An apex environmental screening committee has deferred a decision on clearance to the Parliament redevelopment project. This has been done on the grounds that there was a dispute, being heard in the Delhi High Court, regarding the land on which some of the proposed structures were to come up, a person privy to the meeting told The Hindu.
The petitioner in the Delhi High Court has pleaded that no environment clearance be given, as the alterations which are proposed will involve land-use change not in conformity with Delhi’s Master Plan.
The petitioner also prayed that no permission be granted to cut trees for the expansion and renovation of the Parliament building, which is part of the Central Vista Redevelopment project and involves redeveloping the 3km stretch from Rashtrapati Bhavan to the India Gate in Lutyens’ Delhi.
The revamp, which was announced in September, envisages a new triangular Parliament building that is targeted to be constructed by August 2022, when the country will be celebrating its 75th Independence Day.
The CPWD applied to the environment ministry on February 12 as part of a formal process. The department sought permission to fell 194 trees and plant 250 new trees as compensation.
One of the plots had been earmarked for recreational use in the Master Plan for Delhi-2021, and the Delhi Development Authority had proposed changing it to “Parliament House” on December 20, 2019.
Five judges of the Supreme Court have been affected by swine flu, caused by the H1N1 virus, the Union Health Ministry confirmed on Tuesday.
On Tuesday, Chief Justice of India Sharad A. Bobde met with the Supreme Court Bar Association president Dushyant Dave to discuss urgent measures to prevent the spread of infection among judges, advocates, staff and litigants.
Mr. Dave later confirmed that some judges had been taken ill in the past few days. He, however, said he did not know their exact number.
The court itself assembled half an hour late on Tuesday. Some of the judges were on leave. Justice Sanjiv Khanna was seen wearing a mask in the courtroom. Justices Hemant Gupta, A.S. Bopanna and Abdul S. Nazeer did not attend court.
The public relations division of the Supreme Court confirmed that some of the judges had been unwell, but maintained that all of them had recovered fully.
Justice D.Y. Chandrachud expressed concern about the infection spreading. Justice Arun Mishra was heard cautioning people against coming to court if they exhibited traces of infection.
The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Reserve Bank of India is likely to consider the developments around COVID-19, which has resulted in supply chain disruptions from China, Singapore's DBS Bank said in a report
The report titled "India: Growth and inflation targeting review", Radhika Rao, Economist at DBS Bank noted that the impact on India is felt through supply chain disruptions from China as well as regional players, who in turn are net importers from China.
"Temporary price increases are likely to be accompanied by production delays if the pain spills over into 2Q20 (April-June)," the report said adding that "the MPC is also likely to consider developments around COVID-19".
The coronavirus outbreak has brought a large part of the world's second-largest economy China to a standstill and its impact has been felt across industries.
On economic growth, the report said, the Indian economy is in the midst of "bottoming out" -- to reach a lowest or worst point before beginning to rise or improve.
"With the inflation-targeting framework being still relatively new, authorities are likely to keep the broad contours unchanged to allow the framework to stabilise, age and gain credibility," the report noted.
RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das has said that the Reserve Bank of India is reviewing the retail inflation targeting framework behind monetary policy decision as well as its effectiveness and also plans to hold stakeholders consultations including with the government in June.
The government will launch first of its kind Aadhaar-authenticated digital data base of farmers in June, agriculture secretary Sanjay Agrawal told
This will be used as a master database for implementing any farmer-related government schemes, he said, adding that the database will be a consolidation of all kinds of genuine lists of farmers available with the government.
He said the database will be launched with 60 million farmers and their landholdings will also be mapped. “We have started the exercise. We have asked states to verify the landholdings of the farmers. In PM-KISAN scheme itself, we have got database of more than 9 crore (90 million) farmers. Out of which, 84% are now aadhaarauthenticated. This is an ongoing process and we will keep updating it,” he said.
The creation of an authentic database of farmers will help the government identify the needs of farmers based on their landholdings and the crop varieties they produce.
“The government is discussing ways to reduce use of chemicals and fertilisers to boost productivity of land,” said Jai Shankar Mishra, director at Lucknow-based think tank Agriculture Research and Economic Development Institute.
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad resigned on Monday in a shock move after his political allies sought to bring down the government and block the succession of leader-in-waiting Anwar Ibrahim.
It came after months of rising tensions in the “Pact of Hope” coalition, which stormed to a shock victory in 2018 against a corruption-plagued government that had ruled Malaysia for six decades.
But there were calls for Mr. Mahathir, the world’s oldest leader at 94, to stay in office from allies, who insisted he had not backed the formation of a new government and had quit in disgust at the plot.
The political drama began on Sunday when Mr. Anwar’s rivals from the ruling coalition and opposition politicians held a series of meetings, stoking speculation a new alliance was taking shape.
That coalition would reportedly have excluded Mr. Anwar, Mr. Mahathir’s presumptive successor and a former opposition icon who was jailed for years on questionable sodomy charges, blocking his ascent to the premiership.
With the fate of the government still uncertain on Monday, Mr. Mahathir submitted his resignation to the king. The monarch accepted it, but appointed him interim leader until a new premier is found, according to an official statement.
The proposed new coalition was reportedly set to include the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) — the party of disgraced ex-leader Najib Razak, which was ejected from office two years ago.
Qatar on Tuesday invited Pakistan to attend the signing of the landmark peace deal between the US and the Afghan Taliban in Doha on Saturday.
Qatar's ambassador to Pakistan Saqr bin Mubarak, on behalf of the Qatari Foreign Minister, extended an invitation to Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Tuesday, state-run Radio Pakistan reported
Qureshi welcomed the peace deal between the US and the Taliban, saying Pakistan had always held the view that there was no military solution to the Afghan conflict.Qureshi also expressed the confidence that the peace deal will lead to intra Afghan dialogue.
The deal would end America's longest war in Afghanistan where the US has lost over 2,400 soldiers since late 2001, when it invaded the country after the 9/11 terror attacks.
The US currently has less than 14,000 troops in Afghanistan, but military officials would not confirm the exact number.
Inspired by how snakes move, engineers have created a robot that can stably climb large steps, an advance that may lead to better search and rescue robots that can successfully navigate treacherous terrain
The robot, described in the journal Royal Society Open Science, climbed steps as high as 38 per cent of its body length with a nearly perfect success rate.
According to him, until now engineers attempting to mimic snake movements have not accounted for real-life large obstacles such as rubble and debris that search and rescue robots would have to climb over.
Li and his team studied how the variable kingsnake -- commonly found living in both deserts and pine-oak forests -- climbed steps in the lab.
When the steps got taller and more slippery, the scientists said the snakes would move more slowly and wriggle their front and rear body less to maintain stability.
Analyzing the videos, and noting how snakes climbed steps in the lab, the researchers created a robot to mimic the reptile's movements.
They said the robot snake, at first, had difficulty staying stable on large steps and often wobbled and flipped over or got stuck on the steps.
The scientists then inserted a suspension system into each body segment so it could compress against the surface when needed.However, the study noted that a downside of the added body suspension system was that the robot used more electricity.
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