OPEN LETTER TO THE HINDU

Hello World,

I have been noticing something odd on my daily newspaper. We read ‘The Hindu’ at our home and lately, we have been noticing something odd about the way news are being reported. Maybe, this has been the norm and I am noticing it just now or this is a new growing trend. To clear the confusion, ‘The Hindu’ will have to clarify the facts so we do not misinterpret anything. Hence this open letter:

Dear ‘The Hindu’,

Please refer to the instances of alleged unfair reporting on your part and please clarify the reasons and facts behind them:

Instance 1:

Article Title: Madras High Court orders fresh autopsy on Monisha

Date of Publishing: January 28, 2016

Source: http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/svs-college-murder-row-madras-high-court-orders-fresh-autopsy-on-monisha/article8159701.ece 

The article ends with a mention of a person and his membership with a ‘fringe Dalit outfit’. The outfit’s name or the basis for classifying it as ‘fringe’ however did not make it anywhere on that news report.

Here are the questions:

What is the name of the Dalit outfit? Why are you not mentioning the name of the outfit?

What is the basis for classifying the outfit as a ‘fringe’ outfit?

Instance 2:

Article Title: Decades-old group rivalry revived

Date of Publishing: March 9, 2016

This report is also online: http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/decadesold-group-rivalry-revived/article8329195.ece

One of the victims [of a tit-for-tat gang war] is being described as a Dalit leader without mentioning the name of the outfit he founded or was associated with prior to that. However, soon after covering his involvement in murders, the report includes victims and members of the other group by mentioning the title of the outfit they belong to. That outfit is not categorised as ‘fringe’ outfit.  

Murderers are murderers, irrespective of caste/ethnicity. When one group of murderers are mentioned only with a broad classification of their caste, the other group is mentioned with specific mention of their caste and the outfit they founded/belong to.

Here are the questions:

What is the basis for avoiding a Dalit outfit’s name and including a Caste Hindu outfit’s name, when members of both outfits have been involved in the same murder case being covered in the report?

The report includes this phrase: “…, who had nurtured himself as ‘saviour of Dalits’ by orchestrating a few attacks.”

What does ‘few attacks’ signify? How many attacks are being included as ‘few attacks’? What is the factual data behind those attacks that establish the individual’s effort to become ‘saviour of Dalits’? 

When the rival group has committed similar retaliatory murders, why aren’t they being classified as someone nurturing themselves as similar ‘saviour of Caste Hindus’?

Overall, I see this trend of classifying minorities as ‘fringe outfits’ while exclusively mentioning caste-hindu groups in your reporting. May be, this has been happening for a long time and I remained unaware. Irrespective of the frequency of occurrence and history, the reporting style followed by ‘The Hindu’ is outright unfair.

The final interpretation is:

‘The Hindu’ is deliberately allowing the negative representation of minorities [in this case the Dalits] and positive representation of caste-hindu groups.

                                                       OR

‘The Hindu’ doesn’t really care how minorities are being mentioned in its reports and therefore knowingly tolerates such unfair reporting styles from its reporters/writers.

Irrespective of what it may be, here are the final questions:

Is ‘The Hindu’ following such unfair reporting styles to get the favour of the ‘Hindutva’ movement?

What is ‘The Hindu’ getting from caste-hindu groups for such negative representation of minorities?

In my opinion, ‘The Hindu’ is operating as a ‘divisive media partner’ that can support the ‘divide-and-rule’ tactics, irrespective of who is trying to apply them. 

The questions for you, ‘The Hindu’, 

Are you really missing out on such negative reporting styles or this is all part of your larger design for a divided society that can crumble at the snap of a finger?

Why is your reporting looking to breed contempt and retaliatory hatred among ethnic groups within the market you operate?

I don’t think anybody from ‘The Hindu’ is going to reply, however, as a human being who believes in equality, I cannot allow a media house play spoilsport unasked and unquestioned.

