“Many people are still not taking the lockdown seriously. Please save yourself, save your family, follow the directives seriously. I request the state governments to ensure that the rules and laws are followed,” the Prime Minister tweeted in Hindi.

Across India, 80 districts including Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Bengaluru are on complete lockdown, which means only essential services will be allowed. Railways, metros and inter-state buses have been stopped and public transport has been banned in Punjab, Rajasthan, Bengal and Haryana.

Mumbai has banned one or more persons from public places and even in private cars. Trucks carrying essential goods will be allowed, but this morning, there were complaints that tough checks at borders had slowed down supply.

The lockdown was announced on a day millions in the country stayed indoors on Sunday, heeding to PM Modi’s appeal for people to self-isolate for a day and follow what he called “Janata Curfew” to contain the spread of coronavirus or COVID-19.

Besides the lockdown, the centre has expanded testing to private laboratories and it will now include asymptomatic people who have had contact with confirmed cases.

Nine others were injured.

The three killed were assistant director Krishna, art assistant Chandran and Madhu, a production assistant, production house Lyca said in a statement.

“The men were inside the box-like structure on top of the crane when it crashed. It appears they were working on lighting for the shoot. The incident happened at 9:30 pm on Wednesday,” a police officer told .
Director Shankar is making the sequel to the 1996 film, Indian. Police sources said it’s not known whether Shankar was at the site when the crane came crashing down.

“Kamal Haasan was at another location inside the complex when the incident happened,” said a source who asked not to be identified.

“The accident is cruel. I lost three colleagues. More than my pain, the grief of their families would be immense. I share their sorrow. My deep condolences to them,” Kamal Haasan said.

Indian 2, an action thriller, is being seen as Kamal Haasan’s film that dabbles in politics. The Tamil Nadu assembly election is due next year.

DRDO Young Scientist Laboratories (DYSLs) are located in five cities viz, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Hyderabad. Each lab will work on a key advanced technology of importance to the development of futuristic defence systems viz, Artificial intelligence, Quantum technologies, Cognitive technologies, Asymmetric technologies and Smart materials.

The inspiration to start such laboratories came from the Prime Minister on the occasion of DRDO award function held on August 24, 2014. Shri Narendra Modi had then asked DRDO to empower the youth, by giving them decision making powers and challenging research opportunities.

Speaking on the occasion, Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi said these labs would help in shaping the
pattern of research and development in the field of emerging technologies in the country.

Prime Minister asked the scientists to prepare a definite roadmap for the new decade where DRDO should be able to set the direction and pace of scientific research in various fields in India.

Addressing the scientists, Prime Minister said India’s Missile programme is one of the outstanding programmes in the world. He also appreciated the Indian Space Programme and air defence systems.

Prime Minister said India cannot be left behind in the field of scientific research. He said the Government is willing to walk the extra mile with the scientific community so that it can invest time in emerging technologies and innovations for national security.

He said DRDO’s innovations would play a huge role in strengthening programmes like Make in India and in promoting a vibrant defence sector in the country.

The establishment of the five DRDO Young Scientist Labs lays down the foundation for research and development of futuristic technologies. It will be a big leap forward for DRDO from the goal of making India self reliant to future ready in defence technologies.

Research in the area of rapidly evolving Artificial Intelligence will be carried out at Bengaluru. The all-important area of Quantum Technology will be based out of IIT Mumbai. The future is dependent on Cognitive Technologies and IIT Chennai will house the lab embarking in this area of research. New and futuristic area of Asymmetric Technologies, which will change the way wars are fought, will be based out of the campus of Jadavpur University, Kolkata. The research in the hot and critical area of Smart Materials and their applications will be based out of Hyderabad.

This is an invitation for two packet Global Competitive bids to procure 3 Phase propulsion equipment (electrics) with passenger and operator related peripheral items suitable for maximum service speed 160 kmph speed with 50 % powering (8 Motor Coaches out of 16 cars in the formation as per clause no. 1.3.12 of RDSO Specification no. RDSO/PE/SPEC/EMU/0196–2019 (Rev.0).

Bids can be submitted till 1415 hrs on 24th March 2020. A Pre-bid conference will be held on 23/01/2020 at 10.30 Hrs. in the meeting room at the Design & Development Building, Integral Coach Factory, Chennai. The procurement shall be done in accordance with extant “Make in India” policy of DPIIT, Government of India.

In order to improve upon the passenger throughput by way of higher acceleration/ deceleration and reduction in turnaround time, Indian Railways have planned to introduce passenger train sets with distributed powering, working on 25000 V single phase 50 Hz OHE system. This project is driven by corporate mission of providing semi high speed trains with service speed of 160 KMPH having world class technology and passenger amenities.

All coaches in Train set will be Chair Car type for day travel. All the Train sets will be provided with cab AC in DTCs , above roof HT equipment, 25 KV Roof through HT cable assembly with associated accessories like insulators, jumper cables etc, fully air-conditioned passenger compartment with vestibule arrangement, automatic plug doors with retractable footsteps, automatic intercommunication door, PAPIS consisting of in coach displays, speakers, side destination boards etc, luggage racks with reading lamps, direct lighting (for passengers) and diffused lighting (for luggage racks), continuous LED light fixtures, modular pantry equipments and GPS antenna in all coaches, Mobile/laptop charging sockets in the passenger seats, CCTVs and Emergency talk back units with networking system in all coaches.

