Our visa operations in Bangladesh constitute the largest visa operations India conducts worldwide. This has taken a hit after Sheikh Hasina's government was overthrown and India reduced its diplomatic presence in Bangladesh, notes Aakar Patel.
The Dravida Munettra Kazhagam is hopeful of getting the railway portfolio in the next reshuffle, say our sources in Delhi. Buzz is that the DMK had specifically asked for railways even in 2004, which did not happen.
The United States has approved the extradition of Tahawwur Rana, accused of involvement in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, to India. The decision was announced by President Donald Trump during a joint press conference with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the White House. India is currently working on the logistics of Rana's surrender and extradition, with several final steps to be completed before he is sent back to India. The joint statement issued by India and the US during Prime Minister Modi's visit reaffirmed their commitment to fighting terrorism and eliminating terrorist safe havens. The leaders also called on Pakistan to bring to justice the perpetrators of the 26/11 Mumbai and Pathankot attacks. Rana, a Canadian national of Pakistani origin, is currently lodged at a metropolitan detention center in Los Angeles. He is associated with Pakistani-American terrorist David Coleman Headley, one of the main conspirators of the 26/11 attacks.
Here is the complete list of ministers in Modi 3.0 and their portfolios:
The Railway ministry has been allocated budgetary support of Rs 140367.13 crore in the Union Budget on Tuesday - Rs 20,311 crore more than the revised figures of the previous fiscal. Overall, the national transporter is set to get a capital expenditure (CapEx) push of Rs 2.45 lakh crore in the financial year 2022-23, 14 per cent higher than the budgeted capital expenditure of Rs 2.15 lakh crore for the current financial year. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her Budget speech for 2022-23 said that India will manufacture 400 new, energy-efficient Vande Bharat trains in the next three years.
'Look at the response of the railway minister to the question why he was still in Delhi after the fire on Tamil Nadu Express. He said, I don't live in Chennai. This response was at 3 pm, and the accident happened early in the morning. There are at least four flights in the morning from Delhi and he was so callous in his response,' consumer rights activist S Pushpavanam tells Shobha Warrier
The Northern Railways on Thursday cancelled a slew of Rajdhani, Shatabdi and Duronto Express', stating low patronisation and rising coronavirus cases as the reason behind the decision.
The Madhya Pradesh government has written to the Union ministry of home affairs on renaming the recently redeveloped Habibganj station after Rani Kamlapati, the 18th century Gond queen of the region.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has rejigged his team only once, in July 2021, in his second term, unlike in his first stint, when he reshuffled and expanded his council three times.
'If you are in a position to give employment to local people, you will find no terror attacks in your area.'
'... that it once again shies away from renewing its commitment to strategic divestment,' points out A K Bhattacharya.
Railway employees including station masters, engine drivers, ticket checkers, etc too have been selected for vaccination and their list is being compiled for the exercise.
The railways' first such COVID-19 care centre was deployed at Shakur Basti railway stations in Delhi on May 31. It consisted of 10 coaches with a capacity of 160 beds. The coaches can be used for very mild cases that can be clinically assigned to the coronavirus care centres according to guidelines issued by the health ministry.
Violence erupted in the central Maharashtra city of Parbhani after a replica of the Constitution was vandalized. Around 50 people have been detained for the protests, while a man with mental health issues has been arrested for allegedly damaging the replica. Opposition leaders condemned the incident, calling for strict action against those responsible. The situation is under control, but tensions remain high in the city.
Three rear compartments of the Kanchanjunga Express derailed under the impact of the collision by the locomotive of the goods train from behind, the police officer said.
The government is planning to tweak its procurement policy to give a fillip to domestic manufacturing. The industry department has floated a proposal to raise the minimum local content requirement for public procurement for Class-I and -II suppliers from 50 per cent currently to 70 per cent, and 20 per cent as of now to 50 per cent, respectively.
