Heavy rains lashed wide parts of Jammu and Kashmir over the past couple of days, triggering landslides at many places and raising the level of water bodies.
The Jammu-Srinagar national highway was reopened for one way traffic after overnight heavy snowfall had blocked it.
The Supreme Court on Friday ordered immediate medical aid for farmer leader Jagjit Singh Dallewal, who is on an indefinite fast at the Punjab-Haryana border. The court also urged farmers to adopt the Gandhian way of protesting and to ensure that Dallewal's life is saved. The court has formed a high-powered committee to make recommendations to the stakeholders regarding the farmers' grievances.
A few weeks ago, when Road Transport & Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari launched an electronic toll-collection system on the Delhi-Mumbai highway, television channels reported live from toll plazas showing vehicles with radio frequency identification (RFID) tags in dedicated lanes that did not have to stop for paying cash.
The National Highways Authority of India will this year witness the highest ever growth out of the last decade. But Gadkari himself admits his biggest failure as India's roads minister has been his inability to curb loss of life in road accidents.
'Currently, EVs are about 30-50 per cent more expensive than ICE vehicles. I believe the inflection point for EVs will come when this price gap narrows to 20-25 per cent. That's when people will start coming in.'
State governments are gradually taking initiative as far as developing highways is concerned.
The ethnic violence between Meitei and Kuki communities in Manipur has claimed 258 lives since May last year, the state government's Security Advisor Kuldiep Singh said on Friday.
Pakistan's restive Balochistan province has come to a standstill and has been facing unrest with several political and nationalist parties launching an indefinite blockade of all national highways from Wednesday against alleged rigging of the election results.
Two militants were killed on Tuesday in an encounter with security forces on Srinagar-Jammu National Highway, about 12 kms from Srinagar, in Pampore, police said.
They said the incident occurred around 4 am when a 150-metre-long portion of the four-and-a-half-kilometer-long tunnel collapsed.
Rescuers at the under-construction tunnel collapse site in Uttarkashi on Tuesday initiated the process of inserting large-diameter mild steel pipes through the rubble using an auger machine to rescue the 40 workers trapped for two days now, officials said.
"Land acquisition is the biggest issue. Now contracts will be awarded if 80 per cent of the land is acquired and is in possession of National Highway Authority of India," minister for road transport and highways Kamal Nath said during the Question Hour in the Lok Sabha. On members' complaints regarding 'very high' toll rates in public-private partnership projects, the minister defended the existing rates and said reduced toll would mean less roads.
The police said the incident happened on Thursday when a jagran programme was underway at the temple in Jaipur's Karni Vihar, and local residents objected to the noise and crowd in their neighbourhood at late hours.
Raut was responding to a reporter's question about opposition parties' claim that Gadkari was targeted through the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report on alleged irregularities in the work done by the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI).
The 300-km Srinagar Jammu national highway, the lone road linking Kashmir valley to rest of the country was thrown open for one way traffic on Wednesday evening, thanks to the round-the-clock efforts put in by the border roads organisation to make the road traffic worthy.
The father of teenager Aryan Mishra, who was shot dead allegedly by cow vigilantes in a car chase in Faridabad, is restless with many questions about the death, such as why none of the other passengers in the vehicle were hurt in the attack.
A mob led by Kuki-Zo women clashed with security forces in Manipur's Kangpokpi district on Tuesday, triggering fresh tensions in the ethnic strife-hit state.
As even bigger road construction players are not willing to bet on BOT projects., NHAI will have to rethink its thrust on the BOT model.
The Indian Air Force flew special sorties between Jammu and Srinagar on Saturday to carry stranded passengers and tourists at nominal bus fare rates.
'Some districts have said that areas which are away from the urban centres and where there have been minimal to zero Covid-19 cases may be exempted from the lockdown and construction activity should be allowed,' said a person in the know.
A 'jatha' of 101 farmers will embark on a foot march to Delhi at 1 pm on Friday from the Shambhu border protest site, farmer leader Sarwan Singh Pandher said on Thursday.
Proliferation of home chargers of around 7 KWh and above, which take six to seven hours to fully charge a car depending on the model, bring running costs down by a third or so. That, coupled with the increasing range of modern electric cars, can lead to a massive increase in sales.
Hundreds of Kashmir-bound stranded vehicles were given green signal on Tuesday afternoon after the roads were cleared for vehicular traffic.
Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor welcomed the extradition of Tahawwur Hussain Rana, a key accused in the 26/11 case, and said everyone associated with the conspiracy of the Mumbai terror attacks must face the court of justice. He described Rana's extradition as a "step forward for justice." Rana, a Pakistan-born Canadian national and close associate of David Coleman Headley, is being brought to India after his last-ditch attempt to evade extradition failed. Tharoor expressed hope that the interrogation of Rana would provide more details about the Mumbai attacks and said he was "very glad" that Indian authorities managed to get Rana's custody.
At least four terrorists were killed and two soldiers laid down their lives in twin encounters in Kulgam district of Jammu and Kashmir on Saturday, officials said.
Though the Border Roads Organisation pressed its men and machinery into service as and when the shooting of stones stopped, yet the clearance work continuously got disrupted by loose Panthal rocks.
Union minister Nitin Gadkari on Monday asked the industry not to perennially demand a reduction in taxes as the government needs funds to implement welfare schemes for the poor. Addressing an event, the road transport and highways minister said the logistics cost in India will come down to 9 per cent within two years.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday flagged off two specially designed Vande Bharat trains between Katra town and Srinagar city, reducing travel time between the two places by two to three hours and ensuring all-weather surface connectivity with the Kashmir valley.
Two buses, one of Haryana state Roadways and the other belonging to Punjab Roadways were partially damaged in Panckula on the outskirts of Chandigarh.
Union Minister Nitin Gadkari inaugurated a 418 feet national flag, the tallest in the country, at the Attari-Wagah border in Punjab's Amritsar district.
In the India-Pakistan situations, off-ramps have come either through foreign mediation (after months of kinetic warfare over Kargil, and a long stand-off with Op Parakram) or when a situation made it possible for both sides to claim a win, explains Shekhar Gupta.
The IMD issued a "Nowcast" warning, forecasting thunderstorms accompanied by lightning and intense spells of rain with gusty winds reaching 50-60 kmph at isolated places in Mumbai in the next three to four hours.
Two years after ethnic violence erupted in Manipur, thousands of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) continue to live in overcrowded camps, struggling to rebuild their lives and facing an uncertain future. Despite the sacking of the Chief Minister and the imposition of President's rule, peace remains a distant hope. While hill-based Kukis demand a separate administration, Meiteis seek implementation of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and deportation of those they consider illegal immigrants. The IDPs, grappling with severe psychological distress, feel forgotten by the government and are forced to depend on the mercy of others for basic needs.
At the heart of his criticism is the delay in decision making and a lack of monitoring. Some officials, however, blamed the delays on overambitious contractors.
Kashmir remained cut-off from the rest of the country for the second day on Thursday with road and air links to the Valley snapped due to snowfall, the heaviest in a decade in the month of January.
The arterial road that links Kashmir with the rest of the country was partially opened to traffic on Tuesday after remaining closed for a fortnight.
