A rail blockade by the Kurmi community in Jharkhand has led to the cancellation, diversion, and short-termination of over 100 passenger trains, leaving thousands stranded. The protesters are demanding Scheduled Tribe status and inclusion of the Kurmali language in the Constitution.
Experts say Indian Railways must grow its share in the freight market to remain financially sustainable.
The Indian Railways has established holding areas at various stations across northern India in anticipation of a surge in pilgrims during the final week of the Maha Kumbh festival in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh. This comes after a stampede at New Delhi Railway station claimed 18 lives due to confusion over train names. The holding areas are located outside the platforms to control passenger flow and prevent overcrowding, ensuring safe and smooth travel operations.
Following a stampede at New Delhi railway station and large crowds arriving for the Maha Kumbh, authorities in Uttar Pradesh have implemented stringent security protocols at key railway stations including Prayagraj, Varanasi, Ayodhya, Kanpur, Lucknow and Mirzapur. Measures include restricted entry, holding areas for passengers, increased security personnel, and improved facilities to prevent overcrowding.
No person was injured in the incident but it caused damage to window panes of three coaches, including the pantry car, they said, adding one person has been detained in connection with the incident.
A 41-year-old man allegedly opened fire inside the Sealdah-New Delhi Rajdhani Express over an argument with a coach attendant for a seat, a railway official said on Friday.
The response was tepid in other parts of the country even as several INDIA bloc parties as well as other non-BJP outfits extended their support to the bandh.
Indian Railways has managed to improve its freight volumes each year since the pandemic. However, its inability to add new industries and goods will pose a challenge for the national transporter in the wake of it setting an ambitious target of 45 per cent share in the national logistics by 2030. According to officials, the ministry of railways achieved 114 million tonnes (mt) of miscellaneous goods (classified as balance and other goods) in 2023-24.
Asserting that the prime minister's job will remain with BJP leader Narendra Modi even after the general elections slated for next year, Singh claimed the country is scaling new heights under PM Modi's leadership.
The probe report has estimated the cost of damage due to the accident at more than Rs 52 crore.
The 23-coach 12506 North East Express had departed the Anand Vihar terminal in Delhi at 7:40 am on Wednesday for its nearly 33-hour journey to Kamakhya, about six kilometres away from Guwahati.
As Indian Railways looks to avert the crisis like last summer, preparations are under way to stock up coal at thermal power plants. Much like February and March, thermal coal movement in April was 5 per cent higher than the previous year, data from the Ministry of Railways shows. While India prepares for a hot summer this year, 48.23 million tonnes (mt) of coal for thermal power plants was ferried by Indian Railways in April. The national transporter also moved about 500,000 tonnes--18.4 per cent-- more imported coal for power plants this April than it had done last year.
The Railways cancelled 234 trains while 340 trains have been affected so far due to protests against the Agnipath scheme for recruitment in the defence services, the Railways said on Friday.
The Indian Railways has decided to not cancel any more passenger trains to accommodate more freight traffic for coal transport. It will also gradually restore the ones it cancelled recently. The national transporter is of the view that coal supply is now reaching normative levels and does not need any more special measures. "Early data suggests that coal supply has stepped up since the passenger trains were cancelled.
The protests, which is into its third day in the state, caused massive disruption of railway services at Buxar and Kahalgaon, officials of East Central Railways said.
Over 34 trains were cancelled and eight more partially cancelled on Thursday due to protests against the Agnipath scheme to recruit youngsters into the armed forces and delays in the Railway Recruitment Board (RRB) exams.
In 2021, the Railways boasted of a historic feat -- no passenger deaths in train accidents in two years. However, the derailment of the Bikaner-Guwahati Express in 2022 brought the Railways back to its forgetful past.
Of the 612 trains affected, 602 trains were cancelled, including 223 mail and express trains and 379 passengers trains, the Railways said in a statement.
'I am helpless and there is no one to help me.' 'I have been on this platform since Saturday.'
