Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, shared in her interview with the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol that the Thomases have an “ironclad” rule not to talk about pending cases in the court.
Thomas testified that she has been active in public and policy work since she was in her 20s, “long before” she met her husband in 1986.
She also gave the committee her “guarantee” that her husband has never spoken to her about cases pending before the court.
“It’s an ironclad rule in our house,” Thomas said in a voluntary interview with the House select committee in September. A transcript of the interview was released by the panel on Friday.
Thomas also shared details about her husband, saying the justice was “uninterested” in politics and that she doesn’t discuss her day-to-day work with him, including who she was meeting with or texting.
Thomas said her husband was “completely unaware” of her text messages to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.
“Let me also add, it is laughable for anyone who knows my husband to think I could influence his jurisprudence — the man is independent and stubborn, with strong character traits of independence and integrity,” she said.
“Regarding the 2020 election, I did not speak to him at all about the details of my volunteer campaign activities, and I did not speak to him at all about the details of my post-election activities which were minimal in any event,” Thomas added.
The interview took place as a result of a months-long effort by the committee to interview the conservative activist, who reportedly exchanged emails with John Eastman, the lawyer who drafted memos for the Trump campaign outlining how then-Vice President Mike Pence could keep then-President Trump in power.
Thomas also texted Meadows and Arizona lawmakers regarding efforts to reverse the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Reports revealed that in the weeks following the 2020 election, Thomas exchanged dozens of text messages with Meadows that appeared to show her strategizing over how to install Trump to a second White House term despite his loss to Biden, an outcome she then described as an “obvious fraud” and “the greatest heist of our history.”
Thomas shared in her testimony released Friday that she wanted to do “something about the fraud and irregularities at the state level because she “thought the election was not going the right way.”
However, she added later in the testimony when asked about her text messages to Meadows that she “regrets” the tone and content of the messages.
“I regret the tone and content of these texts. … It was just an emotional time,” she said.
Critics have previously said that in light of his wife’s political activities, the justice should have recused himself from any case tied to the Jan. 6 attack.
Hours after her testimony was made public, Thomas’s attorney, Mark Paoletta, said on Twitter that Thomas was not mentioned “once” in the committee’s 845-page final report.
“This is unsurprising, as the facts and this transcript demonstrate that Mrs. Thomas’s post-election activities were minimal and mainstream, and the committee had no legitimate reason to interview her.”
Despite that, Paoletta added that Thomas voluntarily met with the committee for the interview and “fully cooperated” with the inquiry.
He further slammed the Democrats and their “allies” for what he referred to as a “malicious and unrelenting assault” on Thomas along with “unsubstantiated smears.” He also alleged that someone on the committee leaked Thomas’s texts and emails to the press.
“Despite all the vitriol directed towards Mrs. Thomas, the committee concluded that none of her activities merited a single mention. To any fair observer, that conclusion was obvious from the beginning,” he added.
Dec 29 (Reuters) - The Securities Commission of the Bahamas said on Thursday that it is holding FTX assets worth $3.5 billion based on market pricing at the time of transfer on a temporary basis to deliver them to customers and creditors who own them.
FTX's Bahamas unit's digital assets were transferred to digital wallets under the exclusive control of the commission in November soon after the company and its hedge fund Alameda Research and dozens of affiliates filed for U.S. bankruptcy.
Upon completion of the transfer, FTX founders Sam Bankman-Fried and Gary Wang no longer had access to the tokens that were transferred or frozen, the executive director of the commission, Christina Rolle, said in an affidavit filed with the Bahamas Supreme Court.
"All transferred assets were and remain under the sole control of the commission," Rolle said.
Lawyers for crypto exchange FTX earlier this month opposed a demand for internal records from its Bahamian business, saying they "do not trust" the Bahamian government with data that could be used to siphon off assets from the bankrupt company.
The authorities in the Bahamas, where the company had its headquarters, appointed liquidators to wind down FTX's international trading business soon after the company announced bankruptcy.
