Somewhere in Pune....

A dozen vehicles float in the swollen waters of the Mula river after the Khadakvasla irrigation officials released 19,000 cusecs of water from the dam.

The Monsoon session

The monsoon session of Parliament provides ashort window of opportunity to clear the backlog of pending legislations but experts say progress may be limited as proceedings are expected to be stormy given the political situation. And the mountain of legislations is staggering with nearly 81 bills pending before Parliament, some of them for several years. Parliament convenes for the monsoon session from August 1 and is likely to meet for about 26 days which analysts say should provide enough room to the Centre to get some key legislations approved. But it may not be all smooth sailing as several bills have been referred to standing committees which are examining them while others have been returned for consideration. Only 12% of the budget session was spent on legislation in the Lok Sabha and 6% in the Rajya Sabha, according to PRS Legislative, a private think tank. Of the 13 bills announced by the government in its 100-day agenda, only one has been cleared so far. “There is a cost for not passing a bill. The pension bill, for instance, has not yet been passed by Parliament but we already have a regulator and a pension fund that is functioning without statutory backing. This is not the best situation,’’ said M R Madhavan, head of research at PRS Legislative. A reason for the delay in getting legislations approved is the lack of consensus among parties. “We usually see that the parliamentary standing committees do a lot of work but it is the last mile where the government, for whatever reasons, is unable to pull off,’’ Madhavan said. Of the eight bills that were part of UPA-2’s 100-day agenda, only RTE has won parliamentary approval.Investors are keenly awaiting the fate of several financial sector legislations. The string of scandals in the past one year has led to a policy paralysis and stalled legislative business as the government has been caught up fending off allegations of corruption. “The government inaction on crucial financial and other key reforms has weakened the investment climate, and will soon start taking a toll on the economy. As a result, it has heightened the uncertainty, and there is genuine fear of a slowdown. The government needs to do take some corrective steps soon,” said Rajeev Kumar, director general of Ficci. At least 10 key financial sector reform bills await parliamentary nod. Some have been vetted by parliamentary standing committees but others have been pending for several years. They include the Banking Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2011, the Companies Bill 2009, Constitution (One hundred and fifteenth amendment) Bill, 2011, Direct Taxes Code Bill, 2010 and Pension Fund Regulatory.

Somewhere in Siliguri....

The Man V Animal conflict :The residents of Prakash Nagar village near Salugara on the outskirts of Siliguri woke up to the entry of an unexpected guest in the wee hours of Tuesday. Forest guards, after being alarmed, put up a brave fight and tranquillized the full grown leopard, but not before it managed to maul six persons in its bid to escape

HC scraps UP land acquisition again

The Mayawati government received another jolt on Tuesday when the Allahabad HC has cancelled acquisition of 589.13 hectare land by Greater Noida in Dewla Patwari villages—putting in jeopardy the investments of 30,000 buyers. The acquisition was done using the urgency clause in the name of industrial development but was handed over to builders for residential purpose after changing the land use. On the other hand, the government has transferred the Noida chairman and chief executive officer following criticism over acquisition in the area. The order came a fortnight after the SC struck down acquisition of 156 hectares of land by the state in Shahberi village . This is the sixth acquisition by the state which has been quashed by the HC on the petition of farmers since March. Verdict on the acquisition of land in Roja and Yakubpur villages in Noida is expected on Wednesday. In all these cases, the land was acquired by the state using urgency clause of the Land Acquisition Act denying farmers an opportunity to register their protest or negotiate for the deal. On Tuesday, the Allahabad HC bench comprising justice Sunil Ambawani and justice S S Tiwari quashed the acquisition order on the petition of over two dozen farmers of the two villages—Dewala and Patwari. Nearly 1500 farmers in villages were affected by the acquisition in 2008.

Somewhere in Jaipur....

