Archives for January 2023

BENGALURU:  The Outer Ring Road Line will register a unique first for Bengaluru Metro as the first full overhead U-girder will be launched on Friday night near its Bellandur Metro station. The girder runs to a length of 28 metres and has been cast in a yard at Gunjur.

In all projects of the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) so far, the girder has been erected using cranes. “It is for the first time a launcher will be used which will lift the girder above the work site and launch it and this is being done along the Silk Board-KR Puram Line.  The lift will be done once for 3 or 4 km,” said a top Metro official.

Girder is a crucial part of civil infrastructure as the viaduct, on which the rails are laid, will come up on it.
“Contractor AFCONS has readied the girder under Metro supervision. The U-girder weighs 160 tonnes. It will take us just one day to complete the work as compared to a minimum of seven days that the traditional method of casting segments and then linking them to form a girder used to take,” the official said. Two U-girders are placed on every span. “We have completed work on 13 spans so far and all the girders were brought together as segments and made into one whole at the site,” the official said. The line will have 330 spans, he added.

Line & Power Block gets nod
The Bengaluru Railway Division has permitted BMRCL to carry out work relating to launch of its open web girder between Carmelaram and Baiyappanahalli Metro stations. The delay in launch of this girder has ensured that work between K R Puram and Baiyapanahalli Metro station could not be completed on the Reach-1 Extension line with the line set to be partially launched in March.

According to a communication issued by the Senior Divisional Operations Manager of Bengaluru Railway Division on Friday, line and power block will be undertaken for 22 hours spread over a week, beginning January 29.

BMRCL will launch a 65m open web girder above the railway tracks here. Railways had initially approved a Line Block between December 8 and 31, but BMRCL was not in a position to launch the girder as preliminary work was not completed.

NEW DELHI:  India’s equity markets fell sharply on Friday with both the Sensex and Nifty hitting a three-month low. At close, the Sensex was down 874.16 points or 1.45% at 59,330.90, while Nifty was down 287.70 points or 1.61% at 17,604.30. 

The dip was largely due to the slump in Adani group stocks, which fell up to 23% during intraday trading, and its spillover impact on banking stocks that have an exposure to the group. The markets had closed with sharp cuts in the previous trading session on Wednesday, too.

The meltdown left investors poorer by about Rs 11 lakh crore since Wednesday.  Adani group stocks have come under pressure after US activist investor Hindenburg Research alleged 85% downside in the scrips “purely on fundamental valuations”, announced a short position in the group’s stocks, and accused Adani of manipulating stock prices. FII stance ahead of the Budget and US Fed meeting also fuelled Friday’s fall. 

NEW DELHI: Delhi Police on Friday detained 24 students from the Delhi University’s Arts Faculty for planning to screen the controversial BBC documentary on the 2002 Godhra riots, a senior police official said.

The action comes days after a similar ruckus at Jawaharlal Nehru University and Jamia Millia Islamia over the documentary’s screening.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (North) Sagar Singh Kalsi said, “Around 4 pm, some 20 people came outside the Arts Faculty gate to screen the banned BBC documentary. As it can cause disturbance of peace and tranquility in the area, they were asked to disperse from there. When they did not, they were peacefully detained. A total of 24 people were detained

Earlier in the day, the varsity authorities wrote to Delhi Police about the proposed screening.

Delhi University Proctor Rajni Abbi said they would not allow the screening and stressed that the students’ outfits had not sought the administration’s permission.

There was heavy police deployment at the north campus after students’ outfits gave a call to screen the documentary.

The police have also banned large gatherings on the north campus. When asked, another official said Section 144 was imposed on the campus in December.

“Section 144 was imposed in December till February 28 to prevent any law and order problems at the university,” the official said.

The Congress-affiliated National Students’ Union has announced a screening of the documentary at 4 pm on the north campus while the Bhim Army Students’ Federation said it would hold a screening outside the varsity’s Arts Faculty at 5 pm.

Delhi Police personnel entered the Ambedkar University campus to stop Students’ Federation of India (SFI) activists from screening the controversial documentary, several students alleged, even as the outfit made alternative arrangements to watch it on phones and laptops.