Reporting by Urvi Dugar and Akanksha Khushi in Bengaluru; Editing by Leslie Adler
Manufacturing activities at Noida-based Marion Biotech have been closed pending an investigation, the government said on Friday, close on the heels of Uzbekistan linking deaths of 18 children in the country to Dok1-Max cough syrups and tablets manufactured for exports at the Noida firm.
“Following inspection by @CDSCO_INDIA_INF team in view of reports of contamination in cough syrup Dok1 Max, all manufacturing activities of Marion Biotech at NOIDA unit have been stopped on Thursday night, while further investigation is on,” Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said.
The Central Drug Standards Control Organisation and UP drug controller teams had inspected the firm on Thursday and sent samples of the drug in question for testing to the Regional Drug Lab in Chandigarh.
The government had earlier followed the same route in the case of alleged deaths of 70 Gambia kids due to consumption of contaminated syrups made by Sonepat-based Maiden Pharma.
Although the government has told WHO (which issued a global alert naming the firm following the Gambia tragedy) that the domestic samples were not found contaminated, Maiden Pharma remains closed.
WASHINGTON (December 28, 2022) – Pending home sales slid for the sixth consecutive month in November, according to the National Association of REALTORS®. All four U.S. regions recorded month-over-month decreases, and all four regions saw year-over-year declines in transactions.
"Pending home sales recorded the second-lowest monthly reading in 20 years as interest rates, which climbed at one of the fastest paces on record this year, drastically cut into the number of contract signings to buy a home," said NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun. "Falling home sales and construction have hurt broader economic activity."
The Pending Home Sales Index (PHSI)* — a forward-looking indicator of home sales based on contract signings — fell 4.0% to 73.9 in November. Year-over-year, pending transactions dropped by 37.8%. An index of 100 is equal to the level of contract activity in 2001.
"The residential investment component of GDP has fallen for six straight quarters," Yun added. "There are approximately two months of lag time between mortgage rates and home sales. With mortgage rates falling throughout December, home-buying activity should inevitably rebound in the coming months and help economic growth."
Pending Home Sales Regional Breakdown
The Northeast PHSI slipped 7.9% from last month to 63.3, a drop of 34.9% from November 2021. The Midwest index decreased 6.6% to 77.8 in November, a fall of 31.6% from one year ago.
The South PHSI retracted 2.3% to 88.5 in November, fading 38.5% from the prior year. The West index dropped by 0.9% in November to 55.1, retreating 45.7% from November 2021.
"The Midwest region — with relatively affordable home prices — has held up better, while the unaffordable West region suffered the largest decline in activity," Yun said.
The National Association of REALTORS® is America's largest trade association, representing more than 1.5 million members involved in all aspects of the residential and commercial real estate industries. The term REALTOR® is a registered collective membership mark that identifies a real estate professional who is a member of the National Association of REALTORS® and subscribes to its strict Code of Ethics.
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*The Pending Home Sales Index is a leading indicator for the housing sector, based on pending sales of existing homes. A sale is listed as pending when the contract has been signed but the transaction has not closed, though the sale usually is finalized within one or two months of signing.
Pending contracts are good early indicators of upcoming sales closings. However, the amount of time between pending contracts and completed sales is not identical for all home sales. Variations in the length of the process from pending contract to closed sale can be caused by issues such as buyer difficulties with obtaining mortgage financing, home inspection problems, or appraisal issues.
The index is based on a sample that covers about 40% of multiple listing service data each month. In developing the model for the index, it was demonstrated that the level of monthly sales-contract activity parallels the level of closed existing-home sales in the following two months.
An index of 100 is equal to the average level of contract activity during 2001, which was the first year to be examined. By coincidence, the volume of existing-home sales in 2001 fell within the range of 5.0 to 5.5 million, which is considered normal for the current U.S. population.
NOTE: Existing-Home Sales for December will be reported on January 20, 2023. The next Pending Home Sales Index will be on January 27, 2023. All release times are 10 a.m. Eastern.
CENTRAL, La. (WAFB) - The East Baton Rouge Coroner’s Office released the identity of a child who died after being rescued from freezing water on Saturday, Dec. 24, but the cause and manner of death have not been determined.
