96 hours of happiness. A billion people celebrating

Over 1 billion people will take time off in a 96 hour period from Thursday, Apr 13, 2023  to Sunday, Apr 16, 2023 to celebrate with friends and family. 96 hours of reflection on living, while also connecting and renewing their cultural heritage.  These people will also take time away from their daily lives, to engage with the paraphernalia of divinity, thanking a plethora of deities and seeking forgiveness for the 8760 hours of sinful transactions and pleasures, Some will thank the earth for a bountiful harvest, and others might engage in moral ruminations. They will of course also gourmandise their way into an elusive search for happiness.

Most importantly, these 96 hours will be largely a peaceful celebration for these people.

What are they celebrating?

285 million Bengali people will celebrate Pohela Boishakh as the first day of the Bengali calendar which is also the official calendar of Bangladesh from Fri, Apr 14, 2023 

220 million eastern orthodox christians will celebrate Easter on Sunday, April 16. Eastern Christianity recognises a different date for Easter because it typically follows the Julian calendar. The Julian Calendar was first proposed by Julius Caesar in 46BC. The year in this calendar consisted of 365 days, with every fourth year having 366 days.

77 Million Tamils will celebrate “ Fri, Apr 14, 2023 as the Tamil New Year, or the first day of year on the Tamil calendar, traditionally celebrated as a festival by Tamils as the first day of the Tamil month Chittirai.

73 million Maithils,living in India and Nepal celebrated Jur Sital or Maithil New Year on Fri, Apr 14, 2023. Jur Sital  is the celebration of the first day of the Maithil new year also called Aakhar Bochhor. The festive occasion is in keeping with the Tirhuta Panchang calendar used in the Mithila region.

72 million Thais and Malaysian Siamese people started celebrating Songkran from Thu, Apr 13, 2023 – Sat, Apr 15, 2023. The word “Songkran” comes from the Sanskrit word saṃkrānti,mliterally “astrological passage”, meaning transformation or change.

57 million Burmese will celebrate Thingyan or the Burmese New Year festival from Thu, Apr 13, 2023 to  Sun, Apr 16, 2023. Commonly referred to as the Water Festival, Maha Thingyan allows people to celebrate the Burmese New Year.

26 million Nepalese will celebrate Nepalese New Year or Navavarsha  on Fri, Apr 14, 2023. This is based on Nepal Sambat, also spelled as Nepala Sambata, is the lunisolar calendar used by Nepali of Nepal.

44 million Odia people celebrated Pana Sankranti on Fri, Apr 14, 2023. This festival is also known as Maha Bishuba Sankranti and  is the traditional new year day festival of Odia people in Odisha, India.The festival occurs in the solar Odia calendar (the lunisolar Hindu calendar followed in Odisha) on the first day of the traditional solar month of Meṣa.

40 million Malayalis will celebrate “Vishu” marking the first day of the malayalam astronomical year on Sat, Apr 15, 2023.Vishu falls on the first day of the month of Medam in the Malayalam Calendar] (which is around April 14 or 15 in the Gregorian calendar).

36 million Assamese people will mark Bohag Bihu as the beginning of the Assamese New Year from Friday, 14 April 2023 for seven days. Bohag Bihu or Rongali Bihu also called Xaat Bihu or the seven Bihus) is a traditional ethnic festival celebrated in the Northeastern Indian state of Assam and other parts of Northeastern India by the indigenous ethnic groups of Assam.

33 million Khamti, Singpho, Tangsa, Khamyang Tai Phake, Tai Aiton people, started celebrating the Sangken festival  from Thu, Apr 13, 2023 to Sat, Apr 15, 2023. Sangken is celebrated in Arunachal Pradesh and parts of Assam, India, as the traditional New Year’s Day from 14 to 16 April by the Theravada Buddhist Communities. Sangken generally falls in the month of ‘Nuean Ha’, the fifth month of the year of the Tai lunisolar calendar coinciding with the month of April.

