10 JUNE 2016

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10 JUNE 2016

Ø  As the extraordinary two-day plenary of the Nuclear Suppliers Group began in Vienna on Thursday to discuss membership applications, India’s chances received a boost from Mexico, considered a “non-proliferation hardliner” thus far.

Ø  The Centre has decided to form the National Road Safety and Traffic Management Board through an executive order after it failed to push the Road Safety Bill owing to the logjam in Parliament, an official of the Union Road Transport and Highways Ministry said. “Setting up a road safety body through an executive order makes it toothless. The idea to float a Bill was to give powers to the board to set standards, independent of the government, and not give recommendations,” said a member of the S. Sundar Committee on road safety and traffic management, which in 2007 mooted the idea of setting up a Road Safety Board.

Ø  The Centre has asked three states along the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) to consider using land allotted for five gas-based power plants to set up “industrial areas” or renewable energy projects following the non-availability of gas. The gas-fired projects, each with capacity of 1,000-1,200 MW, were to come up in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat as part of the corridor. According to an official note accessed by The Hindu, “the structuring and implementation of these projects is pending since long due to the lack of availability of domestic gas. Hence, the project(s) seem(s) to have become non-viable.”