Railways decision to become Delhi 2010 Lead Partner is a landmark: Kalmadi

“Railway budget has number of encouraging moves for Olympic sport in India”

Organising Committee Commonwealth Games 2010 Delhi Chairman Mr. Suresh Kalmadi, MP, today hailed Minister of Railways Ms. Mamta Banerjee’s announcement during her presentation of the Railway Budget before Parliament that Railways would be the Lead Partner of the Games to be held in October this year as a major landmark.

“I congratulate Ms. Mamta Banerjee for the announcement,” Mr. Kalmadi said. “It augurs well for the Games that Railways has come on board as Lead Partner. Railways’ role in nation building and in the evolution of Olympic sport in India is well known.”

Mr. Kalmadi also welcomed the decision to launch a special train, the Commonwealth Express which will have an exhibition and travel all over India to promote the Games as well as the spirit of sportsmanship among the youth.

“I am particularly delighted by Ms. Banerjee’s announcement that Railways would recruit more sportspersons in its ranks in the coming year,” Mr. Kalmadi said. “Olympic sport in India needs such incentives for the young to be drawn towards taking up sport as a career,” he said.

The decision to establish five sports academies in Delhi, Secunderabad, Chennai, Kolkata and Mumbai and to install a number of astro-turf hockey pitches across the country augurs well for sport in the coming years, Mr. Kalmadi said. “With such encouragement from Railways, I am sure Olympic sport will flourish in India,” he said.

Argentina appreciates Delhi’s security measures for Hero Honda FIH World Cup

The Argentine Republic (Argentina) has complimented the Delhi Police for its security arrangements for the Hero Honda FIH World Cup to be held in New Delhi from 28 February 2010.

In a letter to Mr. Y S Dadwal, Commissioner of Delhi Police, the Embassy of the Argentine Republic in New Delhi has said, “The Mission highly appreciates and wants to thank for the security measures that the Delhi police is taking in order to assure the peaceful and safe celebration of this sports event, and specially the safety of the Argentine sportsmen.”

The letter further reads,” The Embassy of the Argentine Republic avails itself to this opportunity to renew to the Delhi Police the assurances of its highest consideration.”

Government radio to talk during Commonwealth Games

The Delhi government is leaving nothing to chance when it comes to security at the Commonwealth Games 2010, scheduled to begin in New Delhi this October

Be it a natural calamity, security breach, medical situation or terrorist threat, the government is pulling out all stops to ensure that its agencies talk to each other without any call drops, hiccups or breach of confidentiality. Towards this end, it has deployed a dedicated radio network based on the Terrestrial Trunked Radio (TETRA) technology.

The estimated Rs 100 crore government radio network (GRN), being installed by HCL Infosystems and Motorola, will link 18 government agencies seamlessly, including the police, fire services, hospitals, public works department and the Delhi Transport Corporation.

“The project is on schedule. It will be ready for testing by this June, well ahead of the Commonwealth Games,” asserts Subodh Vardhan, director sales and country head (Enterprise Mobility Solutions) of Motorola India.

The network for the Commonwealth Games has been designed to minimise the reaction time in the toughest of situations, ensuring minimal call drops (since cellular networks can get choked) and encrypted communication to maintain the highest levels of security, according to George Paul, executive vice president of HCL Infosystems.

The government radio network is an advanced digital interoperable communication platform that will operate on a secure spectrum and have 46 base stations. It will cover the entire metropolitan area of India’s capital, including transportation networks such as Delhi Metro Railway Tunnels and New Delhi Airport Terminal-II. HCL and Motorola have a seven-year contract with the government for the same.

The radio network is designed thus that the police patrolling the Games can also have an inventory of every device. In case, they lose a handset (walkie-talkie), “they can simply kill it over the air, thus preventing any breach of security”, explains Paul. Besides, multiple agencies can use the radio network. They will have “user groups” which will enable them to talk among themselves without any third party (or other government agency) eavesdropping on their conversation.

“However, in case the police want to talk to the fire brigade personnel, they can switch to that particular frequency with simply a push of a button,” explains Vardhan. Of course, this will take place only with the help of a coordinator.

Moreover, all the police vans, ambulances, fire brigades and other vehicles are global positioning system (GPS) enabled. “The command centre will know the exact location of each vehicle. All locations can be identified on a map, and thus the government agency concerned can locate and summon the required vehicle or another agency within minutes if there’s an emergency situation,” notes Paul.

In case a terrorist is on the lose at the Games, his picture can be instantly relayed to all the handsets of the law enforcement agencies. “Even a new user group can be created instantly for broadcast of any emergency communication,” explains Vardhan.

TETRA (formerly known as Trans European Trunked RAdio) is a Professional Mobile Radio and two-way transceiver (popularly known as a walkie-talkie) specification. It works in a similar way to global system for mobile (GSM) but the handsets have a longer range and there is more bandwidth allocated for data.

Such technologies are available world over — the UK has deployed it, and so has the US and a host of European countries. Closer home, the technology has been used by the Indian Army as well as the Kerala police force. In India, the department of telecommunications has given the Delhi government permission to use TETRA.

Motorola, explains Vardhan, has experience from over 600 digital mission-critical network rollouts across the world. Some of these include the Beijing Special Olympics, Bangalore, Delhi and Hyderabad airports besides the Central Railway (Mumbai) and is being deployed at the Mumbai metro.

HCL, on its part, has deployed many projects such as Emergency Response Centre for Police (Dial 100) and Ambulance (Dial 102) in cities like Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore, Bhopal, Nagpur, Pune, Bhopal and Dehradun in partnership with various state governments. “We have a lot of experience in setting up ‘Command & Control’ centres in the country,” asserts Paul.

