Latest news with #SardarVallabhbhaiPatel
Khaleej Times
22-07-2025
- Khaleej Times
Ahmedabad airport receives bomb threat, security force sweeps premises: Indian media
The Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport in the Indian city of Ahmedabad received a bomb threat on Tuesday, July 22. The Crime Branch received a threatening email, ANI reported, citing Sharad Singhal, Joint Commissioner of Police. Security forces conducted a search immediately, and nothing suspicious has been found so far, police added. A spokesperson from the airport said, "Following the receipt of a threatening email on 22 July 2025, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport, Ahmedabad, activated the Bomb Threat Assessment Committee, and the threat was assessed as non-specific." "CISF's Bomb Detection and Disposal Squad conducted comprehensive checks in line with standard security protocols. After a thorough sweep of the premises, no suspicious object or activity was found. Airport operations have continued without disruption," the spokesperson added. On June 29, a similar hoax threat email was received by the Ahmedabad airport, followed by another such threat after nine days. The email mentioned that an IED bomb was hidden in the bathroom pipeline, according to the Indian media. The Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport came into spotlight last month after the devastating Air India plane crash. The Boeing 787 aircraft crashed moments after taking off from this airport, killing 241 out of 242 passengers onboard, along with additional casualties on the ground.
The Wire
21-07-2025
- Politics
- The Wire
The Attack On a Bureaucrat in Odisha is a Blow to Sardar Patel's Vision on Civil Service
During Naveen Patnaik's tenure as Chief Minister of Odisha for 25 years, the state administration got streamlined to govern and deliver services to people. Welfare policies got implemented without delay. The best example of such implementation is the scheme called KALIA (Krushak Assistance for Livelihood and Income Augmentation). The scheme provided Rs. 6,000 to each eligible farmer, including agricultural labourers. It was a novel project in India which included in its scope not just the farmers but agricultural labourers as well. Thousands of beneficiaries across the state were receiving the amount and the credit for that was given to the civil servants who worked day and night to deliver the services. A probationary IAS officer used to crack jokes that those going to Odisha were free to handle the projects assigned to them as a tall regional leader knew what to do with the civil service, including officers of the Odisha Administrative Service (OAS). In sharp contrast to the tenure of Patnaik as the CM, Ratnakar Sahoo, an OAS officer was dragged from his office in broad daylight and kicked and punched by some local Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders of Bhubaneswar. This shocking and murderous treatment of a senior officer of Odisha bureaucracy outraged the state and indeed India as whole. A foundation laid by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel It is well known that Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel laid the foundation of the civil service in independent India. Once, when members of the Constituent Assembly/Provisional Parliament made sharp attacks on civil service, Patel famously said, "Do not quarrel with the instruments with which you want to work. It is a bad workman who quarrels with the instrument. Nobody wants to put in work when he is criticised and ridiculed in public." BJP leaders who try to appropriate Patel must be mindful of his vision. Liberal democracy demands public bureaucracy to negotiate between public and the elected political leaders. They are supposed to be neutral and non-partisan in its approach. It is also expected that they will protect constitutional rights of citizens and bring benefits of development to people. Civil servants are professionals. They are recruited through written examination conducted by independent entities, be it UPSC or State Public Service Commissions. These civil servants are trained and aware of rules and regulations of the state. By following the rules, they try to implement the developmental programmes. In the end they are accountable to people for thedelivery of services to them. A bureaucrat is a person who holds to his bureau or chair in his or her official room, but if he or she gets attacked by the