26 million Sikhs started celebrating Vaisakhi on Friday, 14 April 2023, to mark the first day of the month of Vaisakh.Vaisakhi is also the date for the Indian Solar New Year.

2.5 million Dogras will also celebrated Vaisakhi on Friday, 14 April 2023 as the first month of the Shastra Samvat or  Dogra-Pahari Calendar.

17 Million Sinhalese celebrated  Aluth Avurudda on Fri, Apr 14, 2023 which is the first day of the month of Bak, which represents prosperity in the Sinhalese calendar (or in the month of April according to the Gregorian calendar.

19 million Khmer people celebrate Cambodian New Year o.r Khmer New Year from Fri, Apr 14, 2023 – Sun, Apr 16, 2023. This period is also celebrated as Choul Chnam Thmey and Moha Sangkranta.

22 million Lao people started celebrating Lao New Year, also called Pi Mai or less commonly Songkran (in Lao language)  from Fri, Apr 14, 2023 till Sun, Apr 16, 2023.

15.3 million Jewish people will end the 7 or 8 day festival of Pesach on Thu, Apr 13, 2023, commemorating the Hebrews’ liberation from slavery in Egypt and the “passing over” of the forces of destruction.

8 million Dai people will celebrate The Water-sprinkling festival, a traditional festival of the to mark the Solar New Year. from Thu, Apr 13, 2023 to Sat, Apr 15, 2023.

1.2 million Tripuri people started celebrating the Buisu new year festival in Bangaldesh and Indian state of Tripura from Thursday Apr 13, 2023 This three-day festival coincides with the Bengali New Year’s Day and runs from April 13th to 15th each year, The  three consecutive days are ‘Hari Buisu’, ‘Buisu’, ‘Bisikwtal’. The first day of the festival is called as ‘Hari Buisu’, and is dedicated to the domestic animals.

1.8 million ​​Tulu people celebrate Bisu Parba on Sat, Apr 15, 2023, marking the first day of Paggu, which is the first month of the Tulu calendar. It falls in the middle of April in the Gregorian calendar, on 14 or 15 April every year.

948,000  Chakma people celebrated Fri, Apr 14, 2023  as the traditional New Year’s Day .

55,000 Bodo people celebrated the Bwisagu festival at the beginning of the first month of the Boro year, around mid-April.The Bodos call this popular festival as Bwisagu, which means the start of the new year. This Bwisagu festival is observed at the starting part of the first month of the Assamese year.

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinhalese_people

https://www.heritagefoundation.org.in/current-issue/single/eyJpdiI6IjBEYnVoTDdlYkl6eHdDWEJ6ckphSlE9PSIsInZhbHVlIjoiL2FQZVBjcEt1aE1XUXlxMmg2QjVRQT09IiwibWFjIjoiZWNlY2U1YzM2NjE5Zjg3NmVlYTQyMzM5OTdlMjI4NWRiYmFkMWQzYjRhM2NhZjVmN2QwNGZiZTllNzYwYWEyOCJ9

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Passover

Cars are dying and are in danger of becoming extinct.

Last week, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) recorded its consecutive annual decrease in car ownership in more than 100 years even as the number of cars on the road rose by 0.4%. New car sales are skewed towards sales of Electric cars (EV)-which recorded a spectacular 71% growth, but on the whole the car industry is in trouble.

The industry itself is seeing a massive disruption from several VUCA driven forces forcing customers to hold on buying new cars. The average age of the UK passenger car fleet has risen to over 12 years partly due to an alignment of the pandemic induced VUCA pause on buying new cars to a number of forces, converging on the Industry. Philip Nothard  defines this VUCA as “new vehicle production problems, primarily caused by semiconductor shortages and coronavirus restrictions, disrupted the wholesale and retail vehicle markets”.