The child was identified as Matias Stricker Abreu, 4, according to the East Baton Rouge Parish Coroner’s Office.
Matias Abreu(Submitted)
The East Baton Rouge Coroner’s Office reported on Tuesday, Dec. 27, that following the preliminary autopsy, the cause and manner of death are pending further studies.
Authorities said the child wandered off and got lost during a hike with his father.
According to officials, the Central Police Department received a call from a ‘frantic’ parent around 2:40 p.m. saying his son walked away from him and he couldn’t find him.
Multiple agencies including the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office, Central Fire Department, and the St. George Fire Department assisted with the search.
Central Police Chief Roger Corcoran said after an hour of search, the boy was found in the Amite River, near the BREC Frenchtown Conservation Area. A fireman went into the water to rescue the child.
Officials said the child was taken to the hospital in critical condition but later died.
When asked how the child ended up in the river, Chief Corcoran said, “We don’t know if he fell or jumped in, it’s unknown.”
Chief Corcoran thanks those who were involved in the search. “The fireman did not hesitate to jump in the water, and we know that water is probably 10 degrees, he did his job as a first responder.”
The investigation has been turned over to the detectives in the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office.
Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju on Monday said the Centre is giving full support to the judiciary in resolving the cases pending before courts.
IMAGE: Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju. Photograph: ANI Photo
The minister pointed out that more than five crore cases are pending before various courts across the country.
Rijiju was addressing the three-day 16th national conference of the "Bharatiya Adhivakta Parishad" at the Kurukshetra University campus here in Haryana.
He said the government took steps to "equip" the courts well even during the COVID-19 pandemic so that the courts could function during the period.
Rijiju said several politicians and mediapersons continue to spread that there is some sort of tension between the Centre and the judiciary and many a times, newspapers claim that the government is trying to "capture the authority of the judiciary".
He said since Narendra Modi took over as the prime minister, the Constitution is considered a "pious book" when it comes to running the country.
"The people of the country have to judge who are the people who are trying to destroy this system," the law minister said.
He said the judges must be "committed" to people and not to the government.
"For us, the judiciary must be committed to the country but for others, the judiciary must be committed to their (political) parties," the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader added.
The Maharashtra State Association of Resident Doctors (MARD) has warned of going on strike from January 2 if their demands of filling vacant posts and clearing pending dues from 2018 are not met.
In a letter to state medical education minister Girish Mahajan on Monday, MARD president Dr Avinash Dahiphale has demanded the creation of 1,432 posts of senior resident doctors and payment of pending dues of dearness allowances from October 16, 2018.
“The creation of 1,432 posts of senior resident doctors is our first demand. If the proposal for the same is still pending with the state government, then why did it have the policy of bonded service for resident doctors passing out from government-run colleges,” the letter stated.
The association has also demanded clearing pending dues of dearness allowances from October 16, 2018, it said.
"There is also no parity in salaries of senior resident doctors across the state. The state should intervene and bring parity in the salary structure,” the letter said.
The MARD further claimed that the posts of associate and assistant professor are vacant in most of the medical colleges and they need to be filled to ensure that students are not affected.
“If there is no concrete decision taken in the ongoing winter session at Nagpur, the MARD members will go on strike from January 2,” the association warned.
The “Beam Team” Kings could see their signal interrupted.
ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reports Saturday that forward Domantas Sabonis injured his right hand in Friday’s 125-11 loss to the Wizards. Testing and evaluation will determine the extent of his recovery timeline.
ESPN Sources: Sacramento Kings All-Star Domantas Sabonis has suffered a right-hand injury and will undergo further testing and evaluation on treatment options. It is immediately unclear how much time – if any – Sabonis will miss. pic.twitter.com/AmbxASxAMY
Sabonis, currently averaging 17.9 points, 12.5 rebounds and 6.7 assists for the Kings, racked up a 20-point, 15-rebound, 10-assist triple-double before sitting out the final three minutes. The two-time All-Star is leading the league with 23 double-doubles.
