Not 7 million, but 100,000 to attend Donald Trump’s Ahmedabad roadshow

Notably, the total population of Ahmedabad is estimated to be around 7 to 8 million

Nearly 100,000 are expected to line up along the 22-km route of the roadshow of US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Ahmedabad on February 24, officials said on Thursday. The number is much less than what the US president has been claiming.

In a recent video, Trump said, “7 million (70 lakh)” people will be there on the roadshow route. Notably, the total population of Ahmedabad is estimated to be around 7 to 8 million. Ahmedabad Municipal Commissioner Vijay Nehra on Wednesday said the number of those expected to be present at the roadshow will be “around one lakh”. In a tweet a few days back, Nehra estimated the same figure.

“MaruAmdavad says #NamasteTrump #IndiaRoadShow is getting bigger & bigger. More than 1 lakh participants already confirmed for the 22 km roadshow. Great opportunity for #Ahmedabad to present Indian Culture to the World. Keep following @AmdavadAMC for more details,” he said in a tweet on February 16.

As per the roadshow route plan, Trump and Modi will first reach the Sabarmati Ashram, a place closely associated with Mahatma Gandhi, from the Ahmedabad international airport. From the Sabarmati Ashram, both the leaders would take the SP Ring Road via Indira Bridge near the airport to reach the newly-built cricket stadium in Motera area of the city…

Trump’s visit: Wall being constructed near Ahmedabad stadium to hide slums

Ahead of Trump’s India visit, wall being constructed near slum in Ahmedabad

Ahead of US President Donald Trump’s visit to India later this month, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) is building a wall in front of a slum along the road connecting Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport to Indira Bridge.However, city mayor Bijal Patel denied having knowledge in this regard. “I have not seen it. I do not know anything about it,” Patel told reporters here.

On Wednesday, a thorough security check was conducted at Sabarmati Ashram ahead of Trump’s visit to Ahmedabad. According to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), Trump is expected to attend an event at the Motera Stadium in Ahmedabad on the lines of the ‘Howdy Modi‘ function that was addressed by the US President and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Houston in September last year. Trump is slated to pay a two-day visit to India on February 24-25. During the visit, Trump, who will be accompanied by First Lady Melania Trump, will attend official engagements in New Delhi and Ahmedabad, and interact with a wide cross-section of the Indian society, the MEA said in a statement.

The announcement of Trump’s first official visit to India was earlier made by the White House on Monday, which, in a statement, said that the US President and PM Modi had agreed during a recent phone conversation that the trip will “further strengthen the United States-India strategic partnership and highlight the strong and enduring bonds between the American and Indian people”.

Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train fare to be around Rs 3,000, says official

The present estimates suggest that the cost of the entire project would be Rs 1.08 trillion

The fare for the Mumbai- Ahmedabad bullet train would be around Rs 3,000, an official of the National High Speed Rail Corporation Ltd (NHSRCL) said on Thursday.

Of the total 1,380 hectares of land required for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad high speed rail corridor, commonly known as the bullet train project, so far 622 hectares of land, which comes to around 45 per cent, has been acquired, the official said.

“Our land requirement for this entire project is 1,380 hectares, which includes private, government, forest and railway land (in Gujarat and Maharashtra). So far, we have acquired 622 hectares (45 per cent). We are moving ahead keeping in mind the deadline of December 2023,” Achal Khare, Managing Director of the NHSRCL, which is executing the project, told reporters.

“Upon completion, the bullet train will make 70 trips, 35 on each side between 6 am till 12 am. The ticket fare would be around Rs 3,000,” he said. According to him, tenders had been issued for four major civil work packages on the route and the construction work is likely to begin by March 2020.

These packages include construction of a 237-km long viaduct between Vapi and Vadodara and another package between Vadodara and Ahmedabad with a distance of 87 kms, he said….

From defence to bullet train: Where are India-Japan ties heading?

How will Shinzo Abe's two-day visit to India further shape New Delhi's ties with Japan? BS brings you the details

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe arrived this week in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's home state of Gujarat for what was the tenth meeting between the two leaders since Modi came to power in 2014.

The centrepiece of the visit has been the Mumbai-Ahmedabad high-speed rail project. Modi-Abe laid the foundation stone for the bullet train in Ahmedabad on Thursday, with the former lauding Japan as India's friend for having extended a Rs 88,000 crore loan at just 0.1 per cent interest.

Further cementing their bilateral ties, India and Japan on Thursday also signed 15 memorandums of understanding (MoUs), which dealt with wide-ranging issues such as bilateral relations, defence and security cooperation, and supporting each other for a permanent seat on the United Nations’ expanded Security Council.

It remains to be seen if the bullet train will prove to be economically viable and whether India and Japan's joint front against China will yield any dividends for either of the nations going ahead.

Read our entire coverage below:

Japanese firms to invest Rs 5 lakh crore in India

While no figure was released on how much Japanese companies planned to invest in India, some sources said it would be around Rs 5 lakh crore, including the flagship bullet train project. One of the more import MoUs was on civil aviation cooperation and open skies. (Read all the details here)

Apart from fresh investment proposals at the summit, Modi claimed Japan’s foreign direct investment (FDI) to India had actually trebled in the past few years, a testimony to the growing economic ties. So far, around $25.7 billion has flown in as FDI from Japan; the plan now is to double this by 2019....Read More