An Increase in new technologies and government led disruptive cycles have created ripples through established car consumption and manufacturing cycles which make cars extinct. Some of these disruptive VUCA forces are :

(a) A move towards electrified powertrains to support the development of sustainability mobility ecosystems that help cities . While laudable as a shift towards mitigating some of the effects caused by our use of cars, one must remember that electrified powertrains have been around for as long as the internal combustion engine. In 1835, Thomas Davenport had demonstrated first practical electric vehicle ever to be conceived and a number of electric car companies were born. The Electric Vehicle Company consortium who wanted us to use electric cars as early as 1899 when Daimler started building racing cars using  internal-combustion engines. But then, electric powertrains lost to the Internal combustion engine! For over a century, Governments, fossil fuel companies, global economic inequalities and the complicity of regulators failing to check emissions from the internal combustion engines while simultaneously and vigorously defending its inclusion as a primary locomotive force, contributed to climate change.

But this is changing now, to the chagrin of the established car ecosystem.

Electric cars now dominate mainstream automobile narratives in this decade, as governments worldwide, use it now as a buzz word. Electric cars and climate change are synonymously linked to deflect history’s painful lessons in sustaining and abetting the abuse of the earth. We use non- electrified automobile locomotion as a whipping post on which our collective sin of using cars are to be flagellated and expunged. Governments use this narrative to smooth over a century’s apathy. Not having the right, efficient government policies which may have tackled the pollution and emissions caused by cars is been driven under the carpet as cars are seen as an impediment to climate change mitigation. The case of Birmingham trying to forget history is a moot point here.

The tensions in the Industry are rising as governments push through a new frenzied narrative to decarbonize the planet by killing off legacy car power trains. This decarbonisation narrative is particularly dangerous for the car as it sits at the centre of a climate influenced maelstrom of politically sensitive lifestyle interventions. These lifestyle interventions come at great economic costs to Car ecosystems. Car companies are increasing their R&D spend on EVs as they innovate to survive in a new world. Even icons like the Lamborghin Aventador V12s or the Lotus Evora GT have lost the race to live as internal combustion vehicles(ICVs). In a world where transition to a low carbon economy is key, car manufacturers have to face a new financial risk of having to manage their responses to climate change or else see a major creditworthiness disaster. Car manufacturers also need to hedge their best on EVs as other competing technologies like bioethanol and hydrogen mature. Economic costs have already seen a flurry of mergers and consolidations in the industry due to electrified powertrains.

Other major challenges include emission pricing and carbon tax on cars, spend on Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) technologies, a fall in all in the global market for internal combustion vehicles(ICVs) coupled with the cost of retooling factories for EV car production and the the national interest of Governments worldwide to concentrate economic activity with a 15-minute city.

But then electric car companies are not the panacea as claimed and have also failed; Fiskers (2013) spectacularly burning through $2bn before failing, Faraday Future, Dyson, Bright Automotive, AMP, Aptera, Coda, Detroit Electric, LeEco…. the list goes on and on. Electric cars will further the legacy of ICVs if we don’t have build enough, low cost and accessible charging infrastructure. In addition, there are claims that electric power trains are not fully renewable as “Lithium, nickel and cobalt are the three major components in rechargeable batteries that are, by definition, nonrenewable resources”. A global shortage of semiconductor chips compounds the shift towards electric cars.

(b) New consumer behavioural patterns have come into play. Cars are no longer been seen as lifestyle statements and climate change is staring us right in the face. An outbreak of equine influenza in North America in October 1872 caused a major shift from the horse as primary source of mobility to ICVs. In 2019, a similar pandemic caused by Covid 19 and subsequent global lockdowns, have forced a rethink on the use of the car.

