Land-locked neighbours Afghanistan, Tajikis-tan and Turkmenistan announced Wednesday the construction of a regional railway to expand trade with former Soviet countries and reach markets in South Asia.
The new 400-km route, expected to cost $1.5 billion, will turn Turkmenistan into a major transit country linking Russia and other former Soviet states with South Asian countries like Pakistan and India. It will also allow Tajikistan to import oil products and other vital cargo bypassing Uzbekistan. Afghanistan could also turn into a transit nation for goods flowing from Europe and Central Asia to the south. Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, joined by Afghanis-tan’s Hamid Karzai and Tajikistan’s Imomali Rakhmon, cemented a symbolic golden capsule with a message to future generations into the foundation of the future railway here. “One can call it a road of life,” Mr Rakhmon said.
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Nctc shot down despite dilution
Namrata Biji Ahuja
New Delhi, June 5
The non-Congress states on Wednesday joined hands to stonewall the UPA government’s National Counter-Terrorism Centre project, virtually pushing the project in cold storage even after the home ministry had diluted its provisions by removing its independent powers of arrest and seizure.
While Tamil Nadu and West Bengal chief ministers J. Jayalalitha and Mamata Banerjee skipped Wednesday’s CMs conference on internal security chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Gujarat CM Narendra Modi, his eye on the 2014 polls, took the lead in slamming the Centre, claiming it lacked the will to tackle the internal security threat. In chorus were CMs Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Madhya Pradesh), Raman Singh (Chhattisgarh), Sukhbir Singh Badal (Punjab), Nitish Kumar (Bihar).