With land acquisition completed and infrastructure work streamlined, India's bullet train dreams are slowly, but finally, inching closer to reality.
The real estate sector wants "high-impact" measures, like special schemes and tax breaks for developers, to revive the fortunes of the affordable housing segment in the country, multiple executives told Business Standard. This segment has been struggling since the Covid-19 outbreak, in contrast to larger and costlier homes which have been selling like hot cakes. The demand comes at a time when the government is taking suggestions from industry players before tabling the General Budget in the Parliament next month.
'Maharashtra is virtually in a debt trap.'
The Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Ltd started hacking trees from Friday night to make way for a car shed, hours after the Bombay high court dismissed four petitions filed by NGOs and activists challenging the decision to allow felling of trees in the prime green lung of the city.
"My aim is to make Maharashtra the world's big financial powerhouse and to make Mumbai a global fintech capital," he said.
Car sales are experiencing a challenging phase with around Rs 60,000 crore worth of inventory lying unsold with dealers.
IndiGo had the best on-time performance (OTP) of 95.4 per cent at four metro airports in February, while Go First secured the number two position with 94.1 per cent in the same month, according to data released by aviation regulator DGCA. Bengaluru, Delhi, Hyderabad, and Mumbai were the four airports where Indigo had the best OTP, the data released on Monday said. In January, the situation was inverse as Go First had logged the best OTP of 94.5 per cent at the four airports while IndiGo was at number two with 93.9 per cent OTP.
The apex court has directed that status quo be maintained till its next hearing on October 21.
The Anil Dhirubhai Ambani group company hasn't yet got the contract for executing the second phase of the Mumbai Metro, but Jalan's team has already started negotiating with domestic banks to tie up funds for the estimated Rs 11,000-crore (Rs 110-billion) project.
'When you are travelling in Mumbai when the air quality is bad, you feel suffocated.' 'You may feel uncomfortable breathing Delhi air, but the level of discomfort is higher in Mumbai.'
Uttam Ghosh offers his take on the political crisis in Maharashtra where more than a fortnight after the election results, the state still does not have a government in place.
They want to make the Maximum City brighter and happier
The operations revealed evidence of price and volume manipulation of stocks through the use of platforms like YouTube and WhatsApp.
'The ruling does not automatically mean that your house can be taken away, but suppose it blocks an expressway or a highway or such essential development, then it can be taken away as long as there is a law to support that action.'
Uzbekistan lives comfortably in several centuries but is also a forward-looking nation, Deepa Gahlot discovers on a visit to this Central Asian country.
'A slum free Mumbai cannot happen with Dharavi at the centre of the city.'
Scenes from a deserted Mumbai, something that most of us have never seen.
After continuously bleeding subscribers for nearly two years, state-owned telecom services provider BSNL added 2.9 million users in July when its private-sector rivals raised tariffs by nearly 20 per cent. With BSNL keeping tariffs unchanged, many subscribers using entry-level plans shifted from Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone Idea (Vi), said analysts.
The apex court on Sunday set up a special bench on the basis of a letter addressed to the Chief Justice of India by one Rishav Ranjan against the cutting of the trees.
Tuesday's move, announced at a press conference in the capital, comes a little over a month after an accident killed six workers at a metro construction site on July 12. The accident, the latest in a series over the past year, raised public outrage and prompted Delhi Metro Rail Corporation's widely respected chief E Sreedharan to submit his resignation, which the state government declined to accept.
The Thackerays sought dismissal of the PIL on the ground that it was filed on assumptions and without any factual foundation.
Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani on Monday announced a Rs 2 lakh crore investment in deploying fifth-generation or 5G telephony with rollout in metro cities by Diwali. Jio, the nation's largest telecom operator, has deployed standalone 5G stack rather than upgrading the existing 4G network, to offer ultra-high speed internet, he said at Reliance Industries' 45th AGM.
Ahead of the upcoming Maharashtra Assembly polls, the Centre has pushed another big ticket infra project for the state with Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu saying that the groundbreaking ceremony of the city's Colaba-Seepz Metro project will be held soon.
Chinese companies keen to invest in Mumbai projects
La Nina, construction worsen air quality; spike in respiratory ailments.
A rapid transit, underground, subway, elevated railway, metro or metropolitan railway system is an electric passenger railway in an urban area. They are either located underground or on elevated rails above street level. Across the world, metros are considered as cheapest and fastest mode of transport.
Students from schools and colleges on Thursday staged a protest outside megastar Amitabh Bachchan's residence in Mumbai over his tweet supporting the Mumbai Metro project.
City police, metros, airports, even power utilities are using pop culture and social media to reach the young and encourage public ownership of public services. Amritha Pillay reports.
Telecom operators say the reason for the low increase in ARPU in the two metros could be linked to the massive reverse migration of labour.
The party went on to say that the "the way the Aarey issue is being oppressed, it is nothing but dictatorship".
Let those in power put trees on par with the sacred cow. And century-old trees certainly need to be worshipped, says Anil Singh.
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.
The company has taken up significant projects but they are either delayed or the company plans to give them up.
With the Maharashtra government doling out pieces of the lush green Aarey forest to various utilities, the tribals living in it for generations are feeling increasingly insecure. Hepzi Anthony reports.
James Scott, Metro Cash & Carry's regional operating officer (Asia) based in Singapore, virtually lives out of a suitcase. With the regional headquarters in Hong Kong and operations across China, India, Pakistan, and Vietnam, Scott travels through the week and gets back home only on weekends.
Shares of real estate firms have been outperforming over the past year. The rally, analysts say, may hit roadblocks in the near term amid stretched valuations, even as the long-term prospects for the sector remain ebullient. "Most of the positive news flow is already in the price. Hence, investors sitting on hefty profits may partially cash out at current levels," suggests V K Vijayakumar, chief investment strategist at Geojit Financial Services.