Details are pending, but new ownership is officially coming to the Emporia Country Club.
Investor Jerid Thomas has confirmed the group known as Emporia Community Club LLC has gained the Country Club Board’s unanimous approval to purchase the facilities at 1801 Rural. Country Club Board President Steve Neill has said closing could take place Feb. 1, but Thomas says the investor group is targeting sometime next month. The sale amount has not been divulged, Thomas tells KVOE News, because of unlisted variables that could change the final total.
In a statement, Thomas says progress is already underway to improve facilities, although no details have been announced. Thomas says the goal of those improvements is to offer more opportunities for business meetings, community events, birthday parties, weddings and other activities as a way to make the Country Club more accessible to the community. The investor group plans to add staff for both the restaurant and banquet facilities.
Conversations are also underway with Emporia city leadership, the Regional Development Association of East Central Kansas and unspecified facility designers to investigate possible external funding resources as a way to “drastically improve the functionality…into a world-class, multi-sport facility.” Thomas says this part of the process is in the early stages and will pick up speed early next year. More details will be announced as those plans develop.
The Country Club’s original golf course was finished in 1915 after the charter was approved in 1911 and the clubhouse was built in 1912. Besides a 9-hole golf course and clubhouse, the Country Club also consists of a disc golf course, dining facilities and banquet rooms, an outdoor swimming pool and outdoor pickleball court.
The Phoenix Suns are set to have a new owner pending league approval, as mortgage lender Mat Ishbia agreed to purchase a majority stake from Robert Sarver on Tuesday.
What does that mean in the short term for a Suns squad looking to win a championship this year?
General manager and president of player operations James Jones said Wednesday on Arizona Sports’ Burns & Gambo the development will allow the Suns to move forward, and he thinks he’ll get more clarity on new ownership expectations at some point.
When exactly remains to be seen.
“I think it’ll be status quo for a minute,” Jones said. “I mean, those are conversations we’ll eventually have. So I expect to get some clarity. I just don’t know the timing of it. It could be from day one, ‘This is where we want to take a franchise,’ it could be ‘Hey, let’s sit back and evaluate and see how it progresses before we decide what we do next.’
“So in any event, it’ll just be an opportunity for us to move forward and to kind of focus a little bit more on basketball and not be distracted by some of the things off the court.”
Ishbia, the chairman and CEO of United Wholesale Mortgage, will serve as the team governor and his brother, Justin, will be the alternate governor.
Mat Ishbia said in a statement he is confident the Suns and Phoenix Mercury can find the same success on the court that he’s sustained in business.
Jones noted the ongoing search for a buyer after Sarver announced he would sell the team in September has not hampered the GM’s abilities to make deals.
He admitted, though, the sale was something other teams thought about and a small factor in discussions.
“Evidently, when you’re where we are, not just us but the other franchises and counterparts, they think about what’s the likelihood something will be able to get done. So it ices it, it chills it a little bit. But as far as business, we’ve been able to have the conversations and focus on the things we think can improve the team. And we’ll continue to do so going forward.”
‘Guys are good’ after Deandre Ayton blowup with Monty Williams
Deandre Ayton and head coach Monty Williams were featured exchanging harsh words with one another in the closing moments Tuesday of a Suns loss against the Wizards that ended Washington’s 10-game winning streak.
To Jones, it’s understandable why that stuck out.
“It’s something good for the cameras,” the GM said. “I mean, our locker room postgame, our locker room immediately after guys had a chance to cool down was where it typically is. When we lose, guys are typically dejected and focused on how they can improve. I mean, it’s a storyline that sounds good, but our guys are good.”
Williams and Ayton had been involved in a tense exchange to end the 2021-22 campaign in the Game 7 loss to the Dallas Mavericks during the Western Conference Semifinals.
That storyline carried into this offseason. Ayton re-signed but at media day showed frustration about Williams’ lack of communication with him all summer.
It took some time, but they appeared to have put any disagreements past them. Jones believes they’ve done so this time as well.