Passengers in 200 railway stations across India will soon be able to recharge their mobiles, pay electricity bills, fill up Aadhaar and Pan card forms and even file taxes with help from Common Service Centre (CSC) kiosks to be set up by RailTel. The scheme has been operationalised in partnership with CSC e-Governance Services India Limited' (CSC-SPV) and the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, RailTel said in a statement. The kiosks will be run by village level entrepreneurs (VLEs).
As part of the efforts to bring several opposition parties together on a common platform to defeat the BJP in 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Pawar met Kharge on Thursday evening.
While the SECR has cancelled 22 mail or express trains and 12 passenger trains, the Northern Railways has cancelled four mail or express trains, and as many passenger services.
In two separate attacks, suspected Maoists triggered a blast on the railway tracks in Jharkhand's Giridih district, damaging its fish plates, and also blew up a mobile tower in Hazaribag, the police said.
Protests against 'Agnipath' left Bihar in flames on Friday when rampaging mobs set fire to dozens of railway coaches, engines and stations and torched Bharatiya Janata Party offices, vehicles and other property, prompting the police to suspend internet services in nearly a third of the state.
Thirteen wagons of one of the trains and an engine jumped off the tracks following the collision.
A railway station and a police vehicle were torched and several law enforcers injured in stone-pelting incidents on the fourth consecutive day of protests against Agnipath scheme on Saturday when a bandh was also called to press for the demand for rollback of the new scheme for recruitment in armed forces.
A maximum of over 2,200 infections were reported by the South Central Railway, followed by 1,323 cases in the Central Railway, 1,307 in the Northern Railway, 1,145 in the Southern Railway and 1,013 cases in the East Central Railway.
At least 20 people, most of them pilgrims, were crushed to death under the wheels of Saharsa-Patna Rajyarani Express at Bhamara Railway Station in Bihar on Monday morning.
A man was shot dead in police firing in Telangana's Secunderabad, trains went up in flames, and public and private vehicles attacked, as railway stations and highways turned into battleground in many states on Friday amid burgeoning protests against Agnipath, the contentious defence recruitment scheme.
Around 300 trains came to a grinding halt at various places on Tuesday afternoon due to failure of both the Northern and the Eastern grids covering close to 10 states, with movement on the busy Delhi-Howrah route almost paralysed.
An eco-friendly green toilet is a reality in an express train under the East Central Railway zone in Bihar, railway officials on Wednesday said.
Twenty-six coal-laden wagons of a goods train derailed at a place between Bhabua-Durgawati railway stations in Bihar's Kaimur district, officials said on Friday.
Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Wednesday urged job aspirants not to destroy public property and assured them that their grievances would be resolved as candidates went on a rampage over alleged irregularities in a recruitment exam by the public transporter.
In a bid to check organised gangs involved in drugging and looting railway passengers -- mostly migrant workers from Bihar and Jharkhand, the East Central Railway has identified 32 long route trains and 50 railway stations across five states to launch special drive against them.
The Maoists on Sunday began their two-day Bharat bandh by blowing up railway tracks in two districts of Jharkhand, even as the death toll in the Naxal attack on the convoy of independent MP and former assembly speaker Inder Singh Namdhari rose to 11.
A day after a major train accident in Uttar Pradesh, railway officials in Bihar and Jharkhand are worried as nearly half of the railway crossings in the state remain unmanned in the five divisions of the East Central Railway, making them vulnerable to accidents. Railway officials of ECR believe that unmanned railway level crossings pose a serious threat to people. They have blamed the Bihar government of being apathetic to repeated requests.
More than 4,300 employees of the Railways have come under the scanner of its own vigilance department for their alleged involvement in corrupt practices.
Five teenaged boys were Sunday mowed down by a train near Goldenganj station under Sonepur-Chapra section of the East-Central Railway in Bihar, a Government Railway Police officer said.
Ten wagons of a goods train got derailed when Maoists blew up a railway track near Kurhani railway station in Hajipur-Muzaffarpur section of East-Central Railway in Bihar's Muzaffarpur district early Monday, DGP Neelmani said.
A driver and seven passengers were injured, two of them seriously, when seven coaches of the Barauni Gwalior Mail jumped tracks and one of them was hit by Gangasagar Express near Samastipur in Bihar, a railway official said on Friday.
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