The Steering Committee of the Civil Aviation Ministry, which considered the proposals of the Karnataka government to set up greenfield airports at Gulbarga, Bijapur, Hassan and Shimoga, on Friday granted "in principle' approval for the projects. The approval is subject to the condition that the Standard Operating Procedure will be formalised by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), Airports Authority of India (AAI) and Defence Ministry on air space management of the airports at Gulbarga and Bijapur in view of the defence operations in Pune and Bidar.

Delhi Mayor Arti Mehra on Friday started the process of allotment of plots in Ghogha Dairy Colony. Speaking on the occasion, Ms. Mehra said all the illegal dairies running in urban areas would be relocated in Ghogha Dairy Colony by August 31. "In the first phase, 2,000 plots with adequate infrastructural facilities have been developed. The second draw of lots will be held shortly.'

At long last, we have direct action from the government on the Special Economic Zones (SEZs) that neither the Goan people nor the Goa government want, but the Union Commerce Ministry seems to want to impose on the people of Goa. By cancelling in one stroke the land given to the SEZs for gross irregularities in its allotment, Chief Minister Digambar Kamat has gladdened the heart of every Goan.

SEZ tale in Goa has been of favouritism, irregularities, procedural impropriety, and totally anti-Goa. Since it was first discussed in December 2004 during the BJP regime, SEZ story took a monsterous form in 2006. Pratapsing Rane was the chief minister and Luizinho Faleiro the Industries Minister.

Speeding up the land acquisition process for major infrastructure works in the district will be a focus area for the newly appointed Pune district collector Chandrakant Dalvi who took over from former district collector Prabhakar Deshmukh on Monday. With nearly 2,000 cases pending with 17 land acquisition officers, Dalvi plans to speed up the "disposal of the cases' in the district. "I have already told my land acquisition officers to brief me about the cases and my priority would be to speed it up,' he told the media on his first day in office.

Goa's Movement Against SEZs has expressed shock over the statement made by the Secretary of the Union Ministry of Commerce and Industry and Board of Approval for SEZs, Mr G K Pillai, who has accused the Government of Goa of not taking any steps for the last six months, to close down the SEZs and that the Goa Government has even asked for this year's lease rent of land from some developers. In a letter written to the CM today, the convenor of GMAS Matanhy Saldanha suspected that some games are being played and that the government is not displaying its seriousness on the matter.

It is now becoming painfully obvious that apart from announcing that all SEZs were scrapped on New Year's Eve and issuing