“When players play poorly and they show no emotion, people get upset and say, ‘Oh, these guys don’t care,'” the GM said.
“For us, it’s a part of competing at a high level. Our guys are not robots, we don’t want them to be robots. .. I do know our guys compete. That’s why you do see frustration.”
DENVER— In the final few minutes of the first period against the Colorado Avalanche, it seemed like New York Islanders forward Mathew Barzal was headed to the penalty box after he tripped Cale Makar. The referee had his hand up, and everything and even blew his whistle when the Islanders gained possession.
But the referees changed their call, ruling no penalty. Cale Makar seemed to the official that he fell on his own and Mathew Barzal was innocent.
That’s a first. Cale Makar just told the referee to not call the delayed call on Mathew Barzal. pic.twitter.com/Y80OQILsQo
For most of the first period, the Islanders dominated the pace of play as the Avalanche struggled to transition and create chances. A power play for a team ranked 27.7 percent, the fifth best in the NHL would have been a glorious chance for them to crack the scoreboard first.
But the chance did not come, thanks to Makar’s honesty. It’s not something you usually see and not something we have ever seen.
“I honestly didn’t even know he waved it off until I saw it after,” Barzal said. “I thought the ref just made the call but yeah, obviously good sportsmanship on his part not taking that. I don’t know if I would have done the same, to be honest with you.”
Islanders head coach Lane Lambert said he had never seen that happen before but gave Makar credit.
“Just an honest player who wants to beat you fair and square,” Lambert said.
When asked if one of his players would have done that, what he would have thought:
“Well, that’s irrelevant because none of my players didn’t do that.”
Makar did address his decision after the game and had this to say (H/t Peter Baugh):
“The ref that called it wasn’t the one at center ice. … I don’t think he had a good angle on it. … I think I would have felt a lot less guilty if I didn’t say anything than if I did. … I apologize to (my teammates). I don’t plan on doing that again.”
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CHARLOTTE — A slump in Charlotte’s housing market persisted in November.
Home closings and pending contracts year over year plunged for an 11th-straight month across the 16-county region, showed Canopy Realtor Association’s report for November, released today.
About 3,110 homes sold in November — a 35.9% drop from the same month in 2021, marking the steepest decline of the year, and a 12.8% decrease from October. Pending sales fell 36.1% over the year and 14.9% over the month, with 2,868 homes going under contract. That signals sales will continue to be weak.
Though the end of November, local home sales totaled about 47,000 for the year and were pacing near the 2019 year-end total of 50,853 closings.
The monthly housing reports come from the Canopy MLS data and include single-family, condo and townhouse transactions.
“When we look back at 2021 housing market numbers, what we saw was an anomaly compared to previous years, which makes the year-over-year declines that we’re currently experiencing appear significant,” said Lee Allen, Canopy’s 2022 president, in a news release.
New Delhi: On 11 December, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated Goa’s Mopa International Airport, 12 years after the then Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government had approved the project.
For years, the airport project had languished owing to land acquisition issues and political differences, but in 2016, Goa’s BJP government tasked the infrastructure company GMR Group to build it on a public-private-partnership model.
This, though, is not the first big-ticket infrastructure project that was pending under UPA, (or even previous governments for that matter), but completed after the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) came to power at the Centre in 2014.
Since he took charge as Prime Minister, Modi has on several occasions spoken of how the UPA government left projects incomplete during its tenure. He has also emphasised that many delayed infrastructure projects have been taken up, fast-tracked, and completed since 2014.
Credit: ThePrint team
For instance, when he inaugurated the Rs 9,900-crore Saryu irrigation project in Uttar Pradesh last December — 40 years after it had been conceptualised — the PM slammed previous state governments for “delaying projects” and “wasting public money”.
Infrastructure experts who spoke to ThePrint agreed that stalled projects came at a heavy cost.
“The biggest problem of stalled projects appeared in the last two-three years of the UPA government — from 2011 to 2014,” said Vinayak Chatterjee, chairman of the infrastructure consultancy firm Feedback Ventures. In this period, he pointed out, infra projects worth an estimated Rs 18 lakh crore were stalled.
