Day after Rahul woos rivals, Sonia givesTamil Nadu a miss

With AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi’s attempts to reach out to rivals, especially Nitish Kumar of JD(U) and Chandra babu Naidu of the TDP,upsetting UPA partners, the Congress today worked overtime to placate allies, saying it was “totally” with them and “confident of forming a secular government”.

But the decision to scrap Sonia Gandhi’s poll rallies in Tamil Nadu, where partner DMK is spearheading the alliance campaign, fuel led suspicion among allies, the move coming a day after Rahul Gandhi suggested that AIADMK’s J Jayalalithaa, DMK’s arch rival, could be a possible post-poll partner.

“We are totally with our allies and we are confident of forming a secular government under the leadership of Manmohan Singh.In case there is need to reach out to other secular allies after the results are out on May 16, then it will be considered.

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India-Lanka undersea link project on course

Undeterred by the ongoing war by LTTE, the governments of Sri Lanka and India are going ahead with the implementation of an ambitious Rs 1,000 crore under sea transmission link project between the two countries. As reported by FE on April 13, both the governments have given top priority to this project and are expected to sign an MoU soon, which will pave for an appointment of an agency to carry out a comprehensive undersea/marine survey. The proposed survey is like to be completed in six months and there after, a detail project report will be prepared.

The proposed undersea/marine survey is necessary, prior to the laying of the undersea/submarine cables. The cable survey will look into the traffic of movements of ships in the area, depth of sea, earthquake zones and volcanic actives as well as the presence of sharks in that area of sea. The link is likely to connect Madurai in Tamil Nadu and Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka’s North Central Province. The transmission line is expected to be 400KV HVDC overhead lines from Madurai to the Indian coast (near Rameshwaram(139km), a 400 KV HVDC cable from the Indian sea coast to the Sri Lankan sea coast (39 km), a 400 KV HVDC overhead line from the Sri Lankan coast to Anuradhapura/Putta lam (125km). PowerGrid Corporation,which is India’s central transmission utility, will be the project implementation agency.

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