Aerospace Diary

India’s longest rail-to-road bridge, the 5-km Bogibeel bridge on the Brahmaputra river in upper Assam, has faced challenges being the first to be totally steel-welded.  Photo courtesy HCCL India Neelam Mathews Feb 23 2016 India has much infrastructure to build but faces a daunting challenge seen in many developing parts of the world: remote construction. Firms in the Indian construction market, upbeat about the 18-month-old Narendra Modi government, have their hopes pinned on a budget that seeks to build infrastructure and connectivity in remote areas of the country. Projects expected to receive rural spending include roads and irrigation. The government is working on policies to attract significant investor interest and has plans to develop 66,117 kilometers of roads under different programs, such as the National Highways Development Project, a part of the Special Accelerated Road Development Program, in the remote northeast. It has set an objective of building...

Effort To Clean Up Ganges Gains Momentum 09/16/2014 By Neelam Matthews Text size:  A   A Photo Courtesy of Ganga Action Parivar The Ganges River, India's holiest river, is also it's dirtiest. Officials vow to clean it up within three years. Related Links: Indian Water Resources Ministry webpage ----- Advertising ----- The 100-day-old government’s newly established minister for water resources, Uma Bharti, on Sept. 15 committed to cleaning up India’s largest and holiest river, the 2,500-kilometer-plus Ganges, within three years. The Ganga Action Plan was released by Bharti’s predecessors two decades ago but barely accomplished any of its goals. The pledge comes at an opportune time. The population of people and industrial units in India near the Ganges is ballooning, creating pressure on sewage, wastewater and effluents that are discharged into surface water and causing water-quality problems. Each day, 2.9 billion liters of wastewater from s...