Tuesday, December 27, 2016

Jet Airways flight veers off runway at Dabolim airport i

A Jet Airways flight, with 161 people on board, veered off the runway at Dabolim airport in Goa early this morning while aligning for take off to Mumbai. 15 passengers suffered minor injuries during evacuation.
Eyewitnesses said, when the evacuation was on, the aircraft tilted forward triggering panic among passengers. The Airlines, in a statement said, medical assistance is being coordinated with the airport authorities for the injured people. According to Airport sources, the airport has been closed for operations till 12.30 pm.

EAMSushma Swaraj: Father Tom’s to be release from IS captivity

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has said that the Government have spared no effort and will spare no effort to secure Father Tom’s release from captivity. In a tweet, Ms Swaraj said, Father Tom is an Indian citizen and the life of every Indian is most precious for the government. She said, government had got Father Alex Prem Kumar and Judith D’Souza released from Afghanistan.
The External Affairs Ministry yesterday had said that it is in regular touch with Yemeni authorities and Saudi Arabia regarding the safe release of Father Tom. The Indian catholic priest who was abducted from Yemen in March appealed to the Union government and Pope Francis through a video to secure his release from his captors.

Lt Gen Vinod Vashisht takes over as DG NCC

Lt Gen Vinod Vashisht took over the reins of National Cadet Corps (NCC) as its Director General on 23 December 2016.
An alumnus of National Defence Academy, the General was commissioned into the Regiment of Artillery on 09 June 1979. A graduate from Defence Services Staff College, Wellington, the General has attended the Higher Command Course, National Defence College, IAS Professional Course and Emergency Management Course at Melbourne, Australia.
He has held various staff and command appointments and has been awarded with COAS & GOC-in-C Central Command Commendation, VSM & Bar for distinguished service in command and staff assignments. He held the appointment of Additional Director General in Military Training and Additional Military Secretary (A) at the IHQ of MoD (Army). He was the Commandant, Officers Training Academy, Gaya prior to the current assignment.He succeeds Lt Gen A Chakravarty, who retired on31 August 2016.

BJP using Anti-Corruption Branch to harass AAP’s CM candidate Elvis Gomes

BJP using Anti-Corruption Branch to harass AAP’s CM candidate Elvis Gomes
  • Elvis Gomes was questioned by the ACB in Goa for three hours in a false case registered out of vendetta
  • Within a week of being named CM candidate, Gomes was summoned by the ACB
The Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Goa under CM Laxmikant Parsekar has started harassing Aam Aadmi Party’s Chief Ministerial candidate Elvis Gomes. Within one week of Gomes being declared as the CM candidate, Goa’s Anti-Corruption Branch summoned Gomes for questioning on 26th December. The case was lodged against him out of political vendetta by the BJP Government when Gomes had applied for Voluntary Retirement from the state services earlier this year. In what is a clear case of persecution of political opponents using state machinery, the BJP Government’s ACB held Gomes for questioning for over three hours. The BJP in Goa is following the same script as that of Delhi, where several false cases have been lodged against AAP MLAs.
National Spokesperson Ashutosh said during a press conference, “Elvis is an honest and upright ex-bureaucrat, renowned in Goa for his integrity. The case is from the year 2011, but five years later the ACB has suddenly sprung into action. On 26th December, soon after Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal announced Elvis as the CM candidate, Elvis was summoned and questioned for 3 hours in a completely fabricated case against him. If the BJP continues harassing honest leaders of the AAP, it will face the same fate in Goa that it did in Delhi in the 2015 election.”
During the press conference, the AAP played a video clip of the current Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar and Deputy Chief Minister Francis D’Souza praising Gomes profusely and admitting that Elvis Gomes was a brilliant officer of the Goa Government. This video clip is from June 2016, before Gomes joined the Aam Aadmi Party. This makes it clear that the sudden action against Gomes is part of a political conspiracy to defame and silence the AAP’s CM face in the state.
The BJP should realise that their attempts to crush the AAP using state machinery would not just fail, but also backfire on them. The people of Goa believe that Elvis Gomes is an honest political leader, and that he is now being harassed because the BJP feels threatened by him and the AAP. Under no circumstances do such moves deter the AAP and the BJP must stop the abuse of the ACB by forcing it to act against the honest for mere political gain.

Nock-Ten & Quake of 5.2-magnitude hit Philippines

An earthquake measuring 5.2 on the Richter scale hit the Philippines coast today. The US Geological Survey reported that the earthquake occurred at 01:23 GMT today at a depth of 10 kilometers, 61 kilometers north of Namuac, a city located in the Philipinne Cagayan Valley region. No information on casualties or damage from the quake has been provided so far.
Philippines, powerful typhoon Nock-Ten is continuing to batter, as it heads towards the area around the heavily-populated capital Manila. Civil defence officials have been put on red alert, as the storm is due to hit the city later today. The storm has weakened since making landfall on the eastern coast yesterday, but it still packs winds up to 140 km per hour, meteorologists say.
Three people were reported killed in Albay province, south-east of Manila. The storm has cut power lines and uprooted trees. Manila’s civil defence office warned that the capital could be hit by heavy to intense rains, flash floods and severe winds.
The coastguard has ordered beaches south of Manila to be cleared. The charity Save the Children told that up to one million people would need emergency shelter over the next 24 hours. Nock-Ten, known as Nina in the Philippines, hit the coast near Catanduanes island late yesterday, knocking out power.

Thinking from politics in the Land Use Planning of Bangalore

Dear All,
As part of our Urban Workshop Series, the Centre for Policy Research (CPR) and Centre de Sciences Humaines (CSH), Delhi, are delighted to invite you to a workshop on Planning and Participation: Thinking from politics in the Land Use Planning of Bangalore by Jayaraj Sundareshan from the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS), Bangalore.

Date:               Tuesday, 27th December 2016
Time:               3.45 p.m.
Venue:             Conference Hall, Centre for Policy Research, Dharma Marg, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi 110 021
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While a lack of participation dominated critiques of urban planning in India for decades, in the past decade, critiques of participation have occupied a central concern for those who dismiss the Indian urban planning system as exclusivist, elitist, outmoded, technocratic, abstract, and authoritarian, civic, aesthetic or middle class governmentality. How do we understand the participatory process: who participates, how, and when? Does participation happen only during the making of key decisions that underlie ‘the plan’ or also in devising appropriate planning instruments? Or should it also happen during the implementation and enforcement process? Should the participants have a say in every planning application in their neighbourhood and beyond and also in devising the planning system and its governance. These questions will be engaged with to examine the relationship between the epistemological categories of planning and participation based on the experience of land use planning politics in Bangalore.
Jayaraj Sundareshan is a comparative urbanist whose research interest lies at the intersection of urban theory, urban practice and urban transformation. His research interest lies at the intersection of urban theory, urban practice and urban transformation. His primary research field sites are Cities in India and London in the UK. Thematic issues of interest include urban politics and governance, urban morphology, urban commons, planning and design practice, violations and illegalities, ecological transformations, participation, urban activism and communal geographies. Jayaraj has taught at the University College London (UCL), London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS) and National Institute of Technology -C (India). He lives between Kerala, Bangalore and London.

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