Nine years on, Delhi Airport runway still waiting for Shiv statue to move

Authorities at Delhi International Airport have been waiting for nearly nine years for a religious trust to lower the height of a statue to make full use of one of Asia’s longest runways. It was in 1989 that the Airport Authority had given permission to Jaya Shree Charity Trust to build a Shiva statue with a […]

6,500 MW of wind projects to be auctioned in 3 months in India

The central government and various state governments will award contracts to set up another 6,500 MW (6.5 GW) of wind energy projects in the next three months, the ministry of renewable energy said. Combined with the 3 GW awarded in the first nine months of this fiscal year, this will take the total amount of […]

SOLAR MISSION: It’s another nail-biter for India in 2017-18

India faces steep odds in its race to meet its solar power addition targets for the current year. Last year, the country had added only 5.53 GW of incremental solar power capacity against a target of 6 GW. This year, the target is 10 GW. However, as of November end, it has added only 3.46 […]

Indian Govt & Courts block close to 4,000 internet urls in 2016 & 2017

The central government blocked 1,791 urls — websites or pages — and the courts blocked another 2,133 urls in 2016 and 2017, the department of telecom said. This was in addition to around 4,700 child pornography websites that were blocked as part of a CBI investigation. All content blocks on the internet are put in […]

Inter-ministerial group on telecom woes dismissed crisis theory, blamed telcos for high debt

The problem of high debt levels faced by some telecom companies in India was of their own making and the government had a limited to role to play in resolving the same, the inter-ministerial group set up to address the concerns of telecom sector found. The cash flow issues faced by the companies is related […]

TN, Karnataka lead in Child Marriage cases in India; South accounts for 65%

Data from the ministry of women and child development has revealed that the five southern states — Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Telangana and Andhra — account for close to 65% of all cases registered under the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act in the last three years. The four states accounted for 578 cases registered under […]

Airtel, Idea & Vodafone to unveil 1GB/day pack at Rs 199

With Reliance Jio unveiling its first monthly tariff plans, all eyes are now on the incumbents — Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular and Vodafone — to see how they will respond. Industry sources believe that the three operators will unveil a new 199 plan which gives 1 GB of data per day for 28 days to […]

BJP MP seeks solar lights for forest encroachers

Bishnu Pada Ray, the member of Lok Sabha representing Andaman & Nicobar Islands has asked for permission to install solar lighting systems in the homes of forest encroachers who are under order by the Supreme Court to evacuate the forest land. Ray wrote the letter seeking permission to install the lighting system in the homes […]

India PSU employment declining 4.3% per year

The total number of people employed by various undertakings and companies controlled by the central government has been showing a decline of 4%-5% per year in recent years. According to numbers from the ministry of heavy industry and public enterprises, the total number of personnel in central public sector enterprises fell by 4.2% in 2015-16 […]

3,328 complaints about NRI husbands received by external affairs ministry in 3 years

A total of 3,328 Indian women complained to various Indian embassies and missions about their treatment at the hands of their non-resident Indian husbands in the last three years, the external affairs minister said. The highest number of such complaints were received last year, at 1,510. The first 11 months of the current year have […]

India seeks “viable project proposal” from Westinghouse for AP nuclear plant

The government of India said there was no change in its plans to set up a mega nuclear plant in Kovvada in Andhra Pradesh with bankrupt US technology provider Westinghouse. However, said the Department of Atomic Energy, the two parties are yet to arrive a “viable project proposal”. “Discussions are in progress between Nuclear Power […]

No one was responsible for Elphinstone stampede – Railway Inquiry

The Ministry of Railways today said that its inquiry into the Elphinstone stamped, that killed nearly two dozen people three months ago, was not caused by negligence or the failure by any railway official to do his duty. “As per the departmental enquiry headed by Chief Safety Officer/Western Railway, no Railway official(s) have been found […]

Demonetization unearths Rs 25,000 cr of black money so far – Govt

The move to withdraw high-value currency notes in November last year has helped the income tax department unearth Rs 25,000 cr of undisclosed income as of October this year, the finance ministry said. Out of this, Rs 15,761 cr was unearthed by searches and raids, while the remaining was detected using ‘surveys’, the ministry said. […]

Stubble Burning: 1,493 Haryana farmers fined Rs 40 lakh

Around 1,500 farmers from Haryana have been fined a total of Rs 39.85 lakh for burning agricultural stubble between July to October this year, the government said. The action was taken to dissuade farmers from burning agricultural waste. Burning of agricultural waste has been blamed for worsening air quality levels in national capital Delhi. Air […]

Is Rahul Gandhi rejecting his mother’s secularism?

The rather ‘Holy’ election campaign being waged by Rahul Gandhi in Gujarat elections has led to speculation that the Indian National Congress may adopt a ‘soft Hindutva’ model under Rahul Gandhi to counter BJP’s ‘hard Hindutva’. FROM NONE TO ALL Over the last half a century or so, the party has experimented with diluting the […]

COLUMN: A win for Congress in Gujarat may be just what Modi needs

By all accounts, the chances of a Congress victory is becoming stronger and stronger in Gujarat, a state that goes to the polls on Sunday. The possibility was almost unthinkable two months ago, even to Congress strategists, but the ‘Patel factor’ is likely to be the deciding factor in not only nullifying the BJP’s edge, […]