Project Arrow has been launched with objective of modernizing the post offices and making visible, tangible and noteworthy differences in the Post Offices’ operations that matter to “Aam Aadmi”. The project envisages upgradation of Post Offices in urban and rural areas both in terms of upgrading and enhancing the quality of service in ‘core areas’ and improving the ‘look and feel.’ The project aims at creating a conducive and friendly work environment both for the staff and the customers visiting the Post Offices, providing all IT enabled services through secure connectivity, improving the service quality levels in the core business areas e.g. Mail delivery, Remittances both electronic and manual and Postal Savings Scheme.

There are 14500 km of navigable and potentially navigable inland waterways in the country of which the following five inland waterways have been declared as National Waterways:

(i) National Waterway-1: Allahabad-Haldia stretch of the Ganga–Bhagirathi-Hooghly river ( Total length-1620 km) in the States of  Uttar Pradesh,  Bihar,  Jharkhand  and West Bengal.

The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) has recommended to the Ministry of Civil Aviation to refrain from rostering of pilots beyond normal Flying Duty Time Line (FDTL) and especially during sunrise and sunset to avoid recurrence of air accidents.

In addition, the chamber has also suggested that state-created training infrastructure and facilities for pilots should be permitted to be pooled in with other operators in the private domain irrespective of their size. This has become necessary as training facilities for pilots exist with a few bigger airlines and are denied to their counterparts. As a result, the pilots are requisitioned and hired at exorbitantly higher commercial considerations from overseas airlines to bridge the demand-supply gap for air-traffic movement. However, this suggestion should be executed purely on commercial considerations.

Terminal 3 of Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA), New Delhi was  inaugurated by Prime Minister  Dr. Manmohan Singh, on 03 July 2010 . This has the unique distinction of being one of the few airports in the world to go the ‘Green’ way.

Earlier in 2008, the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA) in Hyderabad which was awarded with the prestigious (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) LEED- NC Silver Rating in 2008 has ushered in a Green movement in the Indian aviation sector. RGIA was the first airport in Asia to be awarded the LEED certification.  In a recent survey RGIA was awarded the 5th position amongst the best airports in the world for all categories.

The terrible railway accident due to the collision of two trains in Sainthia railway station led to the tragic death of at least 60 persons.

The number of rail accidents has been unprecedented in the last one year. Maintenance of equipment and safety measures are being neglected in the railways. One lakh jobs in safety related jobs remain vacant. The government cannot keep quiet about the present state of affairs in the railways.

Golden Jubilee celebrations of the front line Sea Harrier squadron of the Indian Navy, Indian Naval Air Squadron (INAS) 300, is ‘launched’ on 05thJuly 2010 at Goa with over a hundred White Tigers in attendance.

The White Tigers have an illustrious history with many significant contributions over the past fifty years. On 18 May 1961 Lt Cdr RH Tahilhiani (later Admiral and Chief of Naval Staff) landed the first Seahawk, piloted by an Indian, onboard the INS Vikrant. Ever since, the Squadron has been at the fore front of naval operations as the premier front line fighter squadron of the Indian Navy. The 1971 India-Pakistan conflict saw the squadron’s Seahawk aircraft in action from INS Vikrant. When the conflict ended, INAS 300 had not suffered a single loss and won one Maha Vir Chakra, five Vir Chakras, one Naosena medal and four Mentions inDespatches.

Delhi got a spanking new world-class Rs 9,000 crore airport that will integrate domestic and international operations and is expected to handle 34 million passengers annually. The integrated T-3 Terminal of the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi was  inaugurated by the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh on 2^nd July,2010.

The new terminal or Terminal 3 (T3), said to be the sixth largest in the world, was on Saturday inaugurated by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who said the Indian aviation sector has the potential to observe upto USD 120 billion of investment by 2020.

The Ministry of Railways has released its new All India Railway Time Table known as “TRAINS AT A GLANCE (TAG)” which has come into effect from 1st July, 2010.  In addition to this All India Time table, all the 16 zonal Railways have also released their zonal railway time tables which too have come into effect from 1^st July, 2010.

The salient features of the All India Railway Time Table i.e. TAG are as under :

About 49 thousand slums were estimated to be in existence in urban India in 2008-09, 24% of them were located along nallahs and drains and 12% along railway lines. About 57% of slums were built on public land, owned mostly by local bodies, state government, etc. In 64% of notified slums, a majority of the dwellings were pucca, the corresponding percentage for the non-notified ones being 50%. For 95% slums, the major source of drinking water was either tap or tubewell. Only 1% notified and 7% non-notified slums did not have electricity connection. About 78% of notified slums and 57% of the non-notified slums had a pucca road inside the slum.

The Government has been continuously watching the effect of employment situation due to global financial crisis and economic slowdown in India. The current survey is the sixth in the series of “Quarterly Quick Employment Surveys in Affected Sectors” conducted in the month of April 2010 and covering January to March 2010 by Labour Bureau to assess the impact of economic slowdown on employment in India.

In the sixth quarterly quick employment survey, the sample establishments covered in the previous survey have been revisited to assess the changes in employment. During the survey, the information has been collected from 2,815 units / establishments by covering 21 centres spread across eleven States and union territory.