Jaipur's skyline is set to acquire a new dimension with the national flag being hoisted at a height of 206 feet throughout the year. An initiative of Flag Foundation of India, the flag itself would be of 48 feet wide and 72 feet in length and weigh about 27 kg. The Jaipur Development Authority (JDA) has received a letter from the state government to identify the land where a pole of the required height can be installed, said sources. A direction was given to the authorities after the Flag Foundation of India, of which Member of Parliament from Kurukshetra, Naveen Jindal is the founder president, has showed eagerness to install the flag in the city. Flag Foundation India CEO, Commander (Rtd) K V Singh, said: “The letter was written to the Government of Rajasthan in December 2010, to install national flag in the capital. FFI plans to install national flags at all the district headquarters of the country.” “The cities which have these poles installed will have national flags fly 24 hours throughout the year. The 206 feet flag mast will have a decorated crest and a high voltage light falling on the flag at night making it more beautiful.” The FFI has installed such flag poles in Kurukshetra, Orissa, Kanyakumari, and Bangalore.

Of many Metros planned

Many cities across India are racing to build metro rail systems to ease traffic congestion. In the Metro Rail World 2011 meet held in May 2011, it was said that 4000km of new subway tracks would be added in India. In all in the country, metros would be running in eight more cities. While the metro is under construction in Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad, metro rails are being planned in Pune, Lucknow, Kanpur, Ahmedabad, Ludhiana, Kochi, Indore and Chandigarh. Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) chief E Sreedharan had earlier mentioned that the Kerala government had cleared the metro rail project in Kochi and handed it over to DMRC on a turnkey basis. On Hyderabad metro, he said the state still wanted to go for a build, operate and transfer (BOT) mode involving the private sector. Under a turnkey project, a developer constructs the project and is sold or turned over to a buyer in a ready-to-use condition. Punjab government in June 2011 had approved the detailed project report for the Ludhiana metro rail project. The cabinet had permitted the execution of the project through public-private partnership or BOT model. The metro projects that are under construction include Delhi Metro that has completed 65 km of phase one and when both phase 1 and 2 are ready, Delhi Metro will stretch to 120km. In Bangalore, 42.3 km kilometers of metro rail is under construction under phase 1 of the project and another 51km is planned under the phase 2. While Mumbai Metro line 2 (Charkop-Bandra-Mankhurd) of 32 km is under construction, 21.14km of metro rail project is being planned for Navi Mumbai Metro (phase 1, 2 and 3). The other cities where metro projects are under construction include Jaipur (28.5km) and Hyderabad (71km). Nearly 40km length metro rail is planned for Pune, 25km for Kochi, 24km for Lucknow. On the other hand, metro in Gujarat will provide link between Gandhinagar and Ahmedabad of 100km length. Plans are afoot to have 15.79 km of metro rail in Ludhiana.

Somewhere in Rajasthan....

Post Fukushima, India’s nuclear programme crossed an important milestone on Monday with the beginning of the nation’s construction of the 25th and 26th nuclear power reactors at Rawatbhata in Rajasthan. Both pressurized heavy water reactors (PHWR) have capacity of 700 mw each. The construction is expected to be completed in 2016-17. On completion, 1,400 MW capacity will be added to the northern electricity grid, of which 700 MW will be allocated to Rajasthan. The construction began with the first pour of concrete on Monday, which is a milestone in building a nuclear power plant and signifies the start of the construction (zero date). According to the Nuclear Power Corporation (NPC), the indigenously designed 700-MW PHWR is the latest, state-of-art technology reactor, which has been designed by NPC by scaling up its 540-MW PHWRs at Tarapur in Maharashtra. Two more 700-MW PHWRs are also under construction at Kakrapar near Surat in Gujarat. The 700-MW reactors have advanced safety features, including passive safety systems that work on natural principles like gravity, natural convection. They do not need operator intervention or what is called “motive power” to ensure reactor safety under any state of operation. There are two independent and diverse systems to shut down the reactor — a passive decay heat removal system to ensure cooling of the reactor core even in during total loss of power, and steel-lined inner containment to contain the entire radioactivity within the reactor building even in a severe accident scenario. Currently, there are 20 nuclear power reactors with a capacity of 4,780 MW and seven reactors with a capacity of 5,300 MW are under construction in the country. On completion, the installed nuclear power capacity will reach 10,080 MW by the year 2017. More reactors are planned to take the installed capacity to 20,000 MW or more by the year 2020.