Inching closer to their goal, rescuers have inserted wide pipes up to 45 metres through the rubble and will have to drill another around 12 metres to reach the 41 workers trapped inside the collapsed tunnel in Silkyara for 10 days, officials said Wednesday afternoon.
The safety and security of citizens is primary for the government, he said.
Air Chief Marshal R K S Bhadauria briefed the prime minister about a dedicated 'Covid Air Support Cell' set up by the IAF to ensure faster coordination with different ministries and agencies on COVID-19 related operations.
Air India will purchase 220 planes from Boeing for $34 billion, with an option to buy 70 more aircraft that could take the total transaction value to $45.9 billion, a deal that US President Joe Biden described as a "historic agreement". While announcing the Boeing-Air India deal on Tuesday, Biden also asserted that together with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he was looking forward to deepen the ties between India and the US. As per an announcement from the White House, Boeing and Air India have reached an agreement under which the airline will purchase 190 B737 MAX, 20 B787, and 10 B777X for a total of 220 firm order valued at $34 billion at list price.
The plan to phase out the Soviet-origin aircraft fleet is part of the IAF's modernisation drive and it is not related to the latest crash of a MiG-21 jet in Rajasthan's Barmer on Thursday night.
Three people were killed after the MiG-21 fighter aircraft crashed into a house in Hanumangarh in Rajasthan shortly after it took off for a routine training sortie from the Air Force Station at Suratgarh.
Given the long distance from the closest land, the Indian Navy has deployed its state-of-the-art Boeing P-8I Poseidon long range maritime reconnaissance aircraft, which have the endurance to reach the location of the incident.
Aviation regulator DGCA has allowed IndiGo to wet lease wide-body Boeing planes from Turkish Airlines for up to six months and has rejected the domestic carrier's request for leasing the aircraft for up to two years, according to sources. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) turned down the request of the country's largest airline to wet lease the aircraft for a longer period, citing that the move could become diversion of traffic rights in collusion with a strong foreign carrier that will mainly feed the latter's hub abroad with more passengers from India, the sources said. IndiGo, which currently has only narrow-body planes in its fleet, decided to lease wide-body aircraft to operate more flights on international routes to meet rising demand.
The DGCA's unprecedented move came after the regulator's team found that several flights operated by GMR Aviation in the last month, including one on Monday when an aircraft flew Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi to Bhubaneshwar, had skipped some mandatory tests, DGCA sources said.
The Pentagon has stopped accepting new F-35 jets after it discovered a magnet used in the stealthy fighter's engine was made with unauthorised material from China.
It offers a real opportunity for the flag carrier to compete on the world stage, backed by a leading conglomerate with deep pockets like the Tatas, observes Indrajit Gupta.
The number of buses available for service could go down below 3,000 now.
India will need to travel back in time and seek inspiration from football greats Tulsidas Balaram and Chuni Goswami to deftly dribble around and sidestep the West-imposed price cap on exports of Russian seaborne crude oil. India depends on imported oil to meet 86 per cent of its needs, of which nearly a quarter now comes from Russia. The copious flows are roughly 10 per cent cheaper than competing suppliers helping India save billions of dollars in fuel costs.
There are altogether 80 teams of doctors and trained medical personnel with three teams in each hospitals.
Move aimed at removing confusion among private buyers
The United States continues to monitor the situation in Israel very closely, President Joe Biden said Wednesday observing that the terrorist attack by Hamas has brought back painful memories of a millennia of antisemitism and genocide against the Jewish people.
Jet Airways is in discussions with aircraft manufacturers and lessors to lease 6-8 planes, including some of those which were to be delivered to Russian carriers prior to the Ukraine war, as it gets ready for the relaunch, according to sources. Moreover, the airline is also negotiating with airport operators to secure slots with "good" timings, they said. Once a major player in the Indian aviation space, the carrier has not flown since April 17, 2019 and is being revived under the ownership of the Jalan-Kalrock consortium.
Rulers in New Delhi and their political aides in sensitive states like Tamil Nadu have to be doubly careful not to provoke a situation whose consequences may be much more than visible now to the naked eye, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Jet Airways has complained to India's aviation regulator about the use of its livery on SpiceJet aircraft, saying the practice could "mislead the public" and is a safety hazard. Jet collapsed in 2019 and lessors repossessed its Boeing 737s. Some of these aircraft were leased to SpiceJet, which operates them without changing the livery. Jet, which is now being revived by the Kalrock Jalan consortium and aims to restart operations in September, has asked the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to ask SpiceJet to stop using its livery.