Police officials, however, said they were visiting all college and university campuses in the district to ensure peace and tranquility in the area.

The Left-affiliated SFI alleged that the screening could not be held as the administration of the government-run varsity disconnected the power supply but a QR code with a link to the film was shared with students so that they could watch it on their personal devices.

Jamia Millia Islamia became the centre of a kerfuffle on Wednesday after the SFI’s plans to organise a screening of the documentary were thwarted by the varsity and the police.

Jawaharlal Nehru University also witnessed a ruckus and protests over the screening on Tuesday.

BENGALURU: globally in recent weeks, reports suggest that 60,000-80,000 Indian IT professionals in the US have lost their jobs. A majority of them are said to be on H-1B and L1 visas, who will have to find another job within 60 days or pack up. Microsoft, Meta, Amazon and Alphabet together have laid off 51,000 employees.

Till now, 312,600 employees have lost jobs, according to Layoffs.fyi, which compiles data from public reports and tracks layoffs. In 2023 alone, 174 tech companies laid off 56,570 employees. Many affected Indians have shared their stories on various social media platforms.

Monambigha M, one of the impacted Google employees, said in a LinkedIn post that she must spring back into action as being an immigrant on an H-1B visa does not give her the flexibility to take time off. She joined Google only 10 months ago. After working with Google for three years and six months, Kunal Kumar Gupta received the termination mail.

“I am immediately open to work and would need immediate assistance to find a role as I am on an H-1B visa which gives me 60 days to find a job,” Gupta said. Meanwhile, Swedish music streaming firm Spotify on Monday announced that it is reducing its employee base by 6%, or about 600 employees. In a note to employees, CEO Daniel Ek said, “While we have made great progress in improving speed in the last few years, we haven’t focused as much on improving efficiency… And in a challenging economic environment, efficiency takes on greater importance. So, in an effort to drive more efficiency, control costs… I have decided to restructure our organisation.”

According to HR experts, it is not difficult for those who lost jobs in the US to find one in India. Vijay Sivaram, CEO of Quess IT Staffing, expects hiring intent for IT professionals across tech and non-tech companies to revert to its pre-pandemic levels. “Hot skills such as full stack engineers, data analysts and scientists, DevOps specialists, and cloud engineers will be sought after,” he said.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Tension prevailed in Thiruvananthapuram city on Tuesday after BJP-Yuva Morcha workers attempted to disrupt the screening of BBC documentary Modi: The India Question organised by the DYFI-SFI and the Youth Congress activists. The screenings were held in four places in the city.

While the screenings organised by the SFI units in the Government Law College and the University College ended without any issues, the screenings on the Manaveeyam road and at Poojappura, organised by the Youth Congress and the DYFI, respectively, were met with protests by the BJP-Yuva Morcha workers.

At Poojapura, the police had to resort to water cannons after the BJP workers tried to remove the barricades erected by the police to prevent them from reaching the venue.

A similar protest was witnessed on the Manaveeyam road, where the Youth Congress screened the documentary.

The police had anticipated protests from the right-wing outfits and were ready to thwart any attempt from their side to sabotage the programme.

When the BJP workers tried to rush to the venue, the Museum police cornered 11 agitators and whisked them away. They were later charged with unlawful assembly.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Veteran Congress leader and former Kerala Chief Minister A K Antony’s son, Anil, on Wednesday resigned from all his posts in the party following widespread criticism of his tweet against the controversial BBC documentary on the 2002 Gujarat riots.

Anil Antony announced his resignation via a tweet in which he said that he was getting “intolerant calls” to retract his tweet against the documentary and the “wall of hate/abuses” on Facebook over the same issue have prompted him to take the decision

In a portion of the redacted resignation letter, he posted on his Twitter handle, Anil said, “Considering the events from yesterday, I believe it would be appropriate for me to leave all my roles in the Congress — as the Convener of KPCC Digital Media, and as the National Co-coordinator of AICC Social Media and Digital Communications Cell.”

Anil had on Tuesday tweeted that despite large differences with the BJP, those who support and place the views of the British broadcaster and of former UK foreign secretary Jack Straw, the “brain behind the Iraq war” (involving the US-led coalition in 2003) over Indian institutions are setting a dangerous precedence.