Manavjit Singh Sandhu sets new Commonwealth record, Indians bag 3 more gold

Manavjit Singh Sandhu bettered the Commonwealth Games record in the individual trap event as Indian shooters won all the three gold medals on offer on the seventh day of the Commonwealth Championships here today.

India's overall tally stood at 17 gold, 12 silver and six bronze medals. By adding the consolation badges given to shooters in a team event, India's tally swells to 26 gold, 17 silver and 10 bronze.

Manavjit set a new Commonwealth Games record in the men's trap individual event scoring 146 points, which is also his personal best, to pocket the gold.

England's Aaron Heading (143) took the silver, while Australia's Adam Villa (142) bagged the bronze.

The other two golds for India came in the 10m air rifle women's event and 25m centre fire pistol competition for men.

Neha Sapte, 17, who incidentally has to appear for her Class XII board exam tomorrow in Mumbai, won the gold in the women's 10m Air Rifle event scoring 496.1 points.

In a nail-biting finish for the next two spots, Sharmin Akhter Ratna of Bangladesh barely managed to avoid a tie with Australia's Robyn Nus Van. Ratna's total score of 494.5 points earned her the silver while Robyn's 494.2 got her the bronze.

Indians swept all three medals in the men's 25m Center Fire Pistol individual event.

Gold grabber Vijay Kumar again took the top spot on the podium for his 580 points. Mahender Singh took the silver for his 568 points while Viraj Singh took the bronze for his 567 points.

Mamata plans public-pvt partnership, invites biz firms

Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday presented India's rail budget for the next fiscal with the promise of a new business model to encourage private investment along with social commitment but without privatisation.

"Our objective is inclusive growth," she told the Lok Sabha, Lower House of Parliament, adding that her main consideration in this year's budget was social responsibility rather than mere commercial viability of projects. (Budget highlights)

"We have set our goals in the Vision 2020 document and we will achieve it," the minister said, referring to the document unveiled in December that has targeted making over 30,000 km of routes into double or multiple lines against 18,000 km today.

"It is a fact that administrative and procedural delays discourage potential investors. We will need to overcome this. I am setting up a special task force for this," she said.

"Special structure will be created for the new business model,” she said.

"But we will not privatise our railways. Indian Railways will remain with the government."

At the same time, she also asked the private sector to refrain from what she called “typical negative approach” while dealing with the Indian Railways.

"I am sorry to say this, this mindset has to change."

The Railway Budget for 2010-11 proposed no increase in passenger fares and freight rates while reducing the tariff by Rs 100 per wagon in transportation of foodgrains, kerosene and fertilisers to tackle the price rise. (No fare hike: Read story)

The budget also proposed to reduce the maximum limit of service charge on e-booking of tickets to Rs 10 for sleeper

class and Rs 20 for AC class. The present maximum charge is Rs 15 and Rs 40 respectively.

Railways will run a special exhibition train across the country to mark the Commonwealth Games to be held here apart from being the lead partner of the mega sporting event.

She also said five sports academies would be set up across the country to strengthen the infrastructure. The proposed locations are Delhi, Secunderabad, Chennai and Mumbai.

To promote hockey, Bannerjee said it is also proposed to provide astro-turfs.

The Railways will also provide increased employment opportunities for sports persons.

"Indian Railways will be the lead partner of the Commonwealth Games being hosted by India this year. To mark this event and also to spread the message, Railways proposes to start a Commonwealth Exhibition train," Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee said.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Leader of Opposition Sushma Swaraj and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee were among those in the house, presided over by Speaker Meira Kumar.

This was Banerjee's fourth budget of her career as railway minister and the second for the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government in its second straight term after being voted back to office in May last year.

Mamata Banerjee said the government aims to increase non core earnings to 10 billion rupees from 1.5 billion rupees.

According to Banerjee, 117 out of the 122 new trains promised in her last budget will be flagged off by March 31, within a matter of seven months, which was a commendable effort.

Seeking to give safety issues due consideration, the minister said there were a few cases of unfortunate accidents in the past and said these would be prevented by adopting the highest level of technology and manpower training.

“Within five years, we will have 13,000 out of unmanned level crossings manned - 3,000 this fiscal and 1,000 in the coming fiscal,” she said, referring to the high number of accidents at such crossroads.

The budget came against the backdrop of the share of Indian Railways in the movement of goods, vis a vis truckers, falling from 24.07 percent in 2001-02 to 20.89 percent in 2008-09 and further to 19.32 percent in the first 10 months of this fiscal.

Indian Railways runs the world's second largest network under a single management with a network of 64,099 route km to ferry 18.9 million passengers on 7,000 trains daily from 6,906 stations. It also runs 4,000 freight trains to carry 850 million tonnes of cargo.

Commonwealth Games: Railways to be lead partner, special train to mark event

Railways will run a special exhibition train across the country to mark the Commonwealth Games to be held here apart from being the lead partner of the mega sporting event.

"Indian railways will be the lead partner of the Commonwealth Games being hosted by India this year. To mark this event and also to spread the message, railways proposes to start a Commonwealth Exhibition train," railway minister Mamata Banerjee said presenting the rail budget.

The Commonwealth Games will be held in the capital from October 3 to 14.

She also said five sports academies would be set up across the country to strengthen the infrastructure. The proposed locations are Delhi, Secunderabad, Chennai and Mumbai.

To promote hockey, Bannerjee said it is also proposed to provide astro-turfs.

The railways will also provide increased employment opportunities for sports persons.