I still believe, if all kids go to school and college and if the education they receive are of decent standards, we might end up with a society that can at least be taught to practice equality. With millions of citizens remaining illiterate/uneducated, we as a country are building a society of blind followers who can be manipulated by those who practice sectarian governance through inter-ethnic hatred, something supported by media houses such as ‘The Hindu.’

If you think this is an issue that needs to be curtailed, please consider signing this Change.org petition below and share the same with your friends and family:

Stop Discriminative News-Reporting Against Dalits

 Thanks for the help!!!!

Update as of 21-03-2016:

'The Hindu' published a follow-up report on the same incident and this time, both the organisation titles were mentioned. However, the Caste-Hindu individual's position/rank within his organization is mentioned but the Dalit individual's position/rank is not covered. The Caste-Hindu individual is mentioned as the 'President' but the Dalit individual is mentioned as the 'leader'. In spite of a forced response for fair news-reporting, the reporting style still holds minority groups at least one step below the Caste-Hindu groups. 

Here is the follow-up report as it was published today:

So the questions to you 'The Hindu' are:

What makes dalits so inferior that you are so desperate, not to mention the rank/position of the Dalit individual covered in the report? 

If the Caste-Hindu individual is the 'President' what was the title held by the Dalit individual? 

If you have the journalistic prowess to cover one group in such detail, why is that you wilfully neglect the finer details of the Dalit individual?

This is the true indicator of how deep and hard the anti-dalit prejudices are imbibed within the society in Tamilnadu, as of 2016. I am almost suspicious if there is a deep inner voice among these anti-dalit mentalities which keeps screaming 'Don't let the Dalits stand-up as equal. Keep them a step below you and that is how it should be.' In my honest opinion, it is this deep caste differentiation that is causing such unfair news-reporting styles.

A word of thanks to those few individuals who signed the petition. Some of them are not Dalits but still they have the heart to support equality. My deepest respects to those human beings.

Summing up, @'The Hindu', there is very little you can do about this. You have hundreds of reporters working for with hundreds of prejudices each. Given that your own editorial group has been flying away from you citing unfair management practices, there is very little evidence that you actually have any fair thought behind your news-reporting strategy. 

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Best Regards,

COST OF COLONIALISM: BLOWING IN THE WIND

Hello World,

I had noticed something very interesting when I visited the Andamans in 2012. This year, I visited Andamans again and visited the same spot to cover the experience. I am referring to to something I noticed in Ross Island, a small island visible from Port Blair, the current capital of Andaman & Nicobar islands. Ross Island was the first British headquarters set up in the archipelago and this island was even invaded by the Japanese. 

My experience has to do with the pre-independence colonial timeline when India was under the British rule.

We need to look at what I saw to get started:

Long story short, these are the people whose graves have been captured in the pictures above:

1. Benjamin Lewarn A.B., Died at the age of: 25 years and 6 months
2. Anne Elizabeth of Lahert, Died at the age of: 21 years, 3 months and 10 days
3. W.H. Eales, Born at Kingston, near Brixham Devonshire, Died at the age of: 38 years, 5 months and 29 days
4. Benjamin Kelton, Died at the age of: 35 years
5. James John Elder, Born at Liverpool, Lancashire, Age at the time of death: Unknown, 
6. James Wyness Esq., Died at the age of: 38 years
7. John. W. Wood, Died at the age of: Unknown [probably 29 or 29]
8. Name: Unknown, Died at the age of: 23 years and 27 days
9. William Collins, Died at the age of: 28 years
10. Samuel Smith [Pensioner], Died at the age of: 67 years
11. John Edwards, Died at the age of: 28 years
12. Benjamin Welton, Died at the age of: 35 years
13. Lawrence [Infant son of Lawrence and Jessie Jemima Carthy], Died at the age of: 22 hours

These are some of the graves at the cemetery on Ross Island. 

With 22 hours and 67 years as clear outliers, the age at the time of death is largely between 21 years and 38 years. 

