All tunnels being constructed in Uttarakhand will be reviewed, Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said on Thursday after drilling began at the Silkyara tunnel with a heavy duty machine to rescue 40 labourers trapped there for four days.
The minister for road transport and highways, who was accompanied by Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami, said the rescue operation is challenging as the soil strata in the Himalayan region is not uniform.
Several Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states in the country, including Gujarat and Assam, have expressed their keenness to follow the Uttarakhand UCC as a model.
Nagnyal said 26 people were in the vehicle and most of them were residents of Delhi. Ten people died in the accident, the IG said.
Mana is situated near Badrinath and devotees going to the Himalayan temple go up to the village for sightseeing.
Cricketer Rishabh Pant expressed his gratitude to the Chief Minister for being honoured as the Uttarakhand brand ambassador.
Former Uttarakhand CM and Congress leader Harish Rawat alleged that the state government wants an immediate discussion on the UCC bill despite nobody having a draft copy of it.
The draft will be examined, studied and discussed before it is tabled in the assembly on February 6, he said.
Keeping up his tradition of celebrating the festival with soldiers, Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Sir Creek near the Indo-Pak border in Gujarat's Kutch district and offered sweets to jawans.
Hours before the ceremony, Saini visited the Valmiki Bhawan and offered prayers at a gurdwara and the Mansa Devi temple in Panchkula.
Twelve people, including three of a family, were killed and six injured in heavy overnight rains that triggered flooding and house collapse as several rivers swelled in Uttarakhand, officials said on Thursday.
'If this was not tokenism, why is the central government not bringing the UCC, why is a small state like Uttarakhand doing so?'
The meeting, which began around 10:30 pm on Thursday, lasted for more than four hours and was held at the party's headquarters in New Delhi.
Addressing the concluding session of the two-day meeting of the Vishva Hindu Parishad's (VHP) Kendriya Margadarshak Mandal in Haridwar, Dhami said, "Uttarakhand shares its borders with two countries (China and Nepal). A particular community had illegally encroached land and raised structures in the border areas of the state which are being removed as part of a drive."
A Border Roads Organisation team will be stationed in Joshimath to monitor the yatra on a day-to-day basis and ensure immediate treatment of cracks on roads or any other problem that might arise, the chief minister said.
'People want to do business in the name of the Kedarnath temple.'
The tribal communities, asserting their rights under the Forest Rights Act, are now planning to gather in Delhi to demand "justice" for their livelihoods and traditions that are closely linked to the forests.
Singh said the Modi government has changed the approach adopted by previous governments that the border areas are buffer zones between the plains and the potential adversary.
The Uttarakhand assembly on Wednesday passed the Uniform Civil Code Bill, which may serve as a template for other Bharatiya Janata Party-run states to enact similar legislation.
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami on Saturday reviewed relief and rescue operations with senior officials of the government after returning to Dehradun from on-site inspection of Joshimath landslide area gave directions for forming a coordination committee immediately at the government level under the chairmanship of the Additional Chief Secretary and at the local level under the chairmanship of the Commissioner Garhwal.
The chief minister briefed the prime minister about the rescue operations in detail and said all the trapped workers are safe with oxygen, nutritious food and water being constantly supplied to them.
Vijay Rawat, brother of India's first chief of defence staff General Bipin Rawat who recently died in a helicopter crash, joined the Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday.
'Even, nature looks cheerful today. A cool wind has stirred up the leaves and trees. The weather is good. We are hopeful'
With just five metres left to achieve a breakthrough in digging through the rubble of the Silkyara tunnel, preparations got underway on Tuesday to rush the trapped workers to a hospital for immediate medical care following their rescue.
The curfew was imposed and the administration issued shoot-at-sight orders after stone-pelting incidents, torching of vehicles and a mob surrounded the local police station following the anti-encroachment drive.
The 41 workers, who were rescued from Uttarakhand's Silkyara tunnel in a multi-agency rescue operation, kept their spirits up while trapped inside by taking morning walks and practising yoga, a rescued worker told Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
States like Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Gujarat, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh had on Friday announced similar incentives.
The accident occurred on a turning near the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) camp when the driver lost control of the vehicle, plunging the bus into a 70-metre-deep gorge, Mussoorie police station SHO D S Kohli said.
Addressing reporters at his residence soon after the meeting ended, Chowdhury said six names came up before the panel for the selection of the two ECs and the names of Sandhu and Kumar were finalised by a majority of members of the high-powered panel.
A Muslim man used to work on the tandoor at my restaurant. But due to this issue, I asked him to leave. Because people can make an issue over it. We don't want such trouble here
The situation in the district worsened on Friday with the flames reaching the high court colony in the Pines area.
'There is something in our desh ki mitti that has held us together.'
'So many conquerors, colonisers, cultures came and went, but we withstood them and rose up again.'
The government on Tuesday decided to set up a committee of secretaries to fast-track implementation of infrastructure projects along the border with China.
The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) on Friday said no progress has been made since Thursday in drilling through the debris at the Silkyara tunnel in Uttarakhand to rescue 41 trapped workers but assured that the drilling by auger machine will start soon.
A sudden downpour in Delhi caught citizens off guard and caused heavy waterlogging and traffic jams on Tuesday while Mumbai breathed a sigh of relief as showers stopped a day after heavy rain brought the metropolis to its knees.
In view of the safety of the passengers, the district administration stopped the passengers at Sonprayag and Gaurikund due to continuous bad weather.
Efforts have also intensified to extinguish the raging forest fires in the state, especially in the worst-affected areas of Nainital, Haldwani and Ramnagar forest divisions, forest officials here said on Sunday.
The Uttarakhand assembly poll result has presented the Bharatiya Janata Party with a dilemma of sorts as it weighs various options after outgoing chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami who was tipped to continue in the post lost the election even as the party stormed back to power.
Jaymal Singh Negi mentioned that his brother informed him about the trapped men engaging in yoga and exercises inside the tunnel.
The team consisted of trainee mountaineers from the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering and their trainers.
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