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Maharashtra Cabinet Expansion Updates: The much awaited expansion of the Eknath Shinde-led Maharashtra cabinet will take place today, over a month after the Shiv Sena MLA was sworn in as chief minister and BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis took oath as his deputy on following the resignation of Uddhav Thackeray due to a rebellion in the Sena ranks.

The duo had been functioning as a two-member cabinet since then, inviting criticism from opposition leaders. The cabinet expansion will take place in Mumbai today with reports suggesting that Devendra Fadnavis likely to get the home portfolio.

The first iron girder having a length of 24 meters and weighing 52 metric tons was installed on Monday for the Station Area Traffic Improvement System (SATIS) Project in Thane East. The work is being done under the Thane Smart City Project.

The work for the SATIS project was started in March 2019 under the guidance of Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) chief Dr Vipin Sharma and so far about 55 per cent of the work has been completed.

On Saturday, Twitter's co-founder and former CEO voiced his apparent support for the ending of the Chinese Communist Party after the nation implemented stricter COVID-19 policies.

Dorsey retweeted an early June post from a Beijing-based CNN reporter detailing China's stringent measures that she had to follow, which includes constant testing and a mandatory health app that authorities can track people through. In the video, the CNN reporter said that "this surveillance will stay long after Covid is gone."

An uptick of Russian crude has quietly flowed to the Mediterranean region over recent weeks as buyers snap up barrels ahead of the European Union's partial embargo.

According to data tracked by Bloomberg, Russian crude flows to Italy hit a seven-week high, and shipments to Turkey hit a six-week high in the seven days leading up to August 5.

Spain accepted its first delivery of Urals crude in four months, and the same blend went from the Baltic to Greece for the first time since February. At the same time, shipments to customers in northern Europe slipped.

Jaipur to Delhi airport in 2.5 hours, Delhi to Dehradun in 2.5 hours, Delhi to Bombay in 12 hours, Mumbai to Chandigarh in 14.5 hours… sounds surreal? Not quite. In another two and a half years this is set to be a reality. Making it one is a web of expressways and access-controlled highways being built in and around Delhi which will connect it with major cities by the end of 2024. Not only will these make Delhi one of the most well-connected national capitals in the world, the inter-linking of these high-speed corridors will also ensure seamless connectivity for traffic coming from cities like Mumbai, Vadodara, Jaipur, Srinagar and Dehradun.

According to highway ministry officials, six expressways and access-controlled highways — two completed and four under construction — will provide Delhi high-speed connectivity. While the Eastern Peripheral Expressway and the Meerut Expressway have been completed, the remaining four — Delhi-Mumbai Expressway with connectivity with Jaipur and Jewar airport, Delhi-Amritsar-Katra, Delhi-Dehradun with a connecting road that will link to Ambala and the Urban Extension Road-II — will be completed in 2024.

“The aim behind road connectivity is to ensure that people can reach or leave Delhi quickly and easily,” explained an official. “At present, it takes a long time to get out of the city because people need to take the clogged arterial roads due to the huge volume of local traffic. The new networks being developed will give multiple options to commuters to leave the city limits smoothly.”

Road infrastructure to match USA's: Nitin Gadkari tells Parliament

For example, once the Delhi-Dehradun Expressway is operational and the link from Shamli to Ambala is completed, people can take the expressway from Akshardham to reach Ambala and Chandigarh. “This link will be 10-15km longer than the existing Delhi-Chandigarh highway, but people can save nearly two hours because they can drive at a higher speed,” says an official of National Highways Authority of India (NHAI).

Similarly, the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway terminating at DND Flyway in Delhi will be connected with an elevated road till Akshardham. People coming from the cities in west India can take the Dehradun Expressway to reach Chandigarh and Srinagar. In fact, the existing seamless road network connectivity from Akshardham to Meerut and Yamuna Expressway will ensure high-speed links to different parts of Uttar Pradesh, where several new expressways are being constructed.

Highways that will bring Delhi closer to other cities

According to the NHAI data, high-speed road links measuring over 330km are being developed at an investment of Rs 50,000 crore and all these roads are directly linked with Delhi. While inaugurating the Pragati Maidan tunnel project, PM Narendra Modi had listed the expressways that were being built to improve connectivity with the capital and had said that with these networks Delhi would “be one of the best-connected capitals across the globe” and would will “reduce the city’s urban burden”.

Union road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari has also said that providing multiple good road connectivity across Delhi-NCR will reduce the congestion and pollution burden on the capital.

According to NHAI, the existing and upcoming highway links from Delhi will connect them to the new expressways in UP. And with the implementation of toll collection through the automatic Radio-frequency identification (RFID)-based FASTag system on the roads built by state governments, travel to and from the capital can only become smoother.

(With inputs from agencies)