The UPA did take some action at this point, Chatterjee added. In 2013, the Manmohan Singh government created a special project monitoring group (PMG) in the cabinet secretariat, spearheaded by IAS officer Anil Swarup, to expedite stalled infra initiatives.
The PMG, said Chatterjee, established various systems to unlock issues that had led to projects being stuck and promoted collaboration between central ministries and state governments.
But while the PMG under the UPA was able to get projects worth Rs 7-8 lakh crore moving, bigger changes took place post-2014, with a more focused and multi-pronged review system, he added.
The opposition Congress, which led the UPA from 2004 till 2014 has, however, said that the Modi government cannot cherry-pick a handful of projects and claim that the NDA completed what the UPA started.
“There were many projects that Vajpayeeji started, but the UPA completed and we are happy to give credit,” said Praveen Chakravarty, chairman of Congress’s data analytics wing.
Under the Modi government, stalled projects have been receiving an impetus from four primary fronts, according to Chatterjee.
The first, he said, is the Ministry of Programme Implementation and Statistics, which calculates the value of delayed projects and their cost overruns.
Then, he added, there is the Pro-Active Governance And Timely Implementation programme, or PRAGATI, which was set up in 2015 with the aim of removing bottlenecks in centre-state projects.
At PRAGATI meetings, the PM talks directly with stakeholders about issues related to infra projects. As of May this year, 40 such meetings had taken place.
The third, Chatterjee said, is the PMG, which has continued from when the UPA introduced it and is now housed under the commerce ministry.
And, finally there is Niti Aayog, the government’s public policy think tank. According to Chatterjee, it not only helps lay out targets to execute big-ticket projects, but also ascertains which ones are more prudent to abandon.
As of November this year, Rs 1.26 lakh crore worth of projects reportedly came under the latter category.
“There is a very concerted push to deal with the conditions that are impeding projects. I personally am very happy with the focus on getting projects to move,” Chatterjee said.
But according to Chakravarty, the Modi government should share some of the credit.
“I think the PM should say thank you for conceiving the project just as we are very happy to thank Vajpayeeji for conceiving the golden quadrilateral, which we expanded and I will acknowledge, the Modi government is further expanding,” Chakravarty said.
The UPA also racked up some major successes, he added.
“It’s actually in the 10 years of UPA that everything from the telecom sector to the power sector to the airport sector — all capital-intensive infrastructure projects — actually gained rapid momentum,” Chakravarty said. “Let’s not forget how many airports were conceived, ideated, built and opened in the UPA period. The UPA government was able to complete brand new Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata airports, which is no small feat.”
Nevertheless, several major infra projects that were delayed during the UPA era have been completed or fast-tracked since 2014.
Roads to rail, airports to port
Has the Modi government put its money where its mouth is when it comes to seeing through delayed infra projects?
ThePrint has compiled a list of 10 big-ticket infra projects that were mired in delays during the UPA period, and some even before that, but which have either finally been completed or have been on the fast track to completion since 2014.
The list below has been organised chronologically, based on the date of completion/anticipated completion. All expenditure figures and estimates have been taken from government data.
1. Bhupen Hazarika Setu
Built over the Lohit River, a tributary of the Brahmaputra, the 9.15-km-long, three-laned bridge connects Dhola and Sadiya villages in Assam’s Tinsukia district. The latter is close to the border with Arunachal Pradesh, which means that the bridge has brought down travel time between the two states from six hours to just one.
The Rs 2,056-crore bridge, touted as India’s longest bridge over water, was inaugurated in May 2017 and has given a big boost to connectivity in the region. Before it came up, residents relied on a ferry to cross the Brahmaputra at this stretch.
Named Bhupen Hazarika Setu after the famous Assamese singer, the bridge first came into discussion in 2003 when a local MLA called Jagadish Bhuyan (who has since joined the BJP) wrote to the then PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee about the importance of building the bridge.
The proposal was formalised, but work stagnated during the UPA regime, resulting in the long gestation period before the bridge was finally completed.