Recovering from an order dry-up and change in market conditions, Gurgaon-based Rites is looking to bid aggressively in global export and consultancy tenders and run with a volume-led approach, its chairman and managing director (CMD) Rahul Mithal said. Rites is a railway consultancy public sector undertaking (PSU) under the aegis of the Ministry of Railways. "We started the year with two huge challenges - the export order book, where no new orders had happened, and the opening up of Indian Railways quality assurance works to four players.
The development assumes significance as Prime Minister Narendra Modi had last month announced 10 lakh government recruitments in the next 1.5 years.
The railways heritage lines that are part of the UNESCO-accorded sites list include Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, Nilgiri Mountain Railway, and Kalka Shimla Railway.
Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra state governments had earlier approached the Railways Ministry to explore whether liquid medical oxygen tankers could be moved by the rail network, they said.
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.
Key infrastructure sectors -- from railways to power, and from coal to petroleum -- will not only be part of the achievements but promises too, as the BJP fights to get a third term at the Centre.
Among the new entrants to the Union cabinet, former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has been given the agriculture and rural development portfolios, Bharatiya Janata Party president J P Nadda the health portfolio and former Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar the power portfolio.
During a five-hour meeting with his entire Council of Ministers, Modi specifically asked for faster and better communication of the government's decisions.
'I think governments -- whether this one or the ones earlier -- have not understood the strength of the Indian Railways... that it can easily add 2.5 per cent to GDP.'
The finance ministry on Wednesday reimposed expenditure curbs on ministries and government departments for July-September quarter. There will be no spending restrictions on the ministries of health, rural development, agriculture, MSME (micro, small and medium enterprises) and railways as part of a two-pronged strategy. "The existing guidelines for expenditure control have been reviewed. "Keeping in view the evolving situation arising out of Covid-19 and anticipated cash position of the government, it is felt essential to regulate Quarterly Expenditure Plan (QEP)/Monthly Expenditure Plan (MEP) of specific ministries/departments for July-September, 2021," the Department of Economic Affairs in the finance ministry said in a notification.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday pitched for front loading of capital expenditure, saying it is critical for revitalisting the economy post the coronavirus pandemic. During a virtual meeting with senior government officials to discuss the infrastructure roadmap ahead, she also asked ministries to aim to achieve more than their capital expenditure (capex) targets. The Union Budget 2021-22 provided a capital outlay of Rs.5.54 lakh crore, a sharp increase of 34.5 per cent over the Budget Estimate of 2020-21.
On this day 167 years ago, the wheels of the first passenger train in the country from Mumbai to Thane started rolling.
The 1.3-kilometre-long bridge aims to boost connectivity to the Kashmir Valley and it is being constructed at a cost of Rs 1,486 crore as part of the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Railway Link project
The time is opportune for doing away with the practice of a separate rail budget, and for replacing the railway ministry with an umbrella ministry of transport.
Rising energy demand could tilt India's energy basket towards fossil fuels from coal to oil, natural gas.
For Yogi Adityanath the successful management of the fair is a crucial part of building 'Brand UP' and making the state a $1 trillion economy.
Food to be cooked in base kitchens instead of trains; private players to be involved
Railway stations -- Beas, Vishakhapatnam, Khammam, Secunderabad, Ahmednagar and Jammu Tawi are the top ranked railway stations by cleanliness.
However, it will run special trains for migrants and others stranded across the country due to the ongoing lockdown.
A source in the know said realistically two-three of the seven bullet train corridors could be included as a practical election promise.
The Railway Minister has announced that there is an urgency to attract FDI in Railway projects.
After Prime Minister Narendra Modi's announcement of a 21-day lockdown across the country, Indian Railways on Tuesday said that its suspension of all passenger services will continue till April 14. However, freight movement will continue to carry essential commodities across the country, officials said.
'Efforts are on to make the data readily available so that it proves useful for policymakers.'
'The rail network all across the state of Punjab is presently totally clear for uninterrupted movement of goods trains,' a home department statement said in Chandigarh. However, hours after the Punjab government's statement, the Railways accused it of 'misguiding' people over the extent of blockade of rail tracks in the state by the protesting farmers.
