Breakthrough in country's longest rail tunnel in Uttarakhand
Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw witnessed the breakthrough of India's longest rail tunnel at Janasu in Uttarakhand on Wednesday. Accompanied by Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami, Vaishnaw went about 3.5 km inside the tunnel when a boring machine achieved the breakthrough from the other side breaking last layer of rock.
The 14.57-km-long tunnel no 8 between Devprayag and Janasu is part of the ambitious 125-km Rishikesh-Karnaprayag Broad Gauge Rail Link Project in Uttarakhand.
Vaishnaw called it a historic moment as the breakthrough coincided with the day rail service was started in India on April 16, 1853.
Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL), a public sector undertaking under the Ministry of Railways, which is looking after the whole project, achieved this breakthrough using a German-made tunnel boring machine (TBM) named 'Shakti'.
Since Tunnel 8 is a twin tunnel, the work on another parallel one is going on with the help of the second TBM and it is expected to achieve breakthrough by July. The work contractor for this tunnel is L&T.
Earlier, RVNL CMD Pradeep Gaur had said that this is the first time TBM technology has been deployed for rail tunnelling in mountainous regions of the country, and the progress sets a new global benchmark with a 9.11-m diameter single-shield rock TBM.
Gaur has mentioned that the 9.69-m diameter Cabrera tunnel in Spain was built by a double shield TBM at an average rate of 423 m per month while the 14.58-km tunnel between Devprayag and Janasu has just been completed by Single Shield TBM at an average rate of 413 metres per month, becoming the second fastest in the world.
"This breakthrough marks a significant step in the government's mission to enhance connectivity across India's hill states," Gaur said after the event. "The Rishikesh-Karnaprayag project, executed from concept to commissioning by RVNL, aims to transform regional connectivity by linking key towns such as Devprayag, Srinagar, Rudraprayag, Gauchar, and Karnaprayag across five Himalayan districts," the RVNL statement said.
SC upholds use of Urdu on Maha civic body signboard
Describing Urdu as “the finest specimen of Ganga-Jamuni Tehzeeb” in India, the Supreme Court has upheld the use of Urdu on the signboard of the Patur Municipal Council building in Akola district of Maharashtra. “Language is a medium for exchange of ideas that brings people holding diverse views and beliefs closer and it should not become a cause of their division,” a Bench of Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia and Justice K Vinod Chandran said on Tuesday, dismissing a petition filed by Varshatai, a former member of the municipal council, who had challenged a Bombay High Court’s verdict that had turned down her plea.
“The prejudice against Urdu stems from the misconception that Urdu is alien to India. This opinion, we are afraid, is incorrect as Urdu, like Marathi and Hindi, is an Indo-Aryan language. It is a language which was born in this land,” the Bench said, refusing to interfere with the Bombay High Court’s conclusion that the use of Urdu was not prohibited under the Maharashtra Local Authorities (Official Languages) Act, 2022.
“Urdu developed and flourished in India due to the need of people belonging to different cultural milieus who wanted to exchange ideas and communicate amongst themselves. Over the centuries, it attained greater refinement and became the language of choice for many acclaimed poets,” it said.
