The Supreme Court's criticism of the behaviour of Karanataka's State Government in handling the Veerappan-Rajkumar crisis is quite apt.  

Harsh words  but oh so true !  Let me quote some of them again :

"What have you done for last eight years? What protection have you given to the people? Such kind of an incident was waiting to happen. Now you say that you cannot do anything. If you cannot, then quit and make way for somebody else who can do it."

And,

"This is compounding negligence upon negligence upon negligence, we will not be a party to this (release of the accused)."

The interim report on the Air France Concorde disaster indicates that a piece of metal on the runway was a leading cause.  Another reminder of how vulnerable humankind and its technologies are to the slightest mistakes or irregularities.  (Other reminders are the "ILoveYou" virus/worm, the "O" ring in the Challenger tragedy, inadequate planning for Y2K in software development practices  .....)