Like flight shame, we are awakening to the very real possibility of car shaming. It only takes a social media storm before we all get sucked into avoiding the use of cars and choosing slower modes of travel like biking as major life style changes. And its happening. Car manufacturers including BMW, Ford, Honda, Jaguar Land Rover and McLaren have failed to stop a ban on the sale of pure internal combustion engine cars from 2040 to 2030 while cities like Oslo and Madrid are forcing us to choose between cars and public transport. Our collective use of public transport has picked up significantly alongside increased consumption on shared modes of transport (especially micromobility services.

Another change has hit the use of a car. Car brands, particularly luxury cars have acted as status symbols for the buyer, delivering a higher perceived value for  buyers looking to maximize their investment and also created an aura of exclusivity for its owners through effective brand management. But in 2021, after 2 years of lockdown, visiting a car showroom has lost its appeal to many consumers; Digital interactions are now the new norm and customer experience is trumping luxury as more people want a “new tech-led, data-rich, electric vehicle instead of mere luxury cars.

(c) A car-less future is feasible for many of us, but risks becoming a nightmare to manufacturers. Laura McCamy’s post on embracing a car-less life is appealing to a generation that in in tune with climate change , saving money and staying fit through pedalling.

Car parking costs is another major incentive to go car-less. As early as 2005, UCLA professor Donald Shoup brought out an understated aspect of owning a car ,- Cars remain parked for over 92% of time. How amazing that our collective experience of the automobile and its position in society, revolves around a small amount of time, when a car is actually useful to its owner! It’s the con of the century that we cannot see how big, parking a car plays in the true cost of car ownership? The RAC estimated in 2012 that car parking had contributed to the loss of over 7 million front gardens . This report also tells us that in 2012, “the average car is parked at home for 80% of the time, parked elsewhere for 16% of the time and is only on the move for 4% of the time

Car parking however is highly contested ;Governments derive a huge revenue boost from the business of parking yet must try and . In the UK, the RAC estimates that “Councils in England made a combined surplus (profit) of £891 million from parking in 2019-20” while globally the business of parking had grown annually at 11% with total revenues of US$4.23 billion. Yet car parking is driving governments away from its its commitment to managing climate emergency. Some recent contrarian  components of a UK government led, balanced transport strategy is incentivising the shift away from individual car ownership and making walking, cycling and public transport more attractive. Parking levies, a National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF)  and the Road to Zero policy paper are some examples.

Finally Cars are dying. Manufacturers killed off car brands that were no longer viable. In 2022, Honda’s Acura RLX (or the Honda legend in some markets) was put down having sold only 1019 cars in 2019 from a hey day of selling over 70K cars annually. Honda also culled the Honda Clarity in both hybrid and fully electric versions. Other brands that died in 2021 were the Alfa Romeo 4C that may have been a victim of a new step parent’s love. This year, BMW killed off its I3 electric car- a victim of  its limited EV range while Polestar 1 joined the list of also ran EVs. Even Rolls Royce has joined the killing spree removing the Dawn and the Wraith.

It’s time to take the slow road now, pedalling our way to the brave new world. Until of course we decide to change our collective narrative and forgo the shame of using cars. Remember how glorified diesel was twenty years back? Perhaps the car ecosystem will decide someday in the future that a clunky, vibration centred, rubber burning, fumes blenching car, is still the way forward. Maybe the industry will save cars by offsetting car emissions through liquefying carbon and recycling it.

One is comforted by a recent news that even the Dodo has made a comeback after been wiped out in the 17th century.

This post will be continuously updated.

Data sources:
1. https://www.hotcars.com/defunct-car-manufacturers-we-hope-will-make-a-comeback/
2. https://stacker.com/stories/5360/50-car-companies-no-longer-exist
3.https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/remembering-britains-failed-car-companies-picture-special
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automobile_manufacturers_of_Europe
5. https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/blog/climate-change-reshapes-the-automobile-sector
6.https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/07/electric-cars-batteries-fossil-fuel/
7.https://www.motor1.com/features/297044/discontinued-cars-trucks-suvs-20189/

