Mumbai Harbour Line snippets

Central Railway officials, who are working on the feasibility study for a fast corridor on Harbour Line, have said the project could be “above or below the earth’s surface, depending on the finances available’’. Managing director of Mumbai Railway Vikas Corporation, P C Sehgal said that the study looked at seven options to have a faster link between CST and Panvel. The options were forwarded to a panel of Central Railway officials a few days ago. According to one of the proposals, trains could stop at all stations up to Cotton Green and then halt at select stations. “This will be like the fast corridor on Western Railway, which halts at all stations between Churchgate and Mumbai Central,’’ an official said. “Another option is to build an elevated or an underground corridor between CST and Cotton Green as the railways is pressed for space along the stretch. A pair of conventional tracks could be laid out beyond this,’’ Sehgal said. One more option is to have an elevated or an underground track from CST through P D’Mello to the BPT yard. “The existing lines from BPT could be used till Wadala Road after which a conventional ground-level line could be laid to Panvel,’’ Sehgal said. This, however, will depend on permissions from BPT. The entire project is expected to cost Rs 3,000 crore. “Harbour line commuters have a right to a faster commute. Even 15 minutes saved either way makes a huge difference to a city where time is money,’’ Sehgal said. “CR officials have a few problems with the track alignment and we are working on them. The CR general manager also suggested an elevated path till Kurla,’’ he added.

The Copenhagen Climate Change Summit snapshot

193 nations taking part in world’s biggest climate change conference
16,500 people flying in for summit
2,500 meetings to be held in 2 weeks
40,000 tonnes of CO ² expected to be emitted due to the summit
100,000 tonnes of CO ² : Danish Energy Agency hopes to save this much annually through a clean brick kiln project in Bangladesh, to offset the summit’s carbon emissions
1 wind turbine will power lights at Bella Center, the conference venue
200,000 cups of organic coffee to be served to delegates
122 ‘climate-proofed’ limousines for VIPs. Obama may travel in limo running on algae diesel or electricity
200 cycles outside venue for delegates

Silver sparkles too

Silver has made sparkling gains too...it's not just gold.

Curves are back

Cho chweet..the VW Beetle is here

Abolish the caste system : SC

Thirty years after seven dalits were massacred by upper caste Thakurs in Uttar Pradesh, the Supreme Court has sentenced to life imprisonment five of the accused and said caste system should be abolished soon for ensuring rule of law and smooth functioning of democracy. Reversing the acquittal of the six accused, the apex court said “Unfortunately, the centuries-old Indian caste system still takes its toll from time to time. This case unfolds the worst kind of atrocities committed by the socalled upper caste (Kshatriya or Thakur) against the socalled lower caste caste in a civilized country. It is absolutely imperative to abolish the caste system as expeditiously as possible for smooth functioning of rule of law and democracy in our country,” a Bench of Justices Dalveer Bhandari and A K Patnaik said in a judgement. The apex court said minor discrepancies in statements of witnesses should be ignored by courts in such carnages as they are bound to be under tremendous fear. The accused, belonging to Thakur caste, butchered seven totally innocent persons belonging to Harijan caste and to wipe out the evidence of their atrocities, threw their bodies in the strong currents of the Ganga rive, the apex court said adding the massacre was carried out to teach a lesson to so-called lower caste and commit dacoity at the village. It was at the intervention of then PM Indira Gandhi and dalit leader Jagjivan Ram that the police had arrested 18 people in connection with the massacre on September 9, 1979, in Lohari, under Hussainganj police station.

Gold on a high

Food inflation snapshot

Food inflation surged to 17.47% in thethird week of November from 15.58% in the previous week fanning expectations of a rate hike by the Reserve Bank of India at its January policy review.On a weekly basis,onions turned expensive by over 12%, while it surged by 30.89% on a yearly basis.Pulses rose over 37%, while rice wheat, fruits, milk turned expensive by over 10% year-on-year. Potatoes' prices surged 94.17%, as compared to 100% a week ago.