goondas of the political leaders controlling the state apparatus then it would strike a death blow to professional bureaucracy. On August 23, 1949, when the Constituent Assembly was discussing Article 320 (corresponding Article 286 in the draft Constitution) dealing with the functions of the Public Service Commissions, Laxminarayan Sahu, a distinguished Member of the Assembly representing Orissa (now Odisha), said, '...we are providing for the formation of a Public Service Commission solely with a view to ensure the smooth and efficient running of our Republican Government'. However, he cautioned by saying that, 'But when a democratic form of Government is established, many political parties dominate the field and they adopt undesirable methods for appointments in the services'. 'We are going to form the Public Service Commission' he said, 'solely with a view that political parties may not be in a position to adopt such methods' and '...no one may be able to suggest that the Services are working under the influence.' That vision articulated by an Odia in 1949 got trampled in Odisha in 2025 when an officer of the state civil service was brutally assaulted in full public view by those belonging to the ruling party, BJP. It is widely reported that Odisha government led by Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi does not allow the civil servants to attend the cabinet meetings. It is standard practice that those heading various departments are supposed to attend those meetings but tragically that practice has been dispensed with. Trust between politicians of the BJP and civil servants is at the lowest level in the state It seems that trust between politicians of the BJP and civil servants is at the lowest level in the state. This can harm the development of the state immeasurably. It is reflected in the behaviour of the politicians vis-à-vis the civil servants. The question is that whether the BJP hooligans could have mustered the courage to beat an incumbent BMC Additional Commissioner belonging to IAS? It deserves a cogent answer. J.P. Das who left the IAS after serving for a few years recalled that till Nandini Satpathy became the chief Minister of Odisha, leaders of political parties in the State used to call IAS officers of Odisha as Sirs or Madams. She tried to change that pattern of treating civil servants as superior to their political bosses. IAS officers used to live in eight roomed quarter with dozens of servants paid by the government and ministers would live in much smaller dwelling units. Such power relationship changed but not to the desired extent. The real work in administration in Odisha is done by the OAS officers who work as subordinate officials of the IAS incumbents. Ajit Triparthy, the former chief Secretary of Odisha once told this author that IAS officials behave like wise old owls in the state by handing over the works to OAS officers who behave like fish in a handful of water. The tragedy inflicted on Sahoo, who belonging to OAS, is a lesson for the entire civil service cadre of the state that BJP leaders acting in partisan manner would not hesitate to unleash violence against them in case their work is not done. Those operating the state machinery must rescue the civil service from such heinous assaults It is heartening that the IAS and OAS Officers' Associations came together to deal with the attack on Sahoo. In addition to the existing provisions, they should demand a special law to protect them in their work places from the assault by intruders affiliated to the ruling party. It is also a welcome sign that in wake of the stand of the OAS officers association that it would go hartal chief minister Majhi called a meeting which resulted in the compromise that the main BJP leader Jagannath Pradhan would be arrested to face legal consequences. This is indicative of the ecosystem of fear and anxiety within which civil servants of Odisha are now working. When the country was embroiled in partition-related violence after independence, Sardar Patel, as stated earlier, had said that no civil servant would give his/her best when mocked at in the public. It is indeed tragic that when we are celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Constitution, the civil service in Odisha is facing attacks and the life and limbs of civil servants are placed in grave peril. Those operating the state machinery must rescue the civil service from such heinous assaults and salvage the state and its people.