An eclectic geopolitical dramaturgy

A changing #geopolitical dramaturgy is playing out in the Persian Gulf /Middle East as its diplomatic statesmen-monarchs ( The Emir of #Kuwait and the Sultan of #Oman) pass on this year. #Israel ,#Palestine and the rumblings of the southern levant area provide sound and fury to a sick oil industry.#Rentiercapitalism is threatened by an eclectic mix of high youth unemployment, lower levels of investment in military expenditure and pressures from the pandemic on the ethnic composition of the society. Traditional power alliances are being sacrificed on the altar of pragmatism, while power cliques are reinventing new legitimacy narratives. Aspirations of nationhood and the comfort of been cocooned in ideology are trampled down on as states move towards protectionism #middleeast #society.

A quick note on the news that India’s GDP is now at 8.2%.

Well done to the fastest growing economy using a new reporting time series and methodology. Let the champagne flow into the flutes held by its 1.3 billion citizens. The country is now on course to consolidating its unique story in resurgent Asian Century.

This is the story that has been spun out. Here are some truths! Or perhaps you may wish to call them ‘alternative facts’!

1. GDP doesn’t always capture the whole story of economic growth. It represents only a snapshot of variables across a time series in a reporting economy. Libya for example has a GDP growth of 21% in 2018, even the Maldives at 8.8% statistically is better than India.
2. GDP doesn’t take into account income equality or inequality very well.
3. The Population size of a reporting economy also affects GDP increase or decrease.
4. Not all GDP reporting sectors contribute positively to the economy, e.g spending on defence services and manufacturing.
5. India’s external Debt-GDP Ratio has increased to 20%.
6. Household’s Net financial saving has decreased to 6.7% in 2017 vs the corresponding year.
7. India’s External reserves of $450 billion is high for the region. But shouldn’t this be viewed in comparison with China’s $3.6 Trillion reserves, Saudi Arabian ($486bn) , Hong Kong ($437Bn) , Japan ( $1.2 Trillion) to see how far a nation with some much potential and population should accumulate? This could be wiped out by a weakening rupee and higher oil prices.
8. Crude Oil prices in an economy that still imports over 70% of national demand will always have a major impact on inflation and GDP growth.
9. The Government ‘s fiscal deficit is rapidly increasing.
10. The unemployment rate during the first quarter of 2018-19 at 5.5% is higher than that of the corresponding year (4%).
11. One of the youngest countries in the world has failed in many sectors to take advantage of its ‘demographic dividend’.
12. The middle class is growly slowly and struggling to upskill and meet new disruptive challenges. The informal sector still dominates using a very low skill base.
13. Inequality is very real. India’s top 1% of earners control 22% of its national income. Over Rich Indians have banked over $30bn worth of assets in just Switzerland. Indian has now over 121 $ Billionaires, 19 more than in 2017. A toast to the open economy that creates 19 billionaires every year and let’s forget the 124 milion who live in absolute poverty.
14. Crony capitalism is real. One of its largest mining firms is facing a$4bn tax fraud allegation. Several high profile crony scams are still progressing through its institutional morass. Have you wondered why India’s reserve bank has mentioned Mauritius as its strongest route of inward FDI ? Coincidence?

In short, focussing on GDP as a value of economic growth is a short term and myopic misrepresentation of what really matters in a globalised world.

”The welfare of a nation can scarcely be inferred from a measurement of national income as defined by the GDP”- Simon Kuznets

NB:

Some additional reading if you are not heady yet!

A. The World economic forum has a series devoted to the misuse of GDP and why economies should move beyond GDP. It can be found https://www.weforum.org/…/what-is-gdp-and-how-are-we-misusi…

B. The great GDP swindle by Joseph Stiglitz can be found on https://www.theguardian.com/…/economics-economic-growth-and

The business of global Internet access – Violation of a fundamental human right?

I have just been struck by connecting three pieces of data that promise a total disruption of how we perceive access to the Internet connectivity.