Young men and women are lying under the ground in a lonely Island in the Bay of Bengal. All because someone decided to colonise India. I have no idea if the family of these people knew about their death. I wonder if someone, many generations later now, have ever visited Ross Island to see their grave. May be because most of these individuals died at a very young age, they never had the opportunity to bring their next generation into this world. 

This is just the minuscule part of the human capital invested by the then British administration in the effort to colonise India. Based on the very little I understand, the then British administration, used its taxpayers money to recruit and deploy their own sons and daughters on a land very far away, only to leave them dead under the ground, when it realised the complexity in keeping country under its control by force. 

Since 1644, when the first British fortress [Fort St. George] was founded in Chennai, the administration did not or rather was not willing to realise the infeasibility of a never-ending colonisation of a sovereign state. My interpretation is therefore directed towards the assumption that the then British administration never really cared about its own citizens or at least not up to the level of what might constitute anything related to fairness.

So the question, we as the current survivors of the race called mankind need to answer is, did all this investment of human capital really benefit those who engaged in colonialism? You consciously paid for the spices, minerals, opium and agricultural resources with your sons and daughters, some of whom are under the ground of this sovereign state to this day, rather dissolved or decomposed, but under the ground in a foreign land anyways.

The dark comedy is, of those who came to India for spices, hardly ever use them in their cuisines. Cinnamon made it to coffee, cardamom and saffron made it to some foods. The other agri resources were mostly consumed for the purpose of further colonisation. I am unaware but very skeptical of colonial wheat and rice feeding the citizens of the colonial state. Even if that were to be a fact, was it all worth the sons and daughters you left buried under foreign lands, which now are sovereign states similar to yours????????

Next time we draft random men, women and transgenders to be deployed on foreign lands for military operations, we as the race called mankind, will have to think a few hundred times to assess the benefit we will realise by sacrificing the humans for the sake of monopolised control over resources in foreign lands [includes democracy and fundamental rights]. 

Desperate times calls for desperate measures and desperate measures require high value investments. It is impossible to avoid it but we can definitely act based on the fair assessment of long-term impact on mankind rather than deciding on the short term diplomatic relations and control over alleged ‘aggressors’ for the sake of regional security that is then bartered for oil or something much more trivial than something nothing can replace: human life.

As for an answer to these questions, all I recall are Bob Dylan's words: “….the answer my friend, is blowing in the wind.” 

Best Regards,

UNCERTAINTIES OF THE QZ8501 INVESTIGATION

Hello World,

After a wait for almost a year after the QZ8501 accident, the final investigation report was released recently. The report indicates the cumulative effects of mechanical/system failures and pilot action as the cause of the accident. However, the report attributes pilot-action as the major cause of the accident. I looked up a few documents and the story seems to be something more than what’s being thrown at us in the form of official conclusion. In this post, I wish to look into the uncovered/ignored aspects of the investigation. Based on my understanding of the facts [as released] and further research, there were system inadequacies that forced the flight crew to attempt over-riding system-driven flight protocols and their efforts could not be completed on time, due to which the aircraft went down with the crew and passengers.

Findings of the Investigation:

Exhibit A:

Oddity 1:

Cracking of a solder-joint [of both channels] leading to a loss of electrical continuity indicates the electrical side of failure I had already warned of in my previous post on the accident. If there is no electrical supply to the system, the system will remain inactive unless it is powered by a back-up power line. 

The ambiguity that stands out to me is:

Was it ‘one’ solder joint that connected both channels [A&B]? 

Or

Was it ‘one’ solder joint for channel A and ‘one’ solder joint for channel B? [Both channels connected to the RTLU separately]

If it were two solder joints, one for each channel, then it should be two separate failures in which case the relationship between the two needs to be ascertained. 

If it was just one solder joint that connected channel A with channel B, then it is clear that the system did not have the needed electrical redundancy, indicating a serious design flaw considering the key flight-critical status of the equipment [the flight came to an end because this failed].

Irrespective of the real nature of the finding, the questions that remain are:

Why is ambiguity being installed in the very beginning of an accident report? 

