Why did the central government fail to build industries and big cities in North India?

 North India sat on massive coal reserves, yet the factories built to process them ended up on the coast. This failure to industrialize was the result of one well-intended policy.

In 1952, the Indian government introduced the Freight Equalization Policy to promote balanced industrial growth across the nation. It subsidized the railway transport of essential raw materials like coal, steel, and cement. This meant a factory in coastal Tamil Nadu paid the same freight costs for Bihar’s coal as a factory located right next to the mine. While meant to help the rest of the country develop, the policy stripped the resource-rich northern and eastern states of their only natural comparative advantage. If raw materials cost the same everywhere, companies logically chose to build their industries in coastal states, which offered established seaports for global trade.

Geography compounded the issue. The British had built colonial infrastructure around extraction through the major coastal ports. Landlocked northern states like Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, and Rajasthan had no direct sea access. Without the gravity of raw material cost savings to anchor them, private industrial capital flowed outward.

Instead of heavy industry, the central government tasked the North with solving a different national crisis: starvation. During the 1960s, India faced severe food shortages. The government poured resources into Punjab, Haryana, and western Uttar Pradesh to jumpstart the Green Revolution. Capital that might have gone into manufacturing corridors was instead directed toward canals, dams, fertilizer plants, and agricultural subsidies.

While western and southern states built sprawling industrial belts, the northern plains became the nation's breadbasket. It was only with the modern rise of the service and IT sectors—which rely on internet infrastructure and human capital rather than deep-water seaports—that inland northern cities like Gurugram and Noida finally emerged as major economic hubs.

A wheat field in Punjab. During the Green Revolution, the central government prioritized agricultural infrastructure over heavy industry in much of North India. Photo by Satpal Dandiwal is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

What disturbing mystery has no government authority ever been able to explain?

 In 1997, Art Bell , a famous radio and television announcer, on his radio show “ Coast to Coast ” – in which he talked about mysteries and unexplained facts – received a fax from a certain Mel Waters claiming to know about the largest hole in the world .

Since it was a curious fact and relevant to the program, Bell decided to air it the next day.
Mel Waters specified during the phone call that this enormous hole was located on his property in Ellensburg, Washington . He recounted that for decades, all kinds of waste, dead animals, furniture, broken appliances, and more had been dumped into that hole, all without ever finding a bottom. Waters, now obsessed, tried to study it and measure its depth. One day, he equipped himself with 15 miles of fishing line, attached a weight to the end, and lowered it into the well. When he reached the end of all 15 miles of line, he still hadn't reached the bottom.

This hole, later renamed Mel's Hole , had become famous over time, and so others attempted to measure and study it. New researchers, along with Mel Waters, attempted, as an experiment, to lower a live sheep into the bottom of the well using the lever of a Jeep, taking care not to hurt it. But when it reached the bottom, the rope was pulled forcefully and shaken. In panic, they tried to retrieve it as quickly as possible, but by then all that remained of the sheep was a pile of deformed flesh . After this event, the well became extremely famous, and people from surrounding towns came to see it.

A few days later, Mel Waters updated Art Bell, explaining that soldiers with heavy equipment had surrounded the hole and cordoned off the area , building concrete walls. Mel also recounted that, on his deathbed, he wished he could be thrown into the well because he knew of a neighbor's dog that had been thrown into the hole after his death and had been seen alive again a few days later.

Some curious listeners of the Coast to Coast program tried to find information about Mel Waters, but no one found anything about him ; he wasn't listed in the phone book, and there was no mention of him in the Ellensburg land registry. He didn't exist, and he didn't own any property. Later, even the authorities said they knew nothing about this hole. Some curious people decided to search for Mel's well themselves, using the Terra Server website (the predecessor of Google Earth) and noticed that a darkened section of the area was visible.

Today, Mel's Hole is visible on Google Maps. A famous geologist named Jack Powell believes that the enormous sinkhole near Ellensburg sparked people's fantasies and inspired this story. However, a great deal of mystery remains surrounding a story that—officially— has yet to be explained naturally.

How far will a government go to protect its country's reputation?

 A group of Italian men enjoy a sumptuous meal at an Albanian restaurant.

After eating, they went outside for a quick smoke. Suddenly, they disappeared into the darkness of the night. They just ran off, without paying for their meal... like the typical tourist who "eats and runs off."

The restaurant manager sought them out, but it was too late. Disappointed, he emailed the Italian Embassy in Albania, providing the details of the four men who had dined at his restaurant. Before fleeing, they even praised the food served to them.

Maybe many people think the manager is being too over the top because he is making a big deal out of a small problem like this!

So, what happened next?

The incident was heard by the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni.

Shortly after, the Italian Prime Minister issued an order. Meloni told the Italian ambassador, "Okay, just pay the bill for those idiots."

Ultimately, the Italian Embassy in Albania paid the bill for the tourists and wrote a letter of apology. The total bill was €80 (approximately 1.3 million Rupiah).

Francesco Lollobrigida, Italian Minister of Agriculture, said:

"We pay the bill because it concerns our nation's dignity." "We don't want Italy's reputation to be tarnished by a handful of dishonest individuals, even though the majority of Italians are good and decent people."