

You keep checking your mail box each time you logged in about Page 2,

Frequency of visiting your mailing site has increased to more than 150%,

You feel depressed and irritating,

Your BP is slightly higher than usual round the clock,

Frequency of disagreement to your spouse on any related matter has increased since few days,

You don’t care now much about your kids need,

You feel like be quite at home and sleepy,

If 80% symptoms as stated above are affirmative then it is sure that you are more   likely to be prey of page 2 syndromes.

Precautions

Adopt any method of YOGA what you do to control your BP, Blood Sugar and to reduce your stress level.

As such no medicines are advised,

Inculcate humour in your life style out of it, This is the lowest phase of sinusoidal curve and sure like any other thing of life this will also not last for a longer period,

Avoid the above symptoms as controls on such emotions are in our own hand. Clinical illness is further dangerous as if one is going to be hospitalised in any of our panel hospitals be sure that being an employee of a bankrupt company they will disown us as it is done by the war prisoner.

A Tribute to Structure Engineer

Time passes with its own pace; very slowly but yet very fast to our imagination. In a moment the present become past, future to present and so on. Infinitesimal changes in universe gives an impression that nothing has changed in those 35 years but the time was changing every moment.

No one can believe that 35 years have passed and we all are ready to bid a farewell, to say him good bye. All eyes are wet in the hangar. After all this is an end of a long association, end of a chapter in structure, especially closely related to B 737-200.

On 31^st at 40 mts past 16hrs in our clock and a usual site of Ch-II hangar which was blessed with for years, a most disciplined, spiritual, courteous and affable person of Check II will be missing now onward. A person with a bag in his hand, smile at his face enters into Check II at sharp 0830hrs daily ;is now a matter of past. But every one is definitely going to miss him. He is none other than Sh U K Achan, a jewel of engineering whose glitter we will not allow to fade away easily.

It was a beginning of 1980; a lad join to engineering then no one knew that he is going to do many wonders in his career.

He is an authority in A/C structure in South East Asia. He saves crore of rupees by doing Lap joint modification of Boeing, Stabilizer modifications, L/G Fitting kit modification and fitting replacement. These were one of the biggest achievements to him and to his prestigious organisation.

Air Force will never forget his contribution to their fleet of Boeing as a person behind to keep that A/C a float in air. Many lectures on structure were won a standing ovation.

When he was entrusted to undertake the maintenance of A-320, once again he did it successfully by their team of dedicated persons in record time. Soon, Ch-II hangar was known for A-320 maintenance.   

He has many more feathers to express as his achievements in structural engineering to the company and to the Nation.

Air India is definitely going to loose one of the expert in structure who is even endorsed by the Boeing company and being considered as open TSM with regard to structure.

I on behalf of all the engineers wish him every success in his retired life and I am sure sir; you will be our source of inspiration forever not only professionally but spiritually too.

We will miss you.

PAGE 2

Once upon a time, come 28^th day of a month and it was a merry day for IA Employees when we used to get our two page salary slip. Salary was being ECS to our account by every 30^th day of a month, gone are the days; even bank employees get envy of ours.

Time passes and we became riches to rags. Every one, deep in debt, is struggling to meet the EMI before 10^th of every month.

Those who have access to Internet keep logging AME Times every 5 minutes for any new update of Sumit Halder with regards to PLI.

His updates are also missing like our 2^nd page of salary slip.

The state of bankruptcy now seems knocking our door step. Even small companies who would have dreamt of extending their facilities to national carrier are coming up with their dues bill.

Fuel companies, AAI, Wipro, etc each one has warned Air India to pay the bill or go on cash and carry business. They have threatened to stop cooperating Air India w.e.f 1^st June.

Post pilot strike, Air India bounce back so soon with more than 92%occupancy in Y-Class, it was beyond everyone’s expectation.

Employees are yet to receive their 2/3 rd of salary for the month of April, the question still remain where the money has gone?

Is it a deliberate move to xxxvoke further ----?

What is next?