India Today
16-07-2025
- General
- India Today
Rethinking Indian sculptural heritage in the modern world
India has always built for the long haul. Temples, forts, paintings, works that travel across centuries, outliving the creators, refusing to be forgotten. Something new has been rising across the subcontinent. Not just temples or memorials, but statues, and not modest ones. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel in Gujarat to Bhimrao Ambedkar in Maharashtra, India's recent sculpture boom seems less about sculpture, and more about memory at statues are no ordinary. Rising hundreds of feet into the air, the arts have become the symbol of inspiration. The Statue of Unity towers at 597 feet, making it the world's tallest. The Statue of Belief, a massive form of Shiva, sits at 351 feet in Rajasthan. And the Statue of Equality, honouring Ramanuja, stands 216 feet high near of bronze, steel, and alloy cores, they are designed for permanence, but also for beyond the measurements, what do these statues actually say?WHEN STONE WAS A MEDIUMIndia's sculptural history is long, rich, and precise. From the earliest Indus Valley terracotta figurines to the Yaksha and Yakshi statues of Mauryan times, the human form was never just a form, it remained a way to convey the message to the next the time the builders of Ellora and Elephanta chiselled gods out of caves, the idea had already taken root, sculpture wasn't just art, it was a way to shape belief. It taught, warned, inspired, and Chola bronzes, especially the iconic Nataraja, were not only religious icons but also expressions of movement, balance, and cosmic rhythm, ideas frozen into gigantic Gommateshwara Bahubali statue at Shravanabelagola, carved in the 10th century CE, remains a marvel, standing over 57 feet tall, with no structural support, weathering monsoons and centuries Ashoka's stone pillars, scattered across the Gangetic plain, were early uses of sculpture as political broadcast, messages of morality, carved into public tools have changed. Where once hands held chisels, today artists rely on 3D scans, CNC machines, and imported bronze casting is now aided by computer modelling. This isn't a rejection of the old, but a BUILDS, WHO BENEFITS?The questions are not only artistic. They are civic. These statues cost hundreds or thousands of crores. They reshape local economies, land use, and political maps."You don't build a statue five hundred feet tall unless you're trying to shape more than stone, you're trying to shape the story." said Naresh Kumar Kumawat, an Indian builds them? Often, global firms and engineers. Who gains? Politicians claim symbolic victories. Tourists take selfies. Locals get a spike in footfall, for a often missing is the public Statue of Unity drew protests from displaced tribal communities. Others sparked debates about the cost of memory in a country still struggling with healthcare and education PROBLEM WITH SPECTACLEIn earlier times, sculptures were placed inside temples or on town crossroads. People gathered around them. Worshipped. Asked questions. Paid attention."Every monument speaks twice, once through its figure, and again through the silence around why it was built." added attention has a shorter span.A statue is unveiled, drones film it, headlines run, and then, silence. The sheer scale overwhelms the need to the risk with monumental art: it looks impressive, but what does it really mean?Will the next generation stop and feel something in front of these giants?Or just walk past them on the way to something else?India has always carved its values into stone. The question is, what values are we choosing to carve now, and are we ready to live with them?- EndsMust Watch
France 24
15-07-2025
- General
- France 24
Speculation and blame follow first official report on deadly Air India crash
The June 12 crash of an Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner was the most deadly aviation disaster in a decade. A sole passenger miraculously survived the doomed flight that killed 260 people, including 19 on the ground, after the London-bound plane rammed into the dining hall of a medical college. Videos of the accident went viral: the plane had barely left the runway of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad before it began descending, ultimately exploding in a cloud of smoke and fire. The entire ordeal took about 30 seconds. Many grieving families of the deceased had to provide DNA samples to verify the identities of their loved ones. They've also had to endure the anguish of not yet knowing how or why the disaster took place. Exactly one month after the incident, the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau of India (AAIB) released its preliminary report on the crash. But the findings have led to a storm of speculation, and so far have provided more questions than answers. To err is human? The AAIB report revealed that the jet's fuel supply was cut off seconds after takeoff, and the plane started losing thrust before it had even crossed the airport's perimeter. The fuel-control switches were turned off, which experts say is odd, since an aircraft's locking mechanism should prevent them from being accidentally moved. The report included only a short snippet of conversation between the pilots in the cockpit. In the black box voice recording, one of the pilots is heard asking the other why he cut off the fuel. 'The other pilot responded that he did not do so,' the report said. On the day of the accident, 32-year-old first officer Clive Kunder was responsible for flying the Dreamliner while 56-year-old pilot-in-command Captain Sumeet Sabharwal was responsible for supporting the flight through communications with air traffic control and system monitoring. Both were experienced: Sabharwal had accumulated 15,638 total flying hours, including 8,596 hours on the Boeing 787, and Kunder had 3,403 flying hours, including more than a thousand hours on the Dreamliner. Both had passed all the required physical, mental and drug tests required. This brief snippet of conversation has been interpreted as evidence of human error, or even deliberate sabotage. Former pilot Marco Chan, now a senior lecturer in aviation operations at Buckinghamshire New University, says it is too soon to tell. 