The first is a statistics around Internet Access, by the world economic Forum that 4 billion people (mostly living in the developing world), do not have access to the Internet and by extension are not connected to engaging with business as we know it in the rest of the world. They remain disconnected from rest of the world or as Tim Berners-Lee says it is ‘far short of the UN Sustainable Development Goal to achieve universal connectivity‘.

75% of those who have access to the Internet live in a mere 23 countries. The ITU also claims that nearly 50% of the Global population use the Internet.

The second is the declaration by the United Nations that ‘access to the Internet’ is a fundamental human right, or in other words, these 4 billion people are denied a fundamental human right. The last piece of data comes from news reports providing us with tantalising visions of global Internet access using thousands of satellites (both mega and nano). Companies like SPACEx, Outernet, Google and Facebook are leading in the race to provide and in the process, gain first mover advantage in the industry. Governments like the European Union have similar initiatives. The EU is promising that the Galileo GPS replacement system will offer free navigation for anyone globally amongst other features.

Linking all of this together, one gets the impression that the business of providing global broadband (free or paid for) is ripe for disruption. Moving from a business model where we pay for trickle-down cable or fibre based Internet provision which in turn is based on dated telecommunication business models, to one that promises unlimited, unrestricted, untethered Internet access is fascinating.

Out technologically viable capability to connect untapped segments of the global population to any outposts of the fourth Industrial Revolution will disrupt the geographies of economic activity . Imagine the potential of using 3D printing for distributed global manufacturing points across low-cost countries? What about unleashing an additional 8 billion (a very conservative figure of mine) IoT devices using global Internet access?

If our efforts to contain the COVID-19 pandemic are successful, data driven digital technologies and services will rapidly change the world of Trade discriminate competitive advantage on the basis of getting access to Internet.

Moving on, if we were to allow existing business models to operate, huge transnational entities would control access to data by virtue of their market dominance and therefore exert a more dangerous form of control over this human right? Do we want faceless, nameless entities shrouded in tax havens to control data?

If you think governments are better suited to the provision of global Internet access, then what about the abuse of privacy? In an age where cyber-attacks using both state sponsored cyber warfare strategies and state condoned cyber-actors are becoming the new normal, will we have ‘Big Brother’ watching every piece of data? Will this lead to a new form of colonisation of states using access to the Internet?

Will you therefore agree with me that regardless of how this disruption takes place, there will still be a violation of someone’s human rights in some form or the other? This is disturbing as we head to a post Covid data driven world where most of us will do business in a networked ecosystem while others are deprived of digital connectivity.

State capture and rise of the unelected in a democracy

As a firm supporter of democracy, democratic institutional norms and values, I am also a believer in the ability of democratic governance structures to manage the relationship between the ruler and the ruled.

Cynically, I also believe that democratic governance systems are a part of the global business system. Therefore, unable to change the status quo of democratic governance, I accept business-government linkages, institutional varieties of corruption as well as the need for elected officials to manage business interests of the key financial supporters. But I do not at any point accept the capture of legitimate governance systems by any non-elected actors.

Last week (Feb 2017) as we alternated between the rants, tweets and retreat of the leader of the free world (President Trump, the southern Indian state of the Tamil Nadu played host to a political crisis of its own. An elected public official and head of government (OP Paneerselvan) was forced to resign due to a combination of threats, mass hysteria, and manipulation of state resources and the blatant use of criminal non-state actors by an unelected non-state actor (Ms Sasikala). Elected members of the legislative assembly were placed under house arrest and cajoled into supporting Sasikala as the new head of government.

The thought of this happening in a mature democracy like India has forced me to go back to the literature around the capture of the state.

The theoretical background behind the capture of the state has revolved around relationship with the firms, the rent generating advantages provided by public officials and the whole business of lobbying generated in the captured economy. In their paper, Hellman, Jones and Kaufmann (2000)[i] have sought to distinguish state capture with the other types of relationship between the firm and the state; lobbying or influence and administrative corruption.