The tender will be two packet single stage bid, where the bidder has to submit electronic bids for the technical and financial bid simultaneously. The technical bid will be opened first and the offers found eligible will be categorised as qualified. The offer not complying with the essential technical and commercial requirement of the tender will be declared as in- eligible for award of contract. After evaluation of the technical and commercial suitability of offers for placement of order, the Financial bid will be opened for these Technically suitable offers.

The revised specification takes care of the improvements pointed out by Chief Commissioner for Railway Safety in the prototype rake and will provide more reliable service along with ease of operations and improved passenger comfort. These light weight energy efficient trainsets will have a ride index of less than 3.5 against the earlier value of less than 4, which will improve passenger comfort even for longer journeys. These optimized trainsets will also be suitable for operations in Jammu and Kashmir and the electrics will be tested for continuous operations at 160 kmph.

A residual acceleration value of 0.1 ms2, which is double the earlier value of 0.05 ms2, will enable the trainset to reach the top speed of 160 kmph in maximum 140 seconds. The new trainsets will provide an actual saving of 20% in journey time and all equipment are suitable for flooding conditions.

The U.S. space agency also credited Indian engineer Shanmuga Subramanian with first finding the debris from the Chandrayaan-2 mission’s lander.

In the images, NASA’s team tentatively identifies about 20 points with debris and a few spots where the lunar ‘soil’ or regolith was disturbed on its impact. Vikram also had a rover within.

NASA has located crash site of Vikram Lander with the help of Chennai techie Shanmugha Subramaniam who has relentlessly scoured the surface of the moon in his spare time.  

The American space agency has acknowledged the contribution of the amatuer in a statement.

The Chandrayaan 2 Vikram lander was targeted for a highland smooth plain about 600 kilometers from the south pole; unfortunately the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) lost contact with their lander shortly before the scheduled touchdown (Sept. 7 in India, Sept. 6 in the United States).  Despite the loss, getting that close to the surface was an amazing achievement.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera team released the first mosaic (acquired Sept. 17) of the site on Sept. 26 and many people have downloaded the mosaic to search for signs of Vikram. Shanmuga  Subramanian contacted the LRO project with a positive identification of debris. After receiving this tip, the LROC team confirmed the identification by comparing before and after images. When the images for the first mosaic were acquired the impact point was poorly illuminated and thus not easily identifiable.

Two subsequent reputation sequences were acquired on Oct. 14 and 15, and Nov. 11. The LROC team scoured the surrounding area in these new mosaics and found the impact site (70.8810°S,  22.7840°E, 834 m elevation) and associated debris field. The November mosaic had the best pixel scale (0.7 meter) and lighting conditions (72° incidence angle).”

NASA has added “The debris first located by Shanmuga is about 750 meters northwest of the main crash site and was a single bright pixel identification in that first mosaic (1.3 meter pixels, 84° incidence angle). The November mosaic shows best the impact crater, ray and extensive debris field. The three largest pieces of debris are each about 2×2 pixels and cast a one pixel shadow.”

Government sources said there is “needless speculation” on why the Chinese President’s visit wasn’t announced until today.” We have had a clear confirmation for weeks but we had jointly decided to announce it only a couple of days earlier,”

The summit will take place in the ancient coastal town of Mamallapuram near Chennai. The two leaders had their inaugural informal summit in China’s Wuhan in April last year.

“At the invitation of the Prime Minister, the President of the People’s Republic of China H.E. Mr. Xi Jinping will be visiting Chennai, India from October 11-12, 2019 for the 2nd Informal Summit,” the foreign ministry said. It said the Chennai Informal Summit will offer an opportunity for the two leaders to continue their discussions on overarching issues of bilateral, regional and global importance.

No Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) will be signed and no joint statements will be issued during the meet which will be strictly informal, government sources said.

Ahead of Xi Jinping’s India visit, China said the Kashmir issue should be resolved between New Delhi and Islamabad, significantly omitting its recent references to the UN and UN Security Council resolutions.

Meanwhile Pakistan PM Imran Khan , is on his third China and meeting the Chinese President today. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said that China’ stand is that the Kashmir issue should be resolved between India and Pakistan.

“Based on slots available for movement of these trains the capacity could go up,” said a railway official.

An event has been planned at Villivakkam railway station to receive the first water train. Local Administration Minister SP Velumani and other officials are expected to attend.

Southern Railways will charge Chennai Metro Water Rs. 7.5 lakh for each trip. The Tamil Nadu government has allotted Rs. 65 crore for this project.

Officials say the trains would take around five hours to reach Chennai’s Villivakkam, 220 km away, from where water would be pumped to the Kilpauk Water Works, the pumping station that distributes water to localities in the city.

However, the water supply by train would not increase supply to Chennai. It will only ease the pressure on the state government to ensure a minimum supply of 525 million litres to residents against the requirement of 830 million litres a day.