'The preliminary document's job is to capture the timeline, physical evidence and initial recorder data; it deliberately avoids drawing conclusions or assigning blame,' he says, adding: "A single line of cockpit dialogue is not proof of human error, and the report doesn't say why the switches moved, and whether that action was human, mechanical or electronic.' Still, that hasn't stopped speculation that one or both pilots either accidentally or deliberately caused the crash – speculation that has prompted anger from two major commercial pilots' associations in India, both of which have rejected those claims. The Indian Commercial Pilots' Association said in a statement on Sunday that it was "deeply disturbed by speculative narratives ... particularly the reckless and unfounded insinuation of pilot suicide', calling the theories 'a gross violation of ethical reporting and a disservice to the dignity of the profession". The Airline Pilots' Association of India (ALPA India), an organisation 800 members strong, also accused the AAIB of "secrecy" surrounding the investigation. "We feel that the investigation is being driven in a direction presuming the guilt of pilots and we strongly object to this line of thought," ALPA India president Sam Thomas said in a statement issued on Saturday. Chan says he didn't take the AAIB report to be biased in one way or another, but as a former pilot he understands the frustration. 'I sympathise. In aviation we rely on evidence-driven safety culture. Premature blame – whether directed at pilots, regulators or manufacturers – undermines that culture and creates unnecessary public anxiety.' Bernard Lavelle, principal consultant at BL Aviation Consulting, echoes that sentiment. 'It's important to understand what this report was meant to do. It was never meant to say how and why the crash occurred. For now, it can only tell us what occurred. It did its job and I don't think it highlights human error over any other thing." 'I understand the need to know, but this report was never meant to provide closure,' he says. Mechanical or electrical fault? Chan says that for now, the data can be read three ways: inadvertent crew action, an unintended electronic event, or a wiring/relay fault that simulated switch movement. 'Right now, we simply do not have enough evidence to rank those scenarios,' he says. Equipment malfunction – be it an issue of maintenance, a fault in the aircraft or something else entirely – also cannot be ruled out. 'The statements in the report simply mean no obvious defect has been found in other fleets,' says Chan. But both Air India and Boeing have a lot at stake if future reports reveal any kind of electronic or mechanical error. Air India underwent a merger last year in an effort to revive its rapidly deteriorating reputation and Boeing has been mired in controversy for years, mainly for a series of major and minor accidents involving its 737 Max aircraft. Boeing issued a report on Sunday along with US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulators saying that the fuel-control switch locks on Boeing planes were safe and checks were not required. But India and South Korea on Monday ordered its airlines to examine the same switches on several Boeing models, indicating intensified scrutiny of the fuel-control switch locks at the centre of the crash investigation. 'Boeing stands by their advisories, but I don't know whether that's put the issue to bed,' says Lavelle. An advisory from the FAA in 2018 recommended, but did not mandate, operators of several Boeing models including the 787 to inspect the locking feature of fuel-control switches to ensure they could not be moved accidentally. The Air India preliminary report said the airline had not carried out the FAA's suggested inspections as the advisory was not a requirement, but it did say that maintenance records showed the throttle control module – which includes the fuel-control switches – was replaced in both 2019 and 2023 on the plane that crashed. Chan says the fuel-control switch locks are something he'll be looking out for in upcoming reports. "Was the 'locked' version actually installed on this aircraft, and was it functioning? Or the hardware could be mechanically sound, yet still receive a spurious 'cutoff' signal," he says. "We won't know until bench tests and teardown inspections are finished.' Chan warns against focusing blame on the pilots prematurely. 'It can happen in accident history, label something 'pilot error' and deeper systemic flaws go unaddressed.' But he's hopeful that the truth will be revealed. 'The AAIB has already invited observers from various third parties – an encouraging sign that multiple independent eyes are on the data. If the evidence ultimately points to a system fault, it will be difficult for any stakeholder to hide behind a human-error label.' 'Better right than quick' The incident is a wake-up call for the aviation industry. 'It is a stark reminder that low-frequency, high-consequence events still occur, even with modern automation,' says Chan. 'The loss of lives on board and on the ground is the worst commercial-jet accident in a decade.' It will take at least a year for the final conclusions to be released, Lavelle predicts. 'The answers could take at least another 12 months to be revealed, which is in line with the investigative process.' He says it takes months to download and analyse data correctly, and that the investigation will be looking at maintenance records going back five years as well as both pilots' histories in detail. Relevant experts will likely be consulted and each finding, he says, will weed out theories until the truth is revealed. 'It's like a jigsaw puzzle, and it is far better to be right than quick.'
