LJP walks out of NDA in Bihar

The Lok Janshakti Party has walked out of the ruling National Democratic Alliance in Bihar ahead of the state assembly polls, as it attacked Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and announced that it would fight JD(U) candidates in the elections.

While making its resentment with the JD(U) president Kumar clear, the LJP also went to great lengths to highlight its strong ties with the BJP, asserting in a statement that it wants the saffron party to head the future government in the state and its MLAs will work towards this goal. LJP president Chirag Paswan chaired the party's parliamentary board meeting in which a decision was taken to not fight the assembly election, which begins from October 28 in three phases, under Kumar's leadership of the NDA in the state. The BJP, which heads the NDA, has already announced that the alliance will fight the polls under Kumar's leadership, and he will be chief minister again if people vote it back to power.

"Due to ideological differences with the JD(U), a member of the alliance at the national level and in the assembly polls, the Lok Janshakti Party has decided to fight the elections in Bihar separately from the alliance," a party statement said. "We will triumph," was the brief comment of Chirag Paswan as he sported a victory sign after the meeting.

However, the LJP is likely to continue as the member of the NDA at the Centre as of now, more so as its patron and the only member in the Modi government, Ram Vilas Paswan, has undergone a heart surgery in the national capital and will remain hospitalised for a few weeks. The BJP's relations with the regional party have remained cordial, and the LJP has maintained that it will not contest against candidates of the saffron party.

The LJP also said that it has no "bitterness" with the BJP and has often lauded Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership.

However, the LJP's decision has thrown open new possibilities in the Bihar polls as the party may end up damaging the JD(U)'s prospects at several seats. The opposition alliance of the RJD, Congress and the Left may receive a boost with the development.

Delhi-Mum e-way to have India’s 1st animal overpasses

India will see the first five animal overpasses on the under construction Delhi-Mumbai Expressway, which will be on the lines of “animal bridges” in Netherlands for safe passage of wildlife. These have been planned to ensure there are no disturbances caused to the Ranthambore Wildlife Corridor connecting Ranthambhore and Mukundra (Darrah) wildlife sanctuaries in Rajasthan.

Sources said the plan has been approved and forwarded by the Rajasthan government to the central wildlife board and is likely to be taken up next week. The NHAI has given the work to an infrastructure major and the agreement would be signed next week.

These will be natural-looking structures over the corridor and will provide safe passage for wildlife across the expressway. “There will be no chance of any conflict as the wild animals will get such passage at every 500 metres interval. The passages will be developed as part of a forest corridor with trees so that animals find it natural,” said a source.

As per the plan, there will be five underground stretches with combined length of 2.5 km. Officials said a boundary wall of 8 metre with noise barriers will also be installed for the safety of animals in the wildlife section. They said the work would start in the next two months and would take two years to complete.

Sources said the NHAI is keen to complete this project and showcase it as a sustainable model of development and for mitigation of the wildlife-traffic conflict where it’s absolutely necessary to build a road through such corridors.

According to literature, the first wildlife crossings were constructed in France during the 1950s. Countries including the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany and France have been adopting different types of crossing structures to mitigate the conflict between wildlife and roads running through their habitats.

New version of N-capable Shaurya missile tested

India tested an advanced version of the nuclear-capable Shaurya missile, which has a strike range of 750 to 1,000-km, from a launch facility off the Odisha coast on Saturday.

The surface-to-surface Shaurya missile, which is designed to achieve hypersonic speed as it nears the target, was test-fired from a hermetically-sealed canister from the Abdul Kalam Island test range at about 12.10 pm.

There was no official word on whether the test was successful or not.

The canister-launch for the two-stage missile, however, makes it deadlier because the armed forces get the requisite operational flexibility to swiftly transport and fire it from anywhere they want. The solid-fueled Shaurya is essentially a land variant of 750-km range K-15 submarine-launched ballistic missile, which arms the country’s solitary nuclear-powered nuclear ballistic missile submarine INS Arihant.

PM Unveils World’s Longest Highway Tunnel

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the strategically important all-weather Atal Tunnel here and lashed out at the Congress-led previous governments, saying strategic projects were neglected and defence interests were compromised for years.

Atal Tunnel, built by the Border Roads Organisation, is the longest highway tunnel in the world and reduces the distance between Manali and Leh by 46 km. It also reduces the travel time by four to five hours.

Speaking on the occasion, Modi said Atal Bihari Vajpayee laid the foundation of the approach road for this tunnel, but after his government left, the project was all but forgotten. Experts say that the pace at which Atal Tunnel was being constructed after the Vajpayee-led NDA government were to continue, the tunnel would have been completed by 2040, he said. “I can talk about dozens of projects that are important from the strategic point of view, but for years they were neglected,” he said. 

All 32 in Babri Case let off

A special CBI court acquitted all 32 accused, including BJP veterans LK Advani, MM Joshi and Uma Bharati, of involvement in the demolition of Babri Masjid 28 years ago.

The Opposition said the verdict ran counter to the spirit of the Constitution as well as last November’s Supreme Court judgment that had called the demolition illegal.

In a 2,300-page judgment, the CBI court held vandals among kar sevaks responsible for the demolition, adding that there was no evidence to prove that the accused and “the unruly elements” planned and met each other at any time to hatch the alleged conspiracy. It said volunteers from the RSS and the VHP handled the situation, and that the late VHP president Ashok Singhal wanted to save the structure because Ram idols were inside.

