India has confirmed that its Union Minister for Transport and Highways, Kamal Nath, will participate in the Moscow conference. India's Union health minister is also expected to attend.
Today I visited the traffic police in Mumbai. Their motivated and energetic Traffic Police Commissioner, Sanjay Barve, says road fatalities in the city have fallen by half - from around 800 to 400 - in the past few years, mainly as a result of enforcing helmet wearing by motorcycle riders (similar efforts to get pillion riders wearing helmets will also be launched soon). The police have also prioritised promoting and enforcing lane discipline and tackling drink driving. More than 35,000 drivers or riders have been caught drink driving since 2007, with 15,000 of them ending up in prison. 92,000 people were fined for not wearing helmets in just a two month period in the summer of 2008.
