Archive for May, 2008
Saturday, May 31st, 2008
The increasing awareness of threats from China has led the Indian Air Force (IAF) to make the Daulat Beg Oldi airbase operational. The air base was set up in 1962 during the Indo-China war and closed in 1965.The old air base is situated in mountainous Northern Ladakh region in Jammu and Kashmir that was closed 43 years ago. Today an AN-32 transport aircraft carrying Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief (Western Air Command) Air Marshal P K Barbora landed at the Dawaltbaigh Oldi air strip around 0850 hours after flying from Chandigarh.
Barbora had last week said that the operationalisation of the base will demonstrate to the world that India is capable of manning airfield at such a high altitude. He had said a month back that airbase besides facilitating Indian troops in the region will send an apt message across.
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Posted in Defence | No Comments »
Saturday, May 31st, 2008
Sterlite Industries (India) Limited, a subsidiary of Vedanta Resources plc, the London-based FTSE 100 metal and mining group, and ASARCO LLC, a Tucson based mining, smelting and refining company, announced today that they have signed a definitive agreement for the sale to Sterlite of substantially all the operating assets of Asarco for $2.6 billion in cash. The agreement is subject to the approval of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas, Corpus Christi Division, and the sale will conclude Asarco’s Chapter 11 case.
Asarco, formerly known as American Smelting and Refining Company, is an over 100 year old company and is currently the third largest copper producer in the United States of America. It produced 235,000 tonnes of refined copper in 2007. Asarco’s mines currently have estimated reserves of approximately 5 million tonnes of contained copper. For the year ended 31 December 2007, Asarco had total revenues of approximately $1.9 billion.
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Posted in Companies | No Comments »
Saturday, May 31st, 2008
Naandi’s Community-based Safe Drinking Water programme which is presently supplying clean drinking water to a population of 20 lakh underprivileged in the villages of Punjab and AP has won the Ashoka Changemaker’s competition under the “Tapping Local Innovation: Unclogging the Water and Sanitation Crisis” segment.
Naandi was declared as one of the 3 winners from the total 264 entries received from 54 countries. Incidentally the other two winners are also from India, making this a clean sweep for India in the realm of innovations to solve water and sanitation crises in large scale.
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Posted in Health | 1 Comment »
Saturday, May 31st, 2008
The Second Pay Revision Committee Report for the Executives of Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs) was presented here today by the Chairman of the Committee Justice M. Jagannadha Rao, Retired Judge of Supreme Court to Union Minister for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises. The Committee was constituted by the Government in November 2006. The Committee discussed various issues with a number of CPSEs, Officers’ Associations, Public representatives, SCOPE, Sixth Central Pay Commission, PESB, selected private sectors and other stake holders.
The effective date of pay revision will be 1.1.2007. The CPSEs have been classified into five categories and the classification is based on the turnover, size of manpower and geographical spread of the CPSE. There will be five sets of pay scales based on categorization of CPSEs. There will be two components of pay i.e. Basic Pay and Risk Pay. (more…)
Posted in Policy | No Comments »
Friday, May 30th, 2008
The development plans of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International (NSCBI) Airport, Kolkata today got an unconditional Pre-Investment Board (PIB) clearance. It will now go for the approval of the Government (CCEA approval) and work is expected to begin in two-months time.
In April, 2007, the Government decided that the Kolkata airport would be developed to international standards by the Airports Authority of India (AAI). In August 2007, the AAI submitted the proposal for PIB approval. In October 2007, an Inter-Ministerial Group (IMG) cleared the proposal and in December 2007, Planning Commission accorded in principle approval for the development of NSCBI airport, Kolkata. The Ministry for Environment gave approval to the project in March, 2008. Meanwhile, AAI has prepared detailed estimate and tendered documents. (more…)
Posted in Infrastructure, Travel and Transport | No Comments »
Friday, May 30th, 2008
INS Beas, the latest ship of the Brahmaputra class, was today affiliated to the Grenadiers Regiment, one of the most esteemed and battle hardened regiments of the Indian Army, at an impressive ceremony held onboard INS Beas berthed at the Naval Dockyard Mumbai. The charter of affiliation was signed by Lt Gen SS Dhillon, the Colonel Commandant of the Grenadiers and Rear Admiral Anil Chopra, Flag Officer Commanding Western Fleet. A special cover was released by the Postal department to mark the historic occasion.
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Posted in Defence | No Comments »
Friday, May 30th, 2008
A 144-page US Army Suicide Event Report released yesterday said that 115 soldiers took their lives in calendar year 2007, the highest number of suicides since record-keeping began in 1980, according to officials. Five of the deceased were female soldiers. Ninety-three of the departed soldiers were active-duty troops, and 22 were either in the National Guard or Army Reserve.
Army records show 102 soldiers died by their own hands in 2006, of which 11 were women.
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Posted in North and South America | No Comments »
Friday, May 30th, 2008
The first 500 MW unit of NTPC’s giant power project at Sipat in Bilaspur district of Chattisgarh went on full load today, almost a full year after it was declared commissioned. It will go fully commercial in about three weeks time. The second 500 MW unit is expected to go fully commercial by October, 2008. Both the 500 MW units use boilers and turbines manufactured by BHEL.
The two 500 MW units form Stage-II of the project, while three supercritical 660 MW units form Stage-I. The boilers for these 660 MW units are being supplied by the South Korean company, Doosan and the turbines by the Russian firm Power Machines. Stage-I has been delayed by well over two years. It is now expected that the first 660 MW unit, which will also be the first supercritical unit in the country, will be commissioned by March 31st, 2009 and go commercial three-four months thereafter. NTPC has long-standing contractual disputes with Doosan.
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Posted in Infrastructure | No Comments »
Thursday, May 29th, 2008
More than half the world’s governments agreed Wednesday to ban the production, use, stockpiling and export of all existing cluster munitions. Meeting in Dublin, Ireland, representatives of 110 nations completed negotiations on a new international treaty that commits their governments to stop using these weapons and to destroy their existing stockpiles within eight years.
The U.S. government did not attend the negotiations and actively worked to undermine them. But in the end, all other major NATO countries joined with the majority in agreeing to ban these weapons, which are designed to kill or maim every living thing in an area as large as two football fields. The vast majority of victims of cluster bombs have been civilians.
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Posted in International, North and South America | No Comments »