Delivering the verdict on the day of his retirement, special judge SK Yadav did not accept newspaper reports and video cassettes as evidence. “The video cassettes were not sealed and even the videos were not clear and as such the same cannot be relied on,” he said. The CBI had relied on newspaper evidence, photographs taken by photojournalists and video cassettes. But, the court pointed out their originals were not produced for authentication. It added that none of the video cassettes or footage, including those provided by the then director of Delhi Doordarshan, was sent for forensic testing to rule out tampering. Referring to the Ayodhya-based Hindi daily Janmorcha, produced as evidence of then Ayodhya MP Vinay Katiyar’s alleged comment that “kar sevaks would come secretly”, the judge said neither was the reporter examined nor the original paper produced.

Twenty-six of the 32 accused were present in the Lucknow court when the judge read out the operative portion of the verdict, an exercise which took five minutes. Advani, Joshi, Bharati, former UP CM Kalyan Singh, Ram Janmaboomi Teerth Kshetra Trust President Nritya Gopal Das and Shiv Sena leader Satish Pradhan had sought exemptions from personal appearance. Singh and Bhaarti are recovering from Covid-19; Das tested positive last month.

The verdict came less than a year after the SC’s judgment in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid land dispute that paved the way for the construction of a temple at the Ayodhya site. The court had then called the demolition an “egregious violation of the rule of law”.

With the exoneration, low-key celebrations broke out at the residences of Advani and Joshi, who were glued to their TV sets while the verdict was read out. Advani, 92, flanked by his lawyers and family, clutched his daughter’s hand through the hearing and turned emotional upon his acquittal. A few supporters raised slogans outside, while Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad swung by to congratulate him. Messages and calls from the senior leadership poured in through the day. Later, in an official statement, Advani said the verdict was a vindication of his commitment to the Ram Janmabhoomi movement. Joshi, 86, said the verdict proved that there was no conspiracy in the BJP’s programmes and that the controversy should now come to an end.

India gets back-to-back surplus monsoons first time since 1958-59

India has recorded ‘above normal’ monsoon rainfall for the second year in a row, only for the first time since 1958-59. In 1958, the monsoon rainfall was 110% of long period average (LPA) and 114% the next year.

Releasing salient features of 2020 south-west monsoon, the IMD said on Thursday all India seasonal rainfall this year was quantitatively the third-highest in the past 30 years, after 1994 (112%) and 2019 (110%). The rainfall during the June 1-September 30 period this year was 95.8cm against the long period average of 88cm based on data of 1961-2010 — it means nearly 9% surplus (109% of LPA).

The distribution of seasonal rainfall was, however, not uniform this year. The country recorded the highest 127% of LPA rainfall in August while July was a deficit month with 90% of LPA. With the surplus rainfall in June, August and September, the country also recorded an all-time high acreage. Based on it, the Union agriculture ministry has set a record target of 301million tonnes of foodgrains for the 2020-21 crop year.

The rainfall has to be 96-104% of LPA to be considered as ‘normal’ and between 104-110% to be described ‘above normal’.

The IMD’s first stage forecast for the seasonal rainfall over the country as a whole, issued in April, was 100% of LPA with a model error of ± 5% of LPA.

The forecast was, however,upgradedto102%of LPA with a model error of ± 4% of LPA in the IMD’s update in May end.

The IMD also predicted a probability of 65% of monsoon rainfall to be ‘normal’ to ‘above normal’.

The actual seasonal rainfall for the country as a whole was 109% of LPA, which is more than the predicted value and thus turned out to be very positive for the kharif (summer sown) crops.

The monsoon started retreating from western parts of north-west India on September 28 against the normal withdrawal date of September 17 with a delay of around11days.

Air India One

India now has a B777 plane on the lines of Air Force One, which is used by the US President, in the Air India fleet that will be solely dedicated to the Prime Minister, President and Vice-President.

In an upgrade from the Boeing 747 aircraft that Air India operated to fly the Indian leaders, B777 will be fitted with state-of-the-art defence systems, including missiles and jamming mechanisms.

Here’s what’s new in the B777 aircraft or Air India One:

1. The B777 planes will have state-of-the-art missile defence systems called Large Aircraft Infrared Countermeasures (LAIRCM) and Self-Protection Suites (SPS).

2. The two B777 aircraft will be operated by pilots of the Indian Air Force (IAF) and not of Air India. The previous Boeing 747 plane that was used by Prime Minister Narendra Modi was operated by Air India pilots.

3. When the Boeing 747 aircraft are not flying the Indian dignitaries, they are usually used by Air India for commercial operations. However, the custom-made B777 planes will be exclusively used for the travel of the dignitaries only.

4. On the lines of Air Force One that is dedicated to the American President’s travels, India now has a United States-manufactured aircraft exclusively for the Prime Minister, President and Vice-President.

5. But be it electronic jammers for anti-missile capabilities, communication and military security systems, along with facilities to handle medical emergencies and comfort, Air India One will not be far behind.

6. The anti-missile system in the Boeing 777 Large Aircraft Infrared Countermeasures (LAIRCM) and Self-Protection Suites (SPM) are similar to the Air Force One’s defence capabilities.

7. If required, the customised aircraft can also launch a counter-offensive in case of an attack, again similar to the military mechanisms of Air Force One. The Boeing 777 has the mechanism to jam suspect radar frequencies and detect missiles.

8. The LAIRCM system can increase crew-warning time and reduce false alarm rates. The warning system, through several sensors, can take on any missile threat without any action required from the crew. It can fly for 17 hours without refuelling.

9. In the speed aspect, Boeing 777 will match Air Force One, flying at almost 900 km per hour. In the initial phase Air India pilots will be flying with Indian Air Force. The aircraft will be handed over to IAF and their pilots will be operating these aircraft eventually.

10. Just like Air Force One, the new aircraft will have all facilities onboard to function as a full-fledged office space with conference cabins.