Heads have rolled for far less, but Suresh Prabhu stays railway minister, in spite of 3 major accidents under his watch in the last 10 days alone. India's third railway minister Lal Bahadur Shastri resigned in 1956 after the Ariyalur train accident in Tamil Nadu, in which 142 people died. In 1999, railway minister Nitish Kumar quit office after nearly 300 were killed in a mishap in Assam. And a year later, Mamata Banerjee, Kumar's successor, left her position as well after twin railway tragedies in 2000.

To give Prabhu credit, he did offer to resign after the second disaster but Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked him to wait. Why? No one seems to know for sure, so perhaps it's safe to guess there is no candidate more suitable than Prabhu to don the mantle of the Union railways minister at the moment. Or maybe we can expect better performance from him in the days to come. But that's no comfort to the dead and dying.

Early this morning, the engine and seven coaches of the Nagpur-Mumbai Duronto Express derailed in Kalyan in Maharashtra. Several people were injured, though there were no reports of major casualties. Only days ago, the Delhi-bound Kaifiyat Express had derailed in Uttar Pradesh's Auraiya district on 23 August, leaving at least 81 people injured. On 19 August, the Kalinga Utkal Express also derailed in Muzaffarnagar, again in Uttar Pradesh, killing 22 people and injuring over 200.

A recent HuffPost India story estimated that around 238 persons to have lost their lives in "consequential train accidents" during the year 2016-17. Of these, 193 deaths were from derailments alone, the highest-ever number of deaths from such a cause in the 17 years for which data is available.

Before we get carried away by the data, let's remind ourselves of the plain truth: Indians have been dying in droves for years now, or getting grievously injured, because the State is unable to deliver a safe public transport network, one that is, ironically, funded by the taxpayers' money.

The reasons for such abysmal failure are well-rehearsed. Much noise is made about decades-old tracks that need replacing, faulty signalling system and unmanned level crossings every time an accident happens. But everything goes back to business as usual before the dust on the wreckage has fully settled.

The cycle of blame is unabated: lack of funds, too much pressure on the system to halt services, even to carry out essential maintenance work, human errors caused by appalling working conditions, the list runs long.

Much of it makes eminent sense, too, especially the complaints of locomotive drivers, most of whom don't have access to toilets during shifts that usually stretch for several hours, no proper lunch break, and often not even a seat to rest on. Further, many Indians, regardless of knowing full well that they shouldn't jump level crossings, continue to behave recklessly, bringing death upon themselves. Faulty signalling systems or weather conditions also cause the tracks to misalign, leading to derailment.