Also failures such as these are usually a sequence of events. 

If the investigation could go the level of solder-joint failure, what led to the failure of the solder-joint? 

What type of load on the joint increase that it had to fail? 

Why is that side of the failure not being discussed in the report?

Oddity 2:

An ‘unresolved repetitive fault’ occurred 4 times during the flight and the responses registered indicated that the 4^th response was not in accordance to that of the message. 

The question that stands out is:

For the first three times, the repetitive fault did not subside or revert based on the ‘message-compliant’ responses from the flight crew. 

Why is this not being discussed in the report?

If the procedural response fails to provide the relief for a crisis situation, the failure needs to be attributed to the ‘Non-fail-Safe’ nature of the system [a design flaw]. If the flight crew did not get the result of ‘message-compliant’ responses, then it is natural for them to resort to out-of-procedure efforts to resolve the crisis as the flight of the aircraft was in deterioration when such off-procedure input was given by the flight crew.

Why hasn’t the report indicated the ‘state of vulnerability’ of the platform?

My Findings 

Exhibit B1:

I came across this patent where the inventor has granted the assignment to Airbus Operations SAS [Assignee on the patent]. Now Airbus is the manufacturer of QZ8501 that went down. This patent, deals with the process for limiting the steering angle of control surfaces. 

The movable parts of an aircraft [the airframe to be specific], visible from the outside, apart from the doors and landing gear are the control surfaces [These are found on the wings, tail-plane and tail-fin]. These are used to control the aircraft’s flight at all times. 

This patent covers the process to control steering angle for control surfaces, specifically the rudder [the one on the tail fin that stands upright on the tail-end of an airplane].

Here’s Exhibit B2:

This description shown above clearly indicates the significance of the technology covered in this patent. Engine failure is being used as an example of abnormal flight condition and the observation describes the way an aircraft will behave when an engine fails. 

As per this observation, the rudder, the control surface on the tail-fin of an airplane will be required to bring back the aircraft to the flight line when an engine fails and the aircraft gets destabilized.  Through this observation, the patent implies, that the rudder will need higher steering clearance so it can produce the force necessary to bring the aircraft back to its flight line [control the destabilization faced by the aircraft].

Here’s Exhibit B3:

As shown in the figure above, the patent moves on to describe the traditional system’s inability to restrict the pilot from sending several commands. This indicates the intent of this technology/process as something related to restricting pilot activity in operating control surfaces under certain ‘abnormal conditions.’

Here’s Exhibit B4:

The patent then describes the outcome of such abnormal conditions when the pilot is allowed to send multiple commands to the rudder, will lead to dangerous failure modes. The patent specifically mentions that the tail-fin may break under these conditions. 

Now look at this picture below.

Exhibit C:

http://redwiretimescom.r.worldssl.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/redwire-singapore-air-asia-qz8501-black-box-1.jpg

The tail part was recovered separate from the rest of the airplane. Now there could be multiple theories for how the tail might have separated from the aircraft. However, the wreckage captured in the image directly reflects what the patent describes as a worst case scenario.

Now read this.

Exhibit D:

The Airworthiness Directive issued by FAA indicates the regulator’s acceptance of a finding that under certain conditions the allowable load limits on the vertical tail plane can be reached and possibly exceeded. The directive, as specified by the regulator, is valid for all Airbus model A318, A319, A320 and A321 series airplanes. The directive also mentions that the directive is valid from Dec, 29, 2015, indicating that the finding and directive have happened in the recent past. 

Such findings and directives going out so recently indicates that the A318, A319, A320, A321 series airplanes have so far been flying in a state of vulnerability and they have been lucky to escape such accidents simply because of the low probability of such failures. 

So the aircraft can fail under certain conditions. This is something that is always thrown out of the ‘Consideration Box’ used for any air accident investigation. The ideal case scenario of all-aircraft-are-safe is being thrust into our minds through carefully planned press releases and cover-up activities….All after hundreds of human beings went down into the ocean along with the aircraft.