State capture has been described as the ability of a firm to manage the transactions of governance either by paying elected officials and bureaucrats or by manipulating the rules of the game. Influence on the other hand has been the softer part of the corruption of governance with its linkage to the past, political dynasties, family ties and legacies of both present and past business networks.

In the present context, the capture of the state of Tamil Nadu by an individual who holds no public office and stands accused of corruption, is a serious threat to the legitimacy of the Indian state and its governance attributes. Should Sasikala be invited to form the next government, the moral high ground of democracy and its ability to manage a balance of power between those in power and those who allow them to remain in power will be destroyed. We have already witnessed some erosion of this high ground in recent times across several geographies.

For the central government in India, managing this crisis will be the litmus test for the whole nation as it projects its democratic credentials in other emerging and transition economies.

[i] Hellman, J.S., Jones, G. and Kaufmann, D., 2000. Seize the state, seize the day: State capture, corruption and influence in transition.

The blog@globestrategy

A collection of writing and thoughts on global issues by sureshgeorge
The Indian Avatar of Democracy  
Oman’s Transition and the legitimacy of autocratic rule . 
Putin, the EU and the return of the Black Sea spring 
To GDP or not to GDP  
The Global Business of keeping America solvent
  

National Champions and the Rise of protectionism from the East    
Will the Egyptian sphinx smile or cry?   
The Economic implications of a Royal wedding     
On why Dubai wants a piece of India’s real estate     
The Obama Encirclement of China    
The Emergence of a Powerful State within a Neo-liberal conversation     
The Elephant trumpeting at the Dragon: Stealth diplomacy in South Asia     
From raising chickens in India to running an english club   
 In the name of a just God  
Why ‘revolution’ is the new buzz word in the MENA region.   
When flying machines refuse to fly 
Still on the aircrafts

Still on the aircrafts

Still on the A380 fiasco, has anyone thought of linking up 3 news articles that came out on the subject. The first is that of Singapore and Lufthansa replacing their trent 900 engines. the second is Pratt & Witney suing RR for copying a Fan blade design and the third is Boeing halting the testing of the dreamliner. Put all of these together in a sequence and try to correlate this with the BP fiasco. What do you get? Do you see a rival to protect its share at the expense of others in a niche market? RR provides over 50% of aircraft engines and many of these have been tested and proven reliable? When  1 model experiences issues, you get a lot of negative media coverage while you try and sort out what when wrong. But then your only rival walks in the party and says you cheated on design and your net value declines by almost 10%. Methinks, RR will wait out all of this.The company is still innovative, reliable and has capabilty. At least the Chinese think so!. Long live British Engineering

When flying machines refuse to fly

This week has seen a flurry of articles on the engine travails of the A380 with issues on the Rolls Royce variant of the powerful engines that propels the biggest passenger aircraft. The latest news today is of another competing aircraft – the Boeing 787 Dreamliner’s testing being stopped due to an emergency landing on tuesday following smoke in the cockpit. Both these aircrafts have been powered by Rolls Royce engines.(Sic)The similarities with both aircrafts have been the leap in innovation and design that airframe manufcaturers wanted to see in a field that had stagnated after the development of the 747 in 1970s. So we had the Airbus A380 with its large passenger capacity and long range design and the dreamliner with its emphasis on innovation& effieciency.In the background of recent safety issues, can we as mere mortals boarding these aircrafts ask if aircraft design has reached a technological barrier? Is there a limit on how much power and thrust can be developed for large passenger planes? I know that engineers could argue that these are teething problems with a new aircraft and that there is no limit. But then why is that after the 747 in 1970, the next major development was only the Airbus A340 and the Antonovs? Why do we have problems when a radical development is designed in airframes. Will these issues be resolved?As for me, the next time , I book a flight, I will be looking out of the window for smoke.

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