The final jugaad.

On 12 November 2023, a portion of the Silkyara Bend - Barkot tunnel, under construction at Uttarkashi in Uttarakhand state in India, collapsed at 5.30 am trapping 41 workers inside. wikipedia. Two tunnel boring machines were employed to drill a hole large enough to bring the men out but the machines broke on 17 November. An auger machine was brought but got stuck on 25 November. At last, "The rescue team decided to use manual tools such as hammers and chisels to break the debris and reach the trapped workers." This is the famous Indian 'Jugaad' which means making do with minimum resources with basic technology and knowledge. wikipedia . "As per the NDMA (National Disaster Management Authority), vertical drilling started at 12 noon today (yesterday), and been completed for 15 meters. The rescuers need to dig a total of 86 meters to reach the 41 workers." TH. They hope to bring the workers out by Christmas, while we hope that the vertical drill and the debris do not collapse on top of the workers. The tunnel "did not have any emergency exit and was built through a geological fault, a member of a panel of experts investigating the disaster said." Reuters. "It is well known that the Himalayas are a young, unstable, fragile mountain range. It has active fault lines and sees far more seismic activity than say, the Alps in Europe, which are an older mountain range." "It means that the Himalayas are more susceptible to excessive and unscientific construction work." The Quint. Why this ignorance of science? "In October 2022, India's Ministry of Science and Technology, in collaboration with other ministries and departments, announced that it would host a four-day conference called 'Akash for Life' at a university in the northern Indian city of Dehradun. 'Akash' translates to 'sky' or 'spirit' in Hindi, and refers to one of the five universal elements according to Hinduism." The Wire. The rot starts in schools. "Colleges select students based on their marks in Board exams, usually not making any adjustments when comparing among Boards." "In 1970s and 1980s, central Boards started awarding higher marks to students in regions where they felt they had to do this for their students to stay competitive with those of corresponding state Boards," wrote Sridhar Rajagopalan. Now all Boards compete with easy questions, lenient marking and grace marks to ensure that their students get the highest marks to be eligible for college admissions. Elite colleges select only the best and those left out seek admission in any college they can find. "Small private colleges with incompetent teachers, irregular classes, outdated curricula, and no opportunities for on-the-job training, are making the country's workforce unemployable, as per Bloomberg." BI. Yet, "India has surpassed China as the most represented higher education system in Asia with 148 featured universities," according to the QS World University Rankings for Asia. TOI. The joke is that, in the US, "The number of students from India shot up 35% to roughly 269,000 from 190,000 the previous year (DH) and "Last year, the number of Indian students taking admission abroad exceeded 750,000, marking a remarkable 50% increase from 2021," wrote V Ramgopal Rao. Escape or be trapped in a tunnel. For the trapped, pray to the local deity The final jugaad.