2. Bidar-Kalaburagi rail line
The 110-km rail link connecting Karnataka’s Bidar and Kalaburagi was proposed way back in 1999-2000 when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the PM.
For the next 16 years, the project slowed to a crawl due to one issue or another. Land acquisition and budgetary issues got some of the blame, but lack of political will was also seen as a factor in the delay.
The Rs 1,542 crore project was inaugurated in October 2017. It has reduced the travel time between Bengaluru and New Delhi by about six to eight hours, Bidar and Mumbai by 115 km, and Bidar and Bengaluru by 52 km.
3.Delhi-Meerut Expressway
In his 2006 Budget speech, the then finance minister P. Chidambaram announced that the UPA government had decided to build seven new expressways.
One of these was the Delhi-Meerut Expressway, but over the next several years the project hit numerous roadblocks, including land acquisition issues. The foundation stone was laid only on New Year’s Eve, 2015.
The 14-lane, 96-km project, implemented by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) at a cost of Rs 8,346 crore, was finally completed and opened to public in May 2018. The expressway has reduced the travel time between Delhi and Meerut from 2.5 hours to just 45 minutes.
4. Pakyong Airport
The foundation stone of Sikkim’s Pakyong Airport was laid back in 2009. Located at a height of 4,500 feet from sea level, it was Northeast India’s first greenfield airport, which would give a big boost to the state’s economy and tourism.
The project was much-anticipated. Sikkim did not have its own airport and visitors had to first fly to West Bengal’s Bagdogra airport and then drive down some 124 km to Sikkim’s capital, Gangtok.
A view of mountain peaks from the tarmac at Pakyong Airport in Sikkim | Twitter/@AAI_Official
Largely due to land acquisition problems, however, the crucial connectivity project was not able to take off for nearly a decade. PM Modi inaugurated the Rs 533-crore airport in September 2018.
5. Eastern & Western Peripheral Expressway
The 135-km long Eastern Peripheral Expressway (EPE) was approved in 2006 to decongest Delhi roads by providing an alternate route for traffic not bound for the national capital. It saw several twists and turns before it was finally completed in 2018.
The Rs 2,699 crore project is one half of the 271-km long peripheral ring road around Delhi. The other half of the ring road — the Western Peripheral Expressway — implemented by the Haryana government was in the making for nine years. It was also completed and inaugurated in November 2018.
6. Bogibeel Bridge
Connecting Assam’s Dibrugarh with Dhemaji, which is located close to the Arunachal border, India’s longest rail bridge was inaugurated on 25 December, 2018, more than two decades after it was sanctioned in 1997. That year, when then PM H.D. Deve Gowda laid its foundation stone, the project cost was estimated at Rs 1,767 crore.
Work on the bridge proceeded at a snail’s pace. It started in 2002, when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the prime minister, but stalled after 2004, the year when the UPA first came to power. Touted as a lifeline for northeast India, Bogibeel instead became known as a “bridge to nowhere”, with the numerous delays attributed in part to red-tapism.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi waves at people from Bogibeel Bridge, which was announced in 1997, but completed only in 2018 | PTI
Construction started in earnest only in 2014, by which time the design, scope, and cost of the work had changed.
The 4.94-km-long bridge has reduced train travel time between Delhi and Dibrugarh by three hours and is also of strategic importance to the Army since it facilitates easier and quicker movement of troops to Arunachal.
7. Kashmir rail-link project
The 326-km Jammu-Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla rail link was first approved in 1995 and was expected to be completed by 2002 at an estimated cost of Rs 2,500 crore.
But the crucial connectivity project that linked Kashmir to the rest of India saw several delays by successive governments, with the difficult topography of the region cited as a major blocker.
The Atal Bihari Vajpayee government declared it a national project in 2002 and fixed 2007 as its new completion date, but not much moved on the ground.
Cut to 2022. About two-thirds of the rail link — between Baramulla-Banihal and Jammu-Udhampur-Katra — is operational. The last phase linking Katra to Banihal is expected to be completed in 2023. The highest arch railway bridge in the world is coming up in the Katra-Banihal section over the Chenab River.
