In a move to address the lack of strategic roads abutting the India-China frontier, India will bring in a legal provision to do away with self-created hurdles which are holding back progress on the much-needed roads used for movement of troops and equipment. Even as India struggles to construct roads along the India-China frontier, such desolate places in eastern Ladakh have been designated as wildlife reserves.

The Jammu and Kashmir government on Wednesday ordered a probe following reports that as many as 358 children had died in Srinagar’s premier children’s hospital since January 2012. It admitted to 35 deaths having occurred in the last fortnight alone.

Chief minister Omar Abdullah tweeted, “The Cabinet (which met here Wednesday) has taken a serious note of the situation in G.B. Pant Hospital.” He said Sher-i-Kashmir Instit-ute of Medical Sciences director Showkat Zargar has been asked to review functioning and report back to the Cabinet in one week.

A low-intensity earthquake measuring 4.1 on Richter Scale shook some parts of Jammu and Kashmir during the wee hours of this morning. "An earthquake of magnitude 4.1 occurred at 2:20 AM with its epicentre at India-China border in Ladakh region," a disaster management cell official said here.

The epicentre was located 209 km east of Leh town near the border between Ladakh and Xinjiang region of China. The tremor, however, was not felt in the Kashmir Valley, the official added. There were no reports of any casualties, he said.

With the state’s power deficit all set to cross a whopping Rs 2,000-crore mark till the end of the current financial year, the Centre has snubbed Jammu and Kashmir for implementing at a slow pace the Restructured-Accelerated Power Development and Reforms Programme (R-APDRP) initiated to bring down transmission and distribution (T&D) losses. Official sources told The Tribune that the Union government expressed its displeasure over ‘unplanned utilisation’ of funds sanctioned under the R-APDRP to lower the transmission and distribution losses.

A moderate intensity earthquake jolted the Kashmir valley today. “An earthquake of magnitude 5 on the Richter Scale occurred today at 7.29 pm with the epicentre on the India-China border in the Ladakh region of the state,” Aamir Ali, Coordinator, Divisional Disaster Management Authority, said.
He said the epicentre of the quake was approximately 496 km northeast of Srinagar. There was no report of any damage due to the tremor so far, he added. — TNS

SRINAGAR : There was still no respite from the cold during night as the minimum remained below normal in the Kashmir valley and Ladakh region, where Pahalgam, Gulmarg, Leh and Kargil recorded below minus 10 degree Celsius temperature this morning. However, the 300-km-long Srinagar-Jammu National Highway was through while the Ladakh region remained cut off from the rest of the country as the Zojila pass on the highway remained closed since December 1 last year.

Govt agency charting sunshine hotspots to help cos set up solar energy plants. When India’s solar power developers want to choose a site for their project, they usually turn to NASA and its satellite images to identify the best locations. This is because even though India is endowed with abundant sunshine, it is vital to know the exact spots to locate projects so that they become viable. The US space agency’s radiation maps help them do this, but they are not quite adequate. Now, an obscure government agency based in Chennai is promising to change that.

SRINAGAR: Leh in Jammu and Kashmir on Monday recorded the lowest temperature of the season at minus 22.2 degrees Celsius as intense cold wave conditions continued across the Kashmir Valley and the Ladakh region. "At minus 22.2 degrees Celsius, Leh in Ladakh witnessed the lowest this season on Monday. Kargil, also in Ladakh recorded minus 20.0 degrees while the minimum was minus 4.2 in Srinagar, minus 10.0 in Gulmarg and minus 7.0 at Pahalgam," Sonam Lotus, director of the meteorological office said.

Srinagar witnesses coldest day of the season
Even as the Kashmir valley continues to reel under severe cold, the government today sounded an avalanche warning following last week’s snowfall.
“On the basis of information received from the Snow and Avalanche Study Establishment (SASE), a medium avalanche alert has been issued for higher reaches in the Kashmir valley,” Coordinator Natural Disaster Management Cell Aamir Ali said here.

The plant is expected to provide electricity to around 60,000 rural homes

Mahindra Solar One, a solar power developer, commissioned its first 5 MW solar power plant. A part of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM) policy, the project is located near Jodhpur in Rajasthan and was the first to achieve non-recourse financing in the industry.