We asked colleagues, present and past, to reflect on a man who has made such a difference to their lives and careers. Here it is then, a rich collection of memories that offer enchanting glimpses of the enigmatic Ajit Balakrishnan.
At the age of 15, she is all set to graduate in Psychology from the Devi Ahilya Vishwavidyalaya in Indore.
Modi will unfurl the national flag and deliver the customary address to the nation from the ramparts of the historic monument.
'The longevity of the government is a doubt for me because when the going gets tough, there could a be a point in time where there might be pressure, from within the party or from the allies.'
Indian Railways has plans to decongest network and become more self dependent.
Budget proposals have set four goals to transform Indian Railways.
Larsen & Toubro (L&T) disappointed the Street with its results for the January-March quarter of the 2022-23 financial year (Q4FY23) due to weaker core engineering & construction (E&C) segment performance by the engineering giant.' Although core E&C order inflows for FY23 rose 19 per cent year-on-year (YoY), with orders from railways, metals and water sectors, margins in the infrastructure segment crashed to all-time low. Revenue at Rs 58,300 crore was up 10 per cent YoY but somewhat below expectations.
The central government said the railways and civil aviation ministry must suspend all concessional travel on trains and flights, except for students, patients and disabled people.
The BJP lost 15 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in 2019. Union ministers have been deployed in all 15, tasked with turning the result around.
The National High Speed Rail Corporation Limited has invited bids for the design and construction of an underground station at Mumbai's Bandra Kurla Complex and for a tunnel for the bullet train project, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Friday. This is the first set of bids invited after the rebel Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde-led government came to power in Maharashtra. The new government has given the green light to the project, which remained dormant during the erstwhile Uddhav Thackeray-led dispensation.
With land acquisition completed and infrastructure work streamlined, India's bullet train dreams are slowly, but finally, inching closer to reality.
Capital expenditure (capex) by 54 large central public sector enterprises (CPSEs) and five departmental arms with an annual capex target of Rs 100 crore and above has reached around 42.5 per cent of their annual target of about Rs 7.33 trillion in this financial year so far, a senior official from the Ministry of Finance told Business Standard. "The Centre is pushing the big public undertakings in the infrastructure and refinery sector to achieve 90 per cent of their target by the end of the third quarter," he said. The capex by this group of CPSEs stands at around Rs 3.1 trillion in the April-August period so far.
Capital expenditure by 54 large central public sector enterprises and five departmental arms, having a capex minimum target of Rs 100 crore, rose 93 per cent year-on-year (YoY) in the April-May period to Rs 1.39 trillion. The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and the Railways have started this financial year's capex cycle on a stronger note. In the first two months of FY24, the 54 CPSEs, along with the departmental arms, achieved 19 per cent of their combined budget target of Rs 7.33 trillion, Business Standard has learnt.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday inaugurated and laid foundation stones of development projects worth more than Rs 38,000 crore in different sectors in Mumbai, giving a big push to infrastructure, urban travel and healthcare ahead of civic polls in the city in which the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena faction will seek to showcase these ventures to take on their political rivals.
'Our factories are world-class and are becoming increasingly attractive for our global business leaders to use to serve other markets.'
Lok Sabha on Monday passed a bill seeking to expeditiously evict persons occupying unauthorised public premises amid concerns that the provisions could be used by the government to harass members of Parliament.
The Yamuna surged to a record 208.48 metres at 8 am, the Central Water Commission said on Thursday, adding that it is likely to rise to 208.75 metres by 4 pm.
Mumbai, India's financial capital, is set for a mega transformation with a massive patch of land opening up for redevelopment; a new metro railway ready to start services by the year-end; and the country's oldest railway station, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, going for modernisation with private sector participation. Work on Mumbai's second airport will start from next month, while construction of the sea link connecting central Mumbai to Navi Mumbai has already moved into a fast lane despite Covid-induced lockdowns. Also, a coastal road project, connecting Nariman Point to Worli, is under way and will help decongest the city to quite an extent. Of all these mega infrastructure projects, the one that has a huge potential to change the city's skyline is the Eastern Waterfront project - to be built on the Mumbai Port Trust (MbPT) land.
An earthquake measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale hit Myanmar, tremors of which shook the northeast, several parts of West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand and even Delhi and NCR on Wednesday.
While the responses of the candidates were predictable, depending on which side they belonged to, an interesting point slipped through when Rahul Shewale cited the Dharavi Redevelopment Project as a scheme that would add to Mumbai's importance. No big infrastructural project in Mumbai, he said, could be successful without the Centre's nod.
If the Indian Railways thinks it can get away with this sassy attitude, it is because it is, in a sense, a monopolist in the business of transporting people. The distances one has to cover, say from Thane or Virar to Mumbai is impossible by road provides railways the arrogance, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
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.
Fans wearing the India jersey, carrying the Indian flag, laughing, joking and anticipating an India win are moving towards the Narendra Modi stadium. There are families, friends, children, adults, teenagers, middle aged and the senior citizen who have all painted the city blue.
An eyewitness said some people in a minibus and private cars were trapped.
If 4,000 workers could work round the clock for the construction of the new Parliament building, then there is no reason why all infrastructure projects too cannot follow that model, asserts Dr Sudhir Bisht.
The building of the metro in south Bangalore has represented, to borrow a line, not the building of a city, but the sacking of a city.
The station with the most annual revenue is CST Mumbai, followed by Dadar.
The heaviest rainfall began to ease across hard-hit portions of Manhattan and Brooklyn late Friday morning, but another round is expected in the afternoon and could reinvigorate dangerous flooding.
'Interim Budget has ignited the entrepreneurial spirit.'
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, meanwhile, said the sixth flight under India's evacuation mission 'Operation Ganga' left for Delhi from Budapest with 240 Indian nationals.
Flood situation in south Bengal turned grim on Saturday with 1.19 lakh people taking shelter in relief camps in 12 districts of the state even as weatherman forecast more heavy rains in the next two days.
"Around 1,000 buses, including 40 luxury Volvo buses, refused to enter Delhi through the Badarpur, Kundli, IFFCO Chowk and Bahadurgarh borders," said Haryana Roadways Workers' Union leader Sarbat Punia.
Industrial metals (ferrous and non-ferrous) suffered great volatility once the Ukraine War began in February 2022. First, there was a sharp price rise due to fears of supply disruption, followed by weak global demand. China's weakness and rolling lockdowns have hit production and demand.
The Congress party on Tuesday vowed to oppose the present format of the land bill both inside the Parliament and outside.
Unfortunately, in India, infrastructure projects are lost in a miasma of political and personal vanity, observes Shyam G Menon.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday launched a Rs 100 lakh crore national master plan for multi-modal connectivity that aims to develop infrastructure to reduce logistic costs and boost the economy. PM Gati Shakti targets to cut logistic costs, increase cargo handling capacity and reduce the turnaround time, Modi said at a function to launch the plan. The plan aims to lend more power and speed to projects by connecting all concerned departments on one platform, he said, adding the infrastructure schemes of various ministries and state governments will be designed and executed with a common vision.
What some of our leaders were up to over the weekend.
He accused the previous governments of being sluggish on implementing railway projects and said the work of ambitious eastern and western dedicated freight corridors expedited only in the last six-seven years.
Around 6,000 security personnel will be deployed and a total of 24 help desks will be set up in the New Delhi district for those who attend Republic Day celebrations, the police said.
The Delhi government has banned construction and demolition activities in the city till November 21.
