Dudurudh

Late last week the National Transport Safety Board (NTSB) published its findings after an investigation into the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines aircraft crash disasters of 2018. The report established that Boeing’s flawed assumptions of how aircraft crew would use the new safety sensor mechanism on the 737Max plane in the event of an emergency was to blame for the disasters which resulted in the death of 346 people. Neither FAA safety assessments nor Boeing’s training modules took into consideration that in real-world experiences of aircraft crews, pilots were faced with multiple alarms and alerts at the same time and consequently, their response to these alerts was inconsistent with Boeing’s assumptions.  This gap between design assumptions and real world user experience is not uncommon in other sectors. Consumer product manufacturer Samsung Mobile, announced their new “foldable” phone earlier this year. The new flexible screen on the phone had a thin, protective layer of plasti...

This story is written as part of the “Once…At School” contest on Tell-A-Tale – Bringing together stories and storytellers to create a positive change. “Rahul added some extra things to that green Beyblade. Otherwise he would not have beaten me. I asked him to let me see it but he didn’t agree” Anthony said. “Let it go” Gurpreet said. “Cheaters never prosper” There weren’t many things more insulting for a 7 th grader than being beaten by a junior at a Beyblade challenge. He swore to take revenge and bit into the chapatti jam roll his mother had packed for him, ripping it into two unequal pieces. He looked like a predator tearing its prey’s head apart from the rest of its body “I will show that stupid fellow. Just wait and see.” he said, making sure he’d be audible across the room and the corridor. When the bell rang, everyone scurried around the class, back to their respective seats except Anthony. Anthony sat on top of the desk meddling with his Beyblade, mumbling to himself abou...

  Disclaimer: There is no chronological order to read these entries. They are independent of each other and not necessarily in any logical order. Some are short. Others are long. Some are nascent understandings of a city that are heavily biased by stereotype. These maybe inconsistent and could, overtime, even be contradictory. They are meant to be read as singular moments in time without any context or background. You may have had similar experiences as some of these entries or entirely different ones but these are mine alone.  #1 Times Square We went back to Manhattan and on to 42 nd street, possibly the most famous address on earth – Times Square. Times Square was crazy. It was MG road on steroids. The buildings were taller, the billboards were bigger and brighter and there were 20 times as many people and much more diverse than the crowd back home. To come from a place like India and find a place more crowded was quite something. It was an ocean of tourists, clicking pict...