A few days earlier while returning home via the Deccan Queen’s meandering journey cutting across the Western Ghats, a civil argument punctuated the silence of my compartment. A Parsi woman in her mid-forties engaged in a verbal duel with the ticket collector who did not give his consent to a ticket that was being shown to him on a fellow travelers laptop. A few words and a fine later the matter was settled and the TC proved right from the rules displayed across the ticket of another traveler. What struck me was how long it would be that the Indian Railways would come to recognize the power of the digital. With geo-targeted social media and 23 million smart phones across India waiting to ride the android bandwagon, the Railways must listen up. The solution to the problem lies in the digitalizing of tickets. With Android enabled smart phones hosting multiple code recognition software’s this would make life one step ahead with the only cost borne by arming the ticket checkers with scanner...