India.com
02-07-2025
- India.com
Best Motorcycle Road Trips From Vadodara For An Adventurous Weekend
The cultural capital of Gujarat named Vadodara serves as an excellent base for powerful motorcycle journeys through its local sites dedicated to art heritage combined with history. Vadodara in western India provides simple access to enchanting rural territories and tranquil lakes and sacred temples as well as colorful communities. Anyone traveling alone or as a group by motorcycle will have seven routes from Vadodara that deliver an exceptional weekend tour experience. 1. Champaner-Pavagadh Archaeological Park History enthusiasts together with nature lovers must visit Champaner-Pavagadh to experience this UNESCO World Heritage Site. Along the scenic route passengers will encounter country views that blend green landscapes with every bend of the path. Travelers can discover the historic 15th century mosques and palaces as well as ancient tombs among the ancient ruins in this archaeological site. Those who want to trek will appreciate the moderate challenge of reaching the Kalika Mata Temple at the summit of Pavagadh Hill where they can see spectacular views of the vast plains. 2. Sursagar Lake and Beyond Firstly visit Sursagar Lake at the center of Vadodara by taking a brief drive. Visitors are drawn to Pawagam Lake because its grand Shiva statue exists alongside annual cultural activities that take place at the site. The journey should continue past Sursagar Lake to take visitors toward Sayaji Baug and then onward to Dabhoi which is known for preserving its stepwells and historic gates. The paved streets of the city present an excellent opportunity for riders beginning their journey. 3. Dakor The spiritual attraction at Dakor consists of the renowned Ranchhodrai Temple which draws numerous devotees from all across Gujarat to its worship services. A large number of pilgrims attend Janmashtami celebrations at the temple. Traversing the route to Dakor makes visitors experience both delightful rural scenery and peaceful rustic villages alongside farms. Travelers should remember to bring sufficient water and extra food because dining facilities might be scarce along the journey. 4. Statue of Unity The Statue of Unity serves as the planet's highest statue since its dedication to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel in Kevadia near Narmada district. Travelers will enjoy picturesque views of the Satpura and Vindhya mountain ranges because Kevadia and Vadodara are linked by a properly cared-for highway. A stop at three attractions including the Valley of Flowers and Zarwani Waterfall and Ekta Nursery is possible along your trip. The viewing gallery inside the statue requires advance ticket booking. 5. Anand Anand stands as the prime location of Amul Dairy where the town maintains its status as a dairy heritage center. During your journey you will ride through cultivated farm fields as well as several small communities. At the Amul Dairy Plant learn about the White Revolution through which India accomplished its milk production transformation. The last stop of your journey should include Ambapur Lake or Hanuman Mandir after the primary destination in case you need some downtime. Conclusion The central position together with superior transportation networks of Vadodara establishes it as an outstanding starting point to tour multiple Gujarat territories. Here are motorcycling journeys throughout Gujarat offer opportunities to experience historical, natural and spiritual as well as adventurous elements which merge adventure with peace. Get prepared for an adventure by driving along roads while building enduring memories which will endure forever.
