Lahore, Dec 25: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi landed here on Friday evening for an unscheduled meeting with his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif who received him warmly.
Sharif presented a bouquet to Modi as he flew into the Allama Iqbal International Airport from Kabul heading a 120-member delegation, Pakistan Television reported.
It is Modi's first visit to Pakistan, and the first trip by an Indian prime minister to the country in 11 years.
New Delhi, May 29: In a powerful display of inter community solidarity, a team of Sikh volunteers visited Delhi's Jama Masjid and sanitized the 17th century monument.
As the national capital battled coronavirus, the historic Jama Masjid is closed for congregational prayers. However, the team of Sikh volunteers effectively sanitized the monument to ensure it is safe for the caretakers and visitors.
The volunteers affiliated with United Sikhs organization also met Naib Shahi Imam of Jama Masjid Syed Shaban Bukhari during the visit. The latter thanked the team for the humanitarian gesture and underlined the need for all sections of humanity to unite in the face of this crisis.
"The Sikh community has always displayed exemplary commitment to humanity and we are thankful to the United Sikhs' team for their initiative. This enormous crisis facing the human race can be fought off only if all communities, nations and people unite and fight it together. In recent weeks we have seen heart wrenching images of misery in the country as thousands of migrant workers return to their villages. At the same time we have also seen positive stories of different people uniting to help and feed them. We hope that together we will overcome this crisis," said Syed Shaban Bukhari, Naib Shahi Imam, Jama Masjid, Delhi.
Shaban Bukhari has also advised Muslims across the country to strictly avoid congregational prayers this Eid and pray at homes. He is young leader, who really believes in secularism. For him, humanity and kindness come first.
New Delhi, Jan 1: On the New Year's eve, the railways announced fare hike across its network effective from January 1, 2020, according to an order issued on Tuesday.
While suburban fares remain unchanged, ordinary non-AC, non-suburban fares were increased by 1 paise per km of journey.
The railways also announced a two paise/km hike in fares of mail/express non-AC trains and four paise/km hike in the fares of AC classes.
The fare hike is also applicable to premium trains such as Shatabdi, Rajdhani and Duronto, according to the order.
In the Delhi-Kolkata Rajdhani, which covers a distance of 1,447 km, the hike at the rate of 4 paise per km will be around Rs 58.
According to the order, there will not be any change in the reservation fee and superfast charge and the hike in fares will not be applicable to tickets already booked.
The last such hike was announced in 2014-2015 when fares of all classes of trains were raised by 14.2 per cent and freight charges by 6.5 per cent. However, since then, the railways introduced the flexi-fare scheme which significantly raised fares on select trains and launched trains like Vande Bharat Express and Tejas Express which have relatively higher fares. Trains with dynamic pricing like Suvidha Express were also introduced.
Kozhikode, Aug 8: A tailwind or crosswind could be the reason for the Air India Express flight mishap at Kozhikode international airport in Kerala, according to some aviation experts.
Team of DGCA and AIE already reached the spot. With the death of the captain and co-pilot in the mishap, the investigation would be focusing mainly on the voice recorders and other technical aspects.
It is learnt that the ill-fated aircraft, IX 1344 with 190 onboard including crew, was initially planning to land on runway-28 of the airport. But later the pilot opted runway-10 which is toward the other direction. Pilots would be taking the decisions on the basis of inputs from ATC.
The questions now doing the rounds are what made the pilot opt runway-10 and whether the tabletop runway lacked adequate safety parameters.
An aviation expert, who didn't want to be quoted, said that Capt Deepak Sathe, who was commandeering the aircraft, was a well-experienced pilot and was also familiar with the terrains. Hence the chances of any error from his part was very unlikely. Hence a fair in-depth probe was required to find the exact cause.
Though the Kozhikode airport has an Instrument Landing System, it was of category-I for which pilot's visibility is very crucial toward a touchdown. Since it is a tabletop airport and rough weather prevailing in the region, the chances of tailwind was also high, said sources.
There had been safety concerns about the airport over quite some time. In 2011 aviation safety consultant captain Mohan Ranganathan reportedly gave a report citing the safety issues, especially the buffer zones at the end of the runway.
However, an AAI officer said that rectification steps were already done by last year by widening the Runway End Safety Area (RESA) from 90 metre to 240 metre. However, the length of the runway had to be reduced to 2,700 metre from 2,850. The AAI was also constantly pressing for increasing the runway length to 3,150 metres. But that was getting delayed due to land acquisition issues pending with the state government.
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