Modi, Hasina jointly inaugurate oil pipeline, rail projects
New Delhi/Dhaka Sep 18 : Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bangladeshi counterpart Sheikh Hasina on Tuesday jointly inaugurated the construction works of a cross-border oil pipeline and two rail projects, with the former describing the two countries as members of the same family.
Hasina and Modi joined the event in the evening via video-conferencing from Dhaka and New Delhi respectively.
The 130-km India-Bangladesh Friendship Pipeline connecting Siliguri in India with Parbatipur in Bangladesh will transport petroleum products from Numaligarh Refinery in Assam. Of the total length, 125 km will be constructed in Bangladesh and 5 km in India.
"Geographically we may be neighbours, but in our hearts we are members of the same family," Modi said while addressing the programme.
"We have shown the world, what can be achieved when neighbours work together," he said, adding that there had been unprecedented progress in cooperation between the two sides in the last few years.
At the same event, the ground-breaking ceremony of two rail projects to improve Dhaka's connectivity with Tongi and Joydebpur, two towns on the outskirts of the capital city, was also held.
Officials said 48.80 km of the two new dual gauge rail lines would be constructed on the Dhaka-Tongi route while a 12.28 km new dual gauge railway double line on the Tongi-Joydevpur route.
The projects came a little over a week after both the Prime Ministers inaugurated two railway projects and an electricity project connecting the two countries on September 10.
Stating that the pipeline will further boost bilateral cooperation, Modi said that energy was the cornerstone of any country's development.
"The pipeline will help in the development of the northern Bangladesh. Though it is being done with grant-financing from India, the project will be dedicated to the people and government of Bangladesh once completed," he said.
Modi said the railway project will bring relief to road traffic in Bangladesh.
Speaking from Dhaka, Hasina said that ever since she formed her government in Bangladesh in 2009, she has been working relentlessly to deepen ties with India.
She thanked Modi for the new projects which she said will help in Bangladesh's development.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan joined the video conference from Delhi and Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali from Dhaka.
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Four astronauts return after historic lunar flyby, NASA now eyes landing on moon
Washington (PTI): Amid claps and cheers, four astronauts of NASA’s Artemis-II mission splashed down in the Pacific ocean after a historic flight to the moon – the first by humans in more than 50 years.
“The path to the moon is open but the work ahead is greater than the work behind,” Amit Kshatriya, Indian-origin NASA Associate Administrator told a press conference shortly after the Artemis-II crew returned to earth off the coast of San Diego at 8:07 eastern time on Friday.
The lunar flyby mission involving Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canada's Jeremy Hansen was the first journey to the moon since the Apollo 17 mission in December 1972 when Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt spent three days exploring the lunar surface.
Rick Henfling, the flight director, said the Artemis II astronauts are “happy and healthy and ready to come home to Houston.”
Artemis II was the first crewed mission to utilise NASA’s Space Launch System rocket and Orion crew module — demonstrating that the agency’s equipment can propel astronauts out of Earth’s orbit and bring them safely home.
"Yesterday, flight director Jeff Radigan said we had less than a degree of an angle to hit after a quarter of a million miles to the moon," Kshatriya told reporters.
"And their team hit it. This is not luck; that is 1,000 people doing their job," he said.
The mission flew 700,237 miles; its peak velocity was 24,664 m.p.h.; and the flight had an entry range of 1,957 miles but landed within one mile of its target, Henfling said.
NASA now aims to land humans on the moon where the space agency also plans to set up a habitat that would be the launchpad for future missions to Mars and beyond.
It was a triumphant homecoming for the crew of four whose record-breaking lunar flyby revealed not only swaths of the moon's far side never seen before by human eyes but a total solar eclipse.
They emerged from their bobbing capsule into the sunlight one by one.
Henfling said his team 'breathed a sigh of relief' once the side hatch opened on the Orion Integrity after it splashed down in the Pacific Ocean.
"We all breathed a sigh of relief once the hatch opened up, that's when we brought the team in," he said.
"We said a few words to the flight controllers, and then we turned around to the families and waved and gave them a thumbs up, and we all watched as each of their four astronauts got out of the spaceship and were hoisted up onto the helicopters. It was a great day," he added.
Henfling said his team felt "anxiety" as the four astronauts re-entered the Earth's atmosphere, but felt confident in all their training leading up the history-making lunar mission.
NASA said the Artemis III mission is "right around the corner" following its history-making journey around the moon.
"The next mission is right around the corner, and you know, we'll take the lessons learned from Artemis II," Henfling said.
"We learned a bunch on how to fly people in space, both from vehicle operations, but also from how to run a control room with a deep space mission. And when the time is right, we'll get back into specific training, and we've got a core group of about 30 flight directors, and they're all extremely capable.
"I think anybody who's assigned to that next mission is going to be as successful as us," Henfling said.
Amit Kshatriya is serving as the highest-ranking civil servant and a senior advisor to the administrator at NASA. He leads NASA's 10 centre directors, as well as the mission directorate associate administrators. He is also the agency’s chief operating officer.
Kshatriya previously served as the deputy associate administrator for the Moon to Mars Program in the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate (ESDMD) at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
LIVE: They are coming home.
— NASA (@NASA) April 10, 2026
Watch as the Artemis II crew returns to Earth, splashing down at around 8:07pm ET (0007 UTC April 11). https://t.co/n3vZE2rcFv
