Second batch of Indian military personnel leave Maldives: President Muizzu
Male (PTI): The second group of Indian military personnel operating a helicopter has left the Maldives on April 9 under a bilateral agreement with India, President Mohamed Muizzu has announced. Muizzu announced this on Friday while speaking during a campaign event for ruling party candidates ahead of the parliamentary elections scheduled for later this month.
"The first team has already gone. Now, on April 9, the soldiers on the second platform have also been withdrawn," Muizzu was quoted as saying by the local media. The agreement between Maldives and India is to replace the Indian military personnel stationed in Maldives to oversee the operations of the military aircraft the country has gifted with trained civilians also from India.
Muizzu, a pro-China leader, added that the Indian soldiers on the last platform would also leave the Maldives before May 10 and that would mark the fulfillment of his pledge to remove Indian soldiers from the island nation. "There is only one platform left. As the two countries have already signed, they [the remaining Indian military personnel] will also be recalled ahead of May 10. They will leave," Muizzu was quoted as saying by Edition.mv news portal. "So that pledge is fulfilled, isn't it? All foreign military here will leave before May 10. So any pledge I make, I will work to fulfill to the greatest extent", he said.
He did not provide any details and did not clarify whether the soldiers had been replaced by Indian civilians. Neither the Maldives Defense Ministry nor India have commented on the latest withdrawal of Indian military personnel from this country.
According to the Maldives government, 88 Indian soldiers were stationed in the Maldives to operate helicopters in Addu and Laamu Kadhdhoo and a Dornier aircraft in Hanimaadhoo. The figure also includes doctors at the Senahiya military hospital. The first group of Indian soldiers left the Maldives on March 11. The Defence Ministry said 26 soldiers based in Addu were replaced by 26 Indian civilians. India also replaced the old helicopter in Addu with a new one.
Relations between Maldives and India have deteriorated since Muizzu came to power in November last year while closer ties are maintained with China. He also travelled to China in January and met top Chinese leaders, including President Xi Jinping. China and the Maldives recently signed a defence cooperation agreement and several other infrastructure development projects.
The Maldives is India’s key maritime neighbour in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) and occupies a special place in its initiatives like ‘SAGAR’ (Security and Growth for All in the Region) and the ‘Neighbourhood First Policy’ of the Narendra Modi government.
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SC dismisses L&T's plea challenging tender of Sharavathi power project in Karnataka
New Delhi, Apr 30: The Supreme Court has dismissed a plea by engineering and construction major Larsen & Toubro Ltd challenging the short-term tender floated for the construction of the Rs 8,000-crore Sharavathi pumped storage power project in Karnataka.
A bench comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra upheld the April 25 order of the Karnataka High Court that had also declined the petition by L&T against the tender by Karnataka Power Corporation Limited (KPCL).
"We are not inclined to entertain the Special Leave Petition under Article 136 of the Constitution of India. The Special Leave Petition is accordingly dismissed," the bench said.
The engineering and construction major had said in its appeal that the tender process for the project had been run in an arbitrary, perverse and unreasonable manner.
In its order, the high court had said, "Electro-mechanical and hydro-mechanical works are admittedly an integral part of the project and the petitioner, being only a civil contractor, was not eligible to perform the work unless it could find association of a specialised agency.
"The submission that the appellant was unable to enter into a contract with any of such agencies finds factual justification, for the petitioner could not show that it had an expert agency as a partner to enter into the memorandum of understanding.”
Infrastructure firm Megha Engineering and Infrastructure (MEIL) on Monday said it has bagged the 2,000-megawatt project.
The Sharavathi river is a vital source of hydroelectric power in Karnataka, a company statement said, adding that with a planned total power generation capacity of 2000 MW, it is the country’s largest pump storage power generation unit.
Karnataka aims to solve the power crisis in the state through this big budget project. The cost of the project is over Rs 8,000 crore, it stated.
