Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu presented the Railway Budget in the Parliament on Thursday.
A bench headed by Justice L Nageswara Rao refused to entertain an application seeking a direction to the Centre to ask all district magistrates to identify stranded migrant workers and provide shelter, food to them before ensuring their free transportation to native places in view of the recent incident at Aurangabad in which 16 workers were mowed down by a goods train.
In 2021, the Railways boasted of a historic feat -- no passenger deaths in train accidents in two years. However, the derailment of the Bikaner-Guwahati Express in 2022 brought the Railways back to its forgetful past.
Three trains jumped off the tracks and another derailment was averted on Thursday in Uttar Pradesh, New Delhi and Maharashtra within a span of nine hours.
He said the budget is a watershed moment for Railways.
He said four weeks have been given to submit the report to find out who was at fault.
Nineteen people have been killed in rain-related incidents in Uttar Pradesh in the past 24 hours, the state relief commissioner's office said Monday evening.
Both were rescued from the Shalimar-Chennai Central Coromandel Express that derailed near Bahanaga Bazar Station on June 2 that had claimed 275 lives and left around 1,200 injured.
'One of the biggest employment generators, the MSMEs, have not got much from the government.'
After identifying the duo, the police used human and technical intelligence to track them.
In his letters to Union environment minister Prakash Javadekar and Railway Minister Piyush Goyal, Thackeray said it would be appropriate to opt for alternative alignment of Akola-Khandwa line considering the long-term irreversible impact the work will have on endangered species like tigers.
Nine more people have died as heavy rains lashed Uttar Pradesh for the third day, taking the death toll to 28, while a red alert has been sounded on Tuesday in six districts including the worst-hit Barabanki and Gonda.
The first train on the section where the accident happened in Balasore started its journey at around 10.40 pm on Sunday, 51 hours after the horrific crash which killed 275 people, officials said.
A special court in Moradabad has acquitted all 74 accused, including UP Cabinet minister Bhupendra Singh Chaudhary and local Bharatiya Janata Party legislator Ritesh Kumar Gupta, for allegedly attacking policemen during the protest in Kanth area of the district in 2014.
Talking to reporters at the accident site, he said the issue is of electric point machine, a vital device for railway signalling, and electronic interlocking.
The engine driver and the guard of the goods trains, however, escaped unhurt, the official added.
The change in leadership at the railway ministry comes at a time when the national transporter is grappling with low passenger earnings even as it is trying to increase freight loading and open up its doors to private investment. Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw took charge from Piyush Goyal who got the railway portfolio in 2017 after Prime Minister Narendra Modii dropped Suresh Prabhu from the Union Cabinet. Completing freight corridors, negotiating land for the bullet train, and speeding up monetisation plans would be some of the major focus areas for Vaishnaw.
Railways is finding meaningful ways to engage ragpickers across the country. They are being pressed into service to clean the tracks at stations and become daily wagers.
Multiple fractures on the rail track are suspected to be the cause of Friday's derailment of the Mangla Express near Nashik claiming three lives and injuring 37.
An alert local motorman saved a 15-year-old girl in Mumbai who tried committing suicide by jumping before a train at suburban Malad by timely applying brakes, police said on Monday.
Former Railway Minister and Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav on Wednesday blamed railway officials for the mishap involving the Dibrugarh-bound Rajdhani Express that left four passengers dead.
Hundreds of farmers have been protesting on different borders of the national capital since November 26 against the three newly enacted farm laws.
Dense to very dense fog prevailed in some parts of the National Capital Region (NCR), Haryana, Punjab, west Uttar Pradesh and north Rajasthan on Tuesday.
Farmers gathered at several national highways, key roads and some railway tracks in Punjab and Haryana on Friday morning as part of their nationwide protest against the Centre's new agri laws.
The Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), a forum comprising 40 farmer unions, called for a Bharat Bandh on Monday against the Centre's three agriculture laws. Here is its impact across the country:
At Begun Kodar in West Bengal, a mysterious woman in a white saree walks along the tracks of a lonely railway station.
The authorities in Bihar have registered an FIR against Khan Sir and five teachers for allegedly inciting violence over the controversy surrounding the results of tests conducted by the RRB-NTPC after the recent violent protests in Patna.
On these routes, the train speed would also be increased to above 160 kmph over the next four or five years by revamping the entire signaling, tracks and fencing.
Congress leader Digvijaya Singh on Tuesday claimed a senior railway official had flagged a fault in the signal interlocking system in February and warned of the train accident risk but the problem was not rectified which led to the Balasore train crash.
Ravi Shastri recalled India's memorable victory over the West Indies on the opening day of the 1983 World Cup at Old Trafford on Tuesday, saying it was an unexpected result that gave the team the "belief" of going all the way.
Of the 272-km Udhampur-Baramulla rail line, nearly 111-km stretch between Katra and Banihal is incomplete.
At present, the railway services in Kashmir operate between Banihal in Ramban District and Baramulla only.
'There is tension between the zones all the time.'
In a freak mishap, a portion of an under-construction bridge and a bulky water pipeline, passing over the Central railway tracks, collapsed on a moving train in Thane, killing two persons and injuring 11, officials said.
In a letter addressed to Union Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla, Mizoram Home Secretary Lalbiaksangi said that National Highway 306, the state's lifeline that connects it with the rest of the country, has been blocked in Assam since July 26.
The injured, two of them seriously hurt, have been admitted at the Bangad Hospital in Pali, they said, adding the incident led to the disruption of traffic on the route with nearly two dozen trains cancelled or diverted.
Tracing the remaining persons was proving a daunting task as the river remained in spate with over two lakh cusecs of floodwater gushing, sources said.
Parinav's mother, who had earlier posted a video urging him to return home, which was also widely circulated in the social media, has now posted another video, thanking all those who helped them find the boy, a class 6 student, who has been handed over to Nampally railway authorities.
The railways continue to lose market share with an actual fall in the number of passengers and stagnant freight tonnage, says Subir Roy.
