Painter Suvaprasanna, accused by Trinamul Congress chief Mamata Banerjee of raising money by “using her name” for his TV channel, continues to be the chairman of the passengers amenities committee (PAC) of the railways. He was appointed to head the five-member panel last year after Ms Banerjee took over as railway minister.
The painter stands accused of raising money for his television channel, Ekhon Samay, by using his proximity to the railway minister.

An angry and upset India is all set to battle it out to ensure the historic Matheran light hill railway, built between 1901 and 1907, in Maharashtra is granted world heritage site status by Unesco.

Amidst growing outrage over last week’s Bhopal gas tragedy verdict, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh stepped in on Monday and directed the group of ministers (GoM) headed by Union home minister P. Chidambaram to report to the Union Cabinet within 10 days after assessing the “options and remedies available”.

Sources told this newspaper that the proposal to set up an empowered commission to look after the interests of those affected by the 1984 Bhopal gas leak had been made by the previous GoM headed by senior Congress leader Arjun Singh but was rejected by a BJP-led Madhya Pradesh government.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is entirely out of the picture and in its place has come the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) for partly funding the eastern corridor of the railways ambi

The reconstituted National Advisory Council (NAC) headed by UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi will meet for the first time here on Thursday, June 10. The meeting of the 14-member NAC will be followed by an interaction with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the evening at around 4.30 pm for which they have been invited.

It was the main item on the agenda when the railways held a meeting with state home secretaries in January this year — the growing Naxal threat faced by the Indian Railways. An item in which the railways had clearly said that not only was it a “soft” target for Left-wing extremists, but also that the attacks against it by the Maoists were increasing.

Take action against erring bureaucrats within a specific time-frame, don’t allow disciplinary proceedings to linger on endlessly. This message, conveyed by the Second Administrative Reforms Commission in mind, the department of personnel and training (DoPT) has now set up an expert panel to actually suggest how the disciplinary proceedings can be completed within a one-year time-frame.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh declared here on Monday that he was in no hurry to retire as had a lot of unfinished tasks to complete, but offered at the same time to make way for a younger leader if that was what the Congress Party wanted.

None other than Prime Minister Manmohan Singh chaired a meeting on Thursday to discuss how Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore’s 150th birth anniversary celebrations can be marked. Yet, two important politicians from Gurudev’s home state of West Bengal, chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Trinamul Congress leader and railway minister Mamata Banerjee chose to skip the meeting.