A Road to Varanasi Airport

                                                 Work in Progress
For last one year work of underground sewage construction is in progress in all along the city.None of the city roads are clean and free to drive.
One can experience a long traffic jam and make it difficult to drive any vehicle.It is very difficult to walk even on the pathway.
This is to advise any of the traveller who intend to get their flight must start 2hours prior to departure of flight.
Airport distance from city centre is approx 30Km.
It is a 40 mts drive to The Babatpur,LBS Airport at Varanasi.

I.5 km stretch between Bhojubir to Atulanand takes almost 30mts to pass through as work is under progress and one can get trapped in heavy traffic congestion.

25 th Day of May-A Total Recall

(…….On the eve of the 25^th day of May –this was end of an era, we received one SMS and after that “A total recall”…)

No one related to aviation industry will forget this magic numeral in the history of National carrier, neither of engineer nor Pilots.

Ever since May 2007, number 7(25=2+5=7) haunt us (All the cadre).

No one should forget the circular, a turning point, which withdrew the SOD ticket and it was valid only for the staff on flight duty. May be this was the first mistake where we could not understand and united to retaliate though later on it was withdrawn.

Many instances of withdrawal of our flights from lucrative sectors, like Bangkok, Kualalumpur, Doha, Bahraine and Colombo, keep on provoking employees but in the beginning everyone kept quite. Damage was being done systematically.

We were heading for the disaster. Till now 25000 employees of erstwhile IA were not happy since many months. Mentally they were not at peace. Occasional incidents of tired pilots, pilot sleeping in the cockpit and overshooting of runway did make the breaking news.

Electronic media to its own reason magnified minor snags of national carrier and made it breaking news where as big accidents of Private carrier were ignored to such an extent that it was projected as a minor incident. Print media too reported against us results in lower market share day by day.

Someone of vested interest was getting his plan through to his satisfaction. Air India routes were being given to other carrier, bilateral agreement (No country in the world has such a liberal bilateral agreement as we have today) was killing our airlines, AAI literally discriminating in allotting the bay (Remote bay) and in prioritising arrival and departure sequence to Air India. Nothing was in its favour and the worst of Air India yet to come as an Air India Express Air Plane crash at Manglore in the early morning of May 22^nd, 2010 (2+2+2+1=7).

Bad days for Aircraft engineers were about to knock their doors. Series of incidents post accident happened. A plane from Banglore took off carrying the kin of crashed plane and landed Manglore with all the officials except Engineer. At Manglore no engineer was there to certify the aircraft and management somehow got the certification from Kingfisher engineer who was apparently not qualified to certify that aircraft. This was a violation of the CAR and GS of AIAEA reported that matter to the appropriate authority and spoke to media in a brief interview.

Management was upset for speaking to media and charge sheeted GS of AIAEA. Engineers went on flash strike against this gag order asking for revoking of this order. Soon, ACEU also joined the stir and 25000(2+5=7) employees of erstwhile IA (This was the figure quoted during the strike. The figure of employee keep changing on every reporting) joined in. GS of ACEU also charge sheeted. Later on both this union were de recognized by the management.

All the members of AIAEA unitedly and spontaneously reacted to Flash Strike; as a result Aircrafts were on ground for ours which were later on recovered by officers. Aircrafts flown back to the base and thereafter a disaster was waiting to follow Engineers. Many engineers were terminated and suspended, remaining was asked to proceed to the transit station for one year posting. All the facilities which were availed till now withdrawn. People within humiliated us saying it was not a right moment for strike. Outside we lost the public sympathy. Our family life shattered. Engineers who were terminated and suspended faced the real challenge of life. Unity has strength and we showed it first time ever. Soon we broke down by calling off the strike after the High Court order.

Humiliation does not end here, Pilot were accepted to do the PF(Though they are authorised only to do PF in case of diversion thereafter flown back to base where a higher inspection schedule is to be carried out by Engineers) and started giving the message to other employees that our contribution was not required. At one occasion one of the Captains flown to a station leaving flight engineer at ground.

After a lot of struggle beyond the boundary of airport, except few, many of us were taken back. Engineers are lying low with low level of confidence. Memory of the past still not faded away and it will take a longer period to recover.

Is not it seems that we are now haunted by number 7 or 25 or 2007? But still there is one hope----

----“Nothing last forever in this universe and so the troubles in one’s life too”. A change, a light in the darkness, all of us is waiting for a morning after a long dark night.