8. Vizhinjam Port
Until early this month, Kerala’s Vizhinjam Port witnessed vigorous protests and counter-protests, but the agitation has been called off, at least for now and work has resumed.
Slated to become India’s first container transshipment hub, and thus to play a crucial role in global supply chains, the project currently being built by the Adani Group has been in the pipeline for several decades.
Cops at the Vizhinjam Port protest site | Photo: Sharan Poovanna | ThePrint
The plan to develop the port first came up in 1991, but protests from the residents ensured that not much happened in the intervening years.
In 2015, the project kicked into gear again and the contract to build it was signed under the state’s then Oommen Chandy-led United Democratic Front (UDF) government. The project has overshot its 2019 deadline, but with the protests simmering down, it is now anticipated that construction will be completed by September 2023.
9.Jewar Airport
The plan to build the Noida International Airport at Jewar was first mooted in 2001 when defence minister Rajnath Singh was CM of Uttar Pradesh.
From that point on, though, it was ensnared not only in land acquisition tangles, but political tussles between different dispensations helming the state and central governments
The UPA government put the project on the backburner after GMR Group, the Delhi airport operator, raised an objection citing its proximity to the capital’s airport.
The airport project, estimated to cost Rs 30,000 crore, was finally revived only after the NDA government came to power in 2014. The first phase of construction, estimated to cost Rs 4,599 crore, is expected to be completed by January 2024.
10. Bangalore-Chennai Expressway
First announced in 2011, the 262-km Bangalore-Chennai Expressway is only now going somewhere, with work starting earlier this year and PM Modi laying the foundation stone in May.
The Rs 12,500-crore greenfield project, which is being built by the NHAI, is expected to be completed by March 2024.
It will connect Hoskote in Karnataka to Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu and will pass through three states — Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu. It will reduce the travel time between Bengaluru and Chennai to under three hours from the existing seven hours or so.
Amid growing concerns from conservative and liberal parents alike, the St. Tammany Parish Library Board has decided to remove 83 challenged books from the stacks and place them behind the circulation desk, pending a four-month review of their content.
The Library Board of Control's decision came Tuesday at the Covington branch, where crowds formed almost two hours before the meeting started.
Transgender books
The board also upheld a decision by an internal library review committee not to remove two books that revolve around transgender youth:
"I Am Jazz," written by Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings and illustrated by Shelagh McNicholas
"My Rainbow," written by DeShanna Neal and Trinity Neal and illustrated by Art Twink.
It was the first time the board fielded such an appeal, library spokesperson Amy Bouton said.
Diane Bruni had filed a formal complaint in September that the two books were “propaganda that pushes explicit sexual orientation on minors." On Tuesday, she said the books affirm gender confusion and what it means to be male or female.
Board member Bill Allin defended the decision to make the books available for browsing. “Be loved for who you are; that's the message," he said. "We have a responsibility to serve the whole parish, and you can’t impose your ideas on everyone else.”
By request only
In moving 83 other challenged books to restricted access, the board agreed to extend its review period for as long as four months. The books will remain searchable in the library system's online catalog but will be available for checkout only by request.
That was too restrictive for Ruth Terry Spiros. “The joy of the library is not necessarily going into the computer to see what's there; it’s about browsing," she said. "I think it's excessive to be moving stuff away.”
Jamie Segura agreed: “Moving books to a location not openly accessible to all is censorship.”
Audience members at a meeting of the St. Tammany Republican Parish Executive Committee on Nov. 28 hold up signs objecting to certain material in parish libraries. Some books have drawn fire from critics who say children are being exposed to sexually explicit material.
STAFF PHOTO BY SARA PAGONES
The drive to rid the library of some books has been pushed by the St. Tammany Republican Parish Executive Committee, which in October urged conservative elected officials to speak out against children’s exposure to what they called pornographic material at public libraries.
“This whole thing is extremely difficult,” Allin said. “All we can do is try to guide a course in the middle and provide some security for the parents that are concerned.”
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