With different agencies showing divergent predictions regarding the southwest monsoon, the central government and states are gearing up to face adversity with various line ministries reportedly being directed to undertake mock drills and hold preparatory meetings. Around 56 per cent of the net cultivable area of the country is rain-fed, accounting for 44 per cent of foodgrain production. The June-September rains contribute around 73 per cent of the annual precipitation.
With land acquisition completed and infrastructure work streamlined, India's bullet train dreams are slowly, but finally, inching closer to reality.
Modi will unfurl the national flag and deliver the customary address to the nation from the ramparts of the historic monument.
Bharatiya Janata Party leader Rajnath Singh on Tuesday demanded the resignation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the wake of Kalka Mail accident which killed 69 persons and left 249 injured.
The much-awaited Cabinet reshuffle due on Monday has been postponed, ostensibly after the Kalka Mail and Guwahati-Puri Express derailed on the same day, claiming more than 30 lives. The Congress is anxious about not sending a wrong signal in Uttar Pradesh, which is going to polls next year. Government sources said that as the prime minister was also in charge of the railway ministry, he was too busy overseeing relief to this crucial state.
The Union Government on Thursday said that 5.9 million tonnes of lithium reserves have been found for the first time in the country in Jammu and Kashmir. Lithium is a non-ferrous metal and is one of the key components in EV batteries. "Geological Survey of India for the first time established Lithium inferred resources (G3) of 5.9 million tonnes in the Salal-Haimana area of the Reasi district of Jammu and Kashmir," the ministry of mines said on Thursday.
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar on Monday said he does not see any other strong leader like Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the national level today.
Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) is India's largest engineering and manufacturing enterprise, operating across energy, industry, and infrastructure sectors. The investment path for the stock is based on a large order backlog, continued strong order inflows, and rising power demand, which should push demand for BHEL's equipment and services. BHEL has historically held over 70 per cent market share in power projects.
Buoyed by higher demand for crude oil and imported coal, Indian ports recorded a growth of 11 per cent in traffic during the April-June quarter of 2022-23. This shows that the economy is opening up, a report by DAM Capital said. The volume increase assumes significance since both prices of crude oil and imported coal have been soaring this year. Indian coal companies were pressed for supply amid a thermal coal crisis earlier in the year.
The incident happened during Question Hour when Speaker Sumitra Mahajan took up the issue of 'Go-India Smart Card', an initiative of the railway ministry, for discussion.
Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman arrived in New Delhi on a three-day state visit during which he will hold a bilateral meeting and co-chair the first leaders' meeting of the Strategic Partnership Council with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
If Saudi Arabia, with just two Muslim holy sites of Mecca and Medina, can create a huge tourism-based ecosystem beyond oil, Ayodhya is sure to become the world's hottest religious tourism site in less than a decade, predicts R Jagannathan.
Unveiling the scheme on Tuesday, the government had said the entry age for all new recruits will have to be between 17-and-a-half and 21 years.
Manmohan Singh has directed the railway ministry to prepare a techno-economic feasibility report of some important corridors.
The Centre's ambitious Rs 6-trillion National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) could fall short of yearly targets for the current fiscal year (FY22) and the next one as well (FY23), partly due to the long gestation period in monetising big-ticket railway infrastructure, Business Standard has learnt from sources in the finance and rail ministries. Officials say the major chunk of railway monetisation will happen from FY24 onwards because leasing some of the infrastructure, like stadiums and dedicated freight corridor, will not happen anytime soon. Rail infra is expected to be the second-biggest contributor to the NMP, with about Rs 1.52 trillion worth of assets to be monetised.
The first of such trains are expected to be introduced in Eastern Railway between Howrah and Dhanbad by Christmas.
Glimpses of the dress rehearsal for the Republic Day Parade.
Can the newly-minted Jal Shakti ministry bring water to some 19 crore Indian households that have never had taps or heard the sound of flowing water, wonders Vinayak Chatterjee.
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affiars had approved the Rs 1,293 crore (Rs 12.93 billion) greenfield project spread across 450 hectares. British consultancy firm Mott Macdonald has been engaged to prepare bid documents for the procurement. As a special railway joint venture project, it envisages manufacturing locos with 12,000 HP to carry 5,000 tonnes of freight at 100 km per hour on all terrains.
The panel cautioned against falling into a debt trap.
France will extend its expertise to modernise Ambala and Ludhiana stations.
'The aim is also to probe how the ministry and testing agencies made negligence in examining these OEMs, so that such negligence is avoided in the future.'
'I did hesitate and was scared, but I decided to save the child as I realised I would have done that if he was my child'
Preliminary probe into Monday's train mishap has indicated that Uttarbanga Express was moving at a speed of over 60 km per hour, nearly 40 km per hour more than the limit, and overshot the signal resulting in the fatal incident.
Major players from several countries, including the US, UK, Germany and Korea, have shown keen interest in carrying out the technical feasibility study for the proposed elevated suburban rail project in Mumbai.
Goyal lashed out at zonal general managers and said that they cannot hide behind the pretext of maintenance work to explain delays in train services, a senior railway ministry source said.
'The people of Tamil Nadu in particular Chennai know about the double standards of the BJP. Nothing will work for them here.'
The apex court has also sought state-wise details about the steps taken towards abolition of dry latrines, the status of dry latrines, and 'safai karamcharis' in cantonment boards and the railways.
Experts suggest that a revamp in the surrounding infrastructure should take care of the issues plaguing the VB-2, stressing that the lightweight nature of the trains is what allows for higher speeds, and that needless design additions may hamper the train's efficiency.
Besides advancing the presentation of the Budget to perhaps the first week of January, , there are four new initiatives that could be rolled out from the next Budget, says A K Bhattacharya.
At the moment Concor, a public sector company controlled by the railways, has a monopoly in running container trains across the country. It offers ferrying rates to carry containers that are one-third of that on roads.
7 key areas that the Budget must address to re-energise the infrastructure sector, suggests Vinayak Chatterjee.
Former Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal was on Tuesday given a clean chit by the CBI in the Rs 10 crore cash-for-post Railway bribery scandal in which the agency filed charge sheet against his nephew Vijay Singla and suspended Board Member Mahesh Kumar along with eight others for graft and other charges.
Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu travelled on TGV, the French high-speed train, which can clock up to the maximum speed of 320 km per hour.
Of the 612 trains affected, 602 trains were cancelled, including 223 mail and express trains and 379 passengers trains, the Railways said in a statement.
E-commerce players may soon rent out drones, so you can use them the way you book a cab on an app, and test viable use-cases for last-mile delivery.
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.