Nearly a decade ago, the first fully electric vehicle (EV) caught fire on the road in the US. It was a model from Tesla, the world's most admired EV maker. A metal fragment punctured the underbelly of the vehicle, penetrating its battery pack, leading to a fire. Indian lawmakers and automakers have had nine years to study the incident (in fact, three Tesla Model Ss caught fire in two months in 2013) but seem to have learnt little.
Both Jet Airways and Go First have met with a similar fate of landing up in insolvency, albeit for different reasons. Whether Go First will be able to avoid the sharp erosion in value like in the case of Jet, experts say, will depend on how quickly it is able to restart operations and retain its slots at airports. Go First, owned by the Wadia group, filed for voluntary corporate insolvency resolution on May 2 due to inadequate capacity utilisation that led to a cash crunch.
White is easy to maintain, looks brighter than other colours over a longer period, is the least commonly rejected colour among family members, has high resale value, provides better safety at night, absorbs less heat in the summer season, makes small cars look bigger, and is not considered inauspicious.
As promised, Domino's 20-minute delivery started across 170 stores in Bengaluru on Tuesday. But, as the day progressed, some teething issues came to the fore. If delivery partners' accounts are anything to go by, these are unlikely to go away anytime soon.
Singapore Airlines on Tuesday said Vistara will be merged with Tata group-owned Air India. Tata group owns a 51 per cent stake in Vistara, and the remaining 49 per cent shareholding is with Singapore Airlines (SIA). As part of the transaction, SIA will also invest Rs 2,058.5 crore in Air India.
'In FY23, PV sales are expected to end the year at a record 3.8 million units, up 26 per cent. In FY24, however, the industry is expecting 5-7 per cent volume growth'
This is the third incident of technical malfunction on a Go First aircraft in two days.
United States fighter jets on Saturday shot down an unidentified, unmanned high-altitude airborne object over northern Canada that had entered its airspace from Alaska, President Joe Biden said.
Online food delivery platform Zomato has decided to narrow its focus on three key areas of food ordering and delivery; supplies to restaurants through 'Hyperpure' and quick commerce, company Chairman Kaushik Dutta said on Tuesday. In his address to shareholders at the company's annual general meeting, Dutta said the move was part of strategy to focus "only on areas that have the potential to become meaningfully large businesses ten years from now". In FY22, he said Zomato was able to achieve strong top line growth while keeping its "adjusted EBITDA burn under control", despite multiple challenges such as disruptions due to Covid-19 pandemic, macro-economic uncertainty, rising inflation, fuel prices, among others.
The US military has intensified its efforts to collect the remnants of the high-altitude surveillance balloon from China that floated over the United States over several days last week from Montana to South Carolina.
DGCA has also permitted the airline to deploy newly-inducted planes for capacity expansion.
About 350 Boeing 737 Max 8 are currently in service with airlines around the world, with thousands more on order. Boeing insists it has no reason to pull the popular aircraft from the skies.
Aviation is a juicy target. It's a 24x7 industry, which cannot afford delays or loss of customer credibility.
SpiceJet is the only Boeing 737 MAX operator in India, with 13 aircraft of the type in its fleet and a total of 205 planes on order.
Tata Motors on Tuesday launched its second electric vehicle -- Tigor EV, catering to the personal segment in the domestic market, priced between Rs 11.99 lakh and Rs 13.14 lakh (ex-showroom). The model comes in three variants, priced at Rs 11.99 lakh, Rs 12.49 lakh and Rs 12.99 lakh. A dual tone top-end trim is tagged at Rs 13.14 lakh. The auto major has already achieved success with its first electric model, Nexon EV and now commences deliveries of Tigor EV from around 150 sales outlets in 70 cities across the country.
The pilots and other senior staff have not been getting their full salaries since December.
When the IAF veterans' bail petition came up for hearing, in an unprecedented move, senior serving and retired Air Marshals and Air Vice Marshals rallied behind the accused officers and appeared before the court to give sureties for each, something that has never happened ever before.
Besides growing tech and digital enhancements, the firms are ramping up the hiring of more delivery partners and reinforcing existing Covid protocols.
It takes only two hours - roughly the time it takes for a plane to fly from Delhi to Mumbai - for a pair of pilots to complete their training on the 737 MAX simulator at Boeing's centre in Noida, the only one of its kind in India. Going by this estimate, all the 90 Spicejet pilots who the civil aviation regulator barred from flying the 737 MAX can be retrained in 90 hours.
'We are going to have plane crashes left, right and centre.'
The recent spate of technical glitches in aircraft has prompted the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to issue an order on July 18, making aircraft maintenance engineers (AMEs) with category B1/B2 licences the final authorities in certifying planes. This has put the spotlight on the availability of such personnel. According to the order, airlines were resorting to frequent one-off authorisation by the Category A certifying staff at transit stations, which is not in line with existing regulatory provisions.
