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Medal of honour: President presents Ashok Chakra to kin of slain army heroes

January 26, 2015

ashoka chakra

New Delhi, Jan 26: President Pranab Mukherjee on Monday posthumously honoured two heroes of the Indian Army with the prestigious Ashok Chakra, the highest peacetime military honour of the country.

Family-members of Major Mukund Varadarajan and Naik Neeraj Kumar Singh accepted the award during the 66th Republic Day celebrations in New Delhi in the presence of US President Barrack Obama.

The two army heroes had laid down their lives combating militants in separate incidents last year at Shopian and Kupwara districts of Kashmir respectively.

The Ashok Chakra award is given for the “most conspicuous bravery or some daring or pre-eminent valour or self-sacrifice” other than in the face of the enemy.

Call of duty

The Udhampur-based defence spokesman Colonel SD Goswami said that Major Mukund Varadarajan of Rashtriya Rifles acted swiftly after receiving information about the presence of three terrorists in a village of Shopian district on April 25, 2014.

“This group had targeted polling officials just a day prior. Major Mukund acted swiftly by deploying troops in an effective cordon and simultaneously evacuated civilians from the target house,” the spokesman said.

He said Major Mukund led from the front the demolition team and used the resources available to him in a critically short time period to bring down the "target house".

“This aggressive action forced the terrorists to shift their position to an outhouse in the compound. Major Mukund along with sepoy Vikram displaying raw courage, crawled in proximity to the outhouse.

“The officer lobbed a grenade inside the cement outhouse killing one terrorist instantaneously. Another terrorist present in the outhouse opened a burst of auto fire thereby seriously injuring Major Mukund,” he said.

The spokesman said although bleeding profusely, the officer crawled ahead unmindful of his grave injury, fired and neutralised the second terrorist.

He later succumbed to his injuries.

Defence sources said Naik Neeraj Singh, while leading a search operation in Kupwara district on August 24, 2014 came under heavy fire from terrorists which hit one of his colleagues.

With utter disregard for personal safety, he crawled and extricated his colleague.

A terrorist threw grenades and brought heavy fire on Singh but in a very daring act, he inched closer to the terrorist and shot him dead, the sources added.

Simultaneously, he was attacked by another terrorist resulting in dropping of his rifle and was shot in the chest. Despite grievous injuries, displaying unparalleled courage, he pounced on the terrorist, snatched his weapon and killed him in hand-to-hand combat.

He refused to be evacuated till he became unconscious and later succumbed to his injuries.

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News Network
April 10,2020

New Delhi, Apr 10: With 896 COVID-19 cases reported in the country in the last 24 hours, India's total number of coronavirus positive cases rose to 6,761 on Friday, informed the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

Out of all these cases, 6039 are active cases, 516 have been cured/discharged/ migrated, and 206 deaths have been reported so far.

The country witnessed the highest one day increase with 896 cases.

37 deaths were reported in the last 24 hours.

Maharashtra with 1364 cases is the worst affected state followed by the Union Territory of Delhi with 898 cases and Tamil Nadu with 834 cases.

The country is under a 21-day lockdown until April 14 which was imposed to curb the spread of the virus.

States like Odisha and Punjab have extended the lockdown till April 30.

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Agencies
February 10,2020

New Delhi, Feb 10: The government is set to privatise Central Electronics Ltd, a CPSE under the Department of Science and Technology, by selling its 100% stake with management control and has invited the Expression of Interest for the same by March 16.

The selected bidder will be required to lock in its shares for a period of three years during which it cannot undertake the sale of its stake in CEL, the PIM (Preliminary Information Memorandum) said.

"The government of India has 'in-principle' decided to disinvest 100 per cent of its equity shareholding in CEL (which is equivalent to 100 per cent of the total paid up equity share capital of CEL) through Strategic Disinvestment with transfer of management control (Strategic Disinvestment or Transaction)," DIPAM, the Disinvestment Department, said.

The process for the transaction has been divided into two stages, namely, Stage I and Stage II.

After BPCL and Air India, this is yet another CPSE which government is slated to privatise if it gets offers from bidders.

The government has set a challenging target of Rs 2.1 lakh crore disinvestment proceeds from CPSE sell-offs and IPOs, OFSs (Offer for sale) in the next fiscal and it going out all guns blazing to meet that target after revising this fiscal target of Rs 1.05 lakh crore to Rs 65,000 crore.

The Interested Bidders (which can also include employees of CEL) must have a minimum net worth of Rs 50 crore as on March 2019. DIPAM has released complete invitation Preliminary Information Memorandum (PIM) of CEL. Resurgent India Limited is the advisor to the Transaction.

CEL is a pioneer in the country in the field of Solar Photovoltaic (SPV) with the distinction of having developed India's first Solar cell in 1977 and first Solar panel in 1978 as well as commissioning India's first solar plant in 1992.

More recently, it has developed and manufactured the first crystalline flexible solar panel especially for use on the passenger train roofs in 2015.

Its solar products have been qualified to International Standards IEC 61215/61730. CEL is further working on development of a range of new and upgraded products for signaling and telecommunication in the railway sector.

In the SWOT analysis of the CPSE, DIPAM has stated under weakness that "the company has weak financial loss due to past losses, high manufacturing cost and non payment of dues by state nodal agencies affecting the financial position of the company".

The CPSE has adequate land for expansion, the SWOT analysis said adding "the CPSE faces threat of dumping of solar cells at very low rates which makes solar PV manufacturing industry unviable".

Entry of new players in the market for solar products and railway signalling systems also is cited as a threat.

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News Network
August 7,2020

Idukki, Aug 7: Several people lost their lives and dozens of tea estate workers are feared trapped under soil in Kerala’s Munnar after torrential rains triggered a massive landslide on today. 

As many as five bodies have been recovered and rescue workers are fighting inclement weather to remove the debris.

According to rescue workers, four lanes of quarters and a church are buried under mud and around 80 people are feared trapped.

Seven people have been rescued so far and shifted to the hospital.

Sources said a portion of Pettimudi came crashing down on the workers colony with a deafening roar in the wee hours of Friday.

As people were sleeping in the quarters, there was little time to escape.

Further, with the Periyavara bridge being washed away, it became all the more difficult for rescue workers to reach the spot.

The construction of a new temporary Periyavara bridge however, is underway.

The bridge was previously destructed during the deluge of August 2018. Later during the north west monsoons and the south west monsoon of 2019, it suffered damage again.

The present bridge, which got damaged on Thursday after Kannimala river levels rose, was constructed under the leadership of Coir fed.

Although a new concrete bridge has been constructed near the temporary bridge in Periyavara, vehicle  movement has not been possible because the authorities are yet to build its approach via road.

The new bridge is to be constructed at a cost of Rs 4.75 crore from Devikulam MLA S Rajendran's fund.

The entire area has been cut off from outside world and communication networks have also crashed.

Teams of Fire and Rescue personnel, NDRF, revenue officials, estate workers and police are struggling to conduct rescue operations.

Meanwhile, District collector H Dhineshan said a team of rescue personnel was sent to Pettymudy after he was briefed about the mishap and search operations to locate and rescue people are underway.

Facilities have been arranged at the hospitals nearby to provide necessary treatment facilities to the people being rescued.

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