A  potentially horrendous disaster was somehow averted at Mumbai airport on May 31,2009. Two aircraft with close to 250 passengers and crew on board simultaneously tried to take off from Mumbai’s two intersecting runways and would have collided with each other but for last minute action by both pilots and Air Traffic Control (ATC) to abort the take-offs. As is customary in such cases, an inquiry is being conducted by the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) while the pilots and the air traffic controllers involved have been taken off duty pending the investigation.  No firm conclusions can therefore yet be drawn as to causes. But again as usually happens in India leaks and rumours are flying thick and fast, obscuring the truth and building up a smokescreen behind which everyone, and thus no one in particular, is to blame. Yet there are already a number of indicators pointing to structural problems in Indian civil aviation safety with many factors contributing to accidents just waiting to happen.

Chandigarh, Dehradun, Pune, Udaipur, Indore, Jabalpur and Ranchi occupy the highest ranking in Tier II cities for post-retirement living for majority of CEOs and other officials with Chandigarh and Dehradun respectively taking a lead followed by Pune, Udaipur, Indore, Jabalpur and Ranchi, according to an analysis carried out by The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM).

However, Ghaziabad, Meerut, Noida, Faridabad, Sonepat and Manesar fall in the category of poor ranking as not many CEOs and other officials would prefer to stay their following superannuation from active services,  adds it’s analysis.

The World Bank report titled “Deep Wells and Prudence: Towards Pragmatic Action for Addressing Groundwater Overexploitation in India”, includes an analysis of the potential of community groundwater management in India and mentions that “State-level engagement is still required to support and nurture a community-based approach”. It further states that “State agencies should create an enabling environment, ensuring that community-based initiative receive the support they need to build capacity, take on the lessons of experience, and improve institutional coordination at the local level”.

a Technical Group constituted by the Ministry in 2006 to assess the urban housing shortage has estimated that at the end of the 10th Five Year Plan (2007-08), the total housing shortage in the country was 24.71 million. Further, an additional requirement of 1.82 million dwelling units has been projected for the 11th Plan, bringing the total housing requirement during the 11th Plan Period (2007-2012) to 26.53 Million dwelling units.

‘Land’ and ‘Colonisation’ being State subjects, it is primarily the responsibility of State Governments to provide for adequate Shelter. However, the Union Government has formulated the first urban area focused National Urban Housing & Habitat Policy, 2007 to set in motion a process in providing ‘Affordable Housing for All’ particularly the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) and Low Income Group (LIG). This policy intends to promote sustainable development of habitat in the country with a view to ensuring equitable supply of land, shelter and services at affordable prices to all sections of society.

RIL has signed a Gas Sale Purchase Agreement (GSPA) with Reliance Natural Resources Ltd (RNRL) without any bidding or competitive arms length process, to supply gas at a contracted price of 2.34 dollar per  mmbtu whereas India imports gas from Qatar at an estimated price of 6 dollar/mmbtu. RIL by this agreement with RNRL is going to supply gas cheaply, that too as large a quantity as 40 mmscmd (current total domestic gas availably for customers in the country is 72 mmscmd). RIL is, therefore, seeking to transfer the benefit of gas find to a related private company at a cheaper price…..This benefit should actually flow to the people by virtue of Article 297 of the Constitution of India as per which petroleum in its natural state is vested in the Union of India. The government grants the exploration license in overall interest of the country.”

It was a dispute waiting to arise. When the government, under its New Exploration and Licensing Policy (NELP), decided a decade back to let the private sector exploit India’s limited oil and gas reserves through production sharing contracts (PSCs), the question of who ”owns” those reserves was at least partially sidestepped. In principle, the fact that the private sector was to invest in extracting the oil and gas while the government was to get a share of the output amounted to an implicit recognition of the government’s right over these reserves. However, there was no clear equation made between sharing production and sharing revenues. This allowed for the possibility that at least a part of the gas could be disposed of by private contractor to buyers they select at prices they choose, so long as the government is paid a royalty computed on revenues earned at an arms-length or transparently discovered price approved by it.

The Committee headed by Sh.  B.K. Chaturvedi Committee, looking into the issues pertaining to the development of National Highways has submitted its second report to the Government

The summarized recommendations made by Sh. B.K. Chaturvedi Committee are as follows:

New projects could be considered for inclusion as National Projects on receipt of proposals from the State Governments in the prescribed format, indicating satisfaction of one or more criteria for inclusion as defined by the published guidelines of the scheme of National Projects  recommendation thereupon of a high powered Steering Committee constituted for the purpose of overseeing the entire process of selection and implementation of National Projects clearance from Expenditure Finance Committee/Project Investment Board and on the approval by the Union Cabinet.

The Ministry of Water Resources declared some of its projects as national projects. The details of the projects are as under:

As part of initiatives to improve connectivity between Northeast India and Southeast Asia, the government is considering a rail link from Manipur to Vietnam, Union minister Shashi Tharoor said.

“Efforts are underway to have a rail link from Jiribham (close to the Assam border) to Hanoi in Vietnam passing through Myanmar,”.

Due to globalization and opening of Indian markets to foreign players Indian consumers today have an access to innumerable brands. In every industry whether it is fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) or durable goods or service industry there are more than twenty brands at national level catering to the needs of the consumers. This situation of plenty is giving the consumer an opportunity to choose goods and services from a wide spectrum. But is the consumer getting value for money? why is consumer protection becoming more important in today’s scenario? and is the concept ‘let the buyer beware’ still exists? or are we moving towards consumer sovereignty?