Sadly the story doesn’t end here.

Exhibit E: 

EASA had issued a Proposal for an Airworthiness Directive dated 23rd July, 2014, indicating the need for a correction, failing which the aircraft will stand vulnerable to lose its tail fin during during flying conditions. The image above indicates that this directive was deemed applicable for a wide range of Airbus aircraft including Airbus A320-216, the one that went down.

The proposal also says Airbus has developed modifications within the Flight Augmentation Computer [FAC] to activate a conditional aural warning within the Flight Warning Computer [FWC] to prevent pilot-induced rudder doublets. 

So the European regulator was aware of such a ‘condition of vulnerability’ that Airbus aircraft were under and proposed an Airworthiness Directive [AD]. Irrespective of whether the AD was implemented or not, the fact that Airbus aircraft had vulnerabilities including that of losing the tail-fin during specific flight conditions. As I have always pointed out, the probability of occurrence of any event should have no bearing on the risk perception of the same. Potential impact, in this case is, loss of aircraft and therefore it should have higher priority. For some reason, frequency and probability of occurrence is being used as a key criteria for prioritising any risk-mitigation effort.

Further research back into the past reveals this:

Exhibit F: 

‘Safety First,’ The Airbus Safety Magazine dated January, 2005 featured an article on the need for enhanced pre-flight checks involving risk conditions, with one of them being the failure of the Rudder Travel Limiter Unit [RTLU]. The article, as you can see the image above, classifies it as an ‘event of undue rudder travel limitation.’

2005 is long back and even then, there had been vulnerabilities with respect to the RTLU in Airbus aircraft. This indicates that Airbus aircraft, like any other aircraft has always stood vulnerable to abnormal flight conditions, including those that concerned the RTLU, the system which failed during the QZ8501 accident.

Conclusion

Based on the oddities and interpretations I derive from the observation of the exhibits presented above, this is what I think happened with QZ8501.

The aircraft, like any other had remained vulnerable to specific abnormal flight conditions and the supplier’s effort to mitigate this risk [concerned with the RTLU] resulted in restricting the pilot’s capacity to take control of the aircraft. 

What was deemed as too-much-freedom for error resulted in a change that took too-much-of-necessary-capacity from the flight crew during those specific abnormal flight conditions. 

So when the aircraft went into what was deemed a ‘very-low-probability’ scenario, it deviated away from its dedicated flight-line and it had to be recovered. The flight crew had responded as per procedure three times to recover the aircraft but realised that the risk-mitigation change was not allowing them to do the same. The 4th time, the flight crew had no other choice but to try to disconnect the controls from the flight computer that was implementing the ‘pilot-restricting’ control criteria. Unfortunately, they couldn’t achieve the recovery in time and the aircraft went down with the crew and passengers.

While the nature of the abnormal flight conditions is still kept out of our minds through ‘official’ statements comprehensively covering obscurity and generality, we can recall what the patent describes as a possible abnormal flight condition: engine failure. This is why I wanted to know if the engine part of the wreckage was recovered and if yes, the details of the engine wreckage inspection. 

Summing up, many events must have occurred in a certain unfortunate sequence that led to system failure and the eventual loss of the aircraft QZ8501. We may never come face-to-face with the truth since the truth will stand in the way of a multi-billion dollar market that hangs on the ‘perception of reliability’ the aircraft brands thrust into the operators’ minds. However, we can be sure that solder joint failures leading to electrical discontinuity don’t occur out of the blue just like that. Also pilots are not fools to try to disconnect the flight computer unless the situation demands such an effort. 

When a report says, someone lost their life because of a knife entering their back and that the victim had by some means consciously maintained proximity to a sharp knife during the event, it is absolutely obvious that someone might have stabbed the victim. Just because the report doesn’t use the word stab doesn’t mean the victim absolutely walked into a knife protruding out of something uncertain [in this case the hands of the assailant]. Just my thought.

Regards,