The government's largesse was widely expected after the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party lost power in the recent assembly polls in three Hindi heartland states, where rural distress was cited to be one of the reasons for the defeat of the saffron party.
Three key agriculture Bills, approved by the Lok Sabha, are facing staunch opposition from within the ruling coalition with senior minister Harsmirat Kaur Badal resigning in protest and farmers hitting the street.
The media has created a new paradigm for its news perspective. It will write about issues that concern and directly affect its readers.It will also present news, whatever be its content or significance, provided that news is offered to it by the establishment, be it the state or the advertising community.
Hours before Union Home Minister Amit Shah's virtual rally in Bihar on Sunday, Rashtriya Janata Dal leaders and workers staged protests, beating utensils and blowing conch shells against what their leader Tejashwi Yadav dubbed as the ruling party's celebration of the devastation caused by COVID-19 and the lockdown.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday announced Rs 500 crore as a special package for rehabilitation of rain-affected victims in Maharashtra in addition to the Rs 200 crore from the National Contingency and National Calamity Funds.
'Interns, fresh MBBS graduates, nursing students, young doctors and nurses have brought pride to their degrees and their oath by courageously donning the PPE and caring for patients.' 'They are the foot soldiers of this war.'
Nearly a decade after Kutch faced its worst-ever earthquake, rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt in a two-part series assesses the transformation witnessed in the Kutchi society since the time the calamity struck on January, 2001, and its implications.
At the devastated Tapovan power project site rescuers worked nonstop even as the odds of finding the trapped workers alive seemed slim.
Lakhs of people were rendered homeless as cyclone Amphan cut a path of destruction through half a dozen districts of West Bengal, including state capital Kolkata, Wednesday night, blowing away shanties, uprooting thousands of trees besides swamping low-lying areas.
The Centre on Tuesday assured flood-ravaged Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh that funds will not be a constraint for relief and rehabilitation and asked them to focus on providing succour to the affected people.
India's water future remains very bleak. The monsoon season, which once extended to 4 months, is now down to less than 30 days of heavy rain.
UP Rs 50 billion, followed by Maharashtra, Bihar, and West Bengal which may need close to Rs 25 billion for the massive task.
'We have only ourselves to blame.' 'For selfish reasons and greed, we have obstructed many outlets, preventing the water from flowing out, be it rivers, tributaries or small drainage systems.'
State governments, which are striving to achieve 4 per cent growth in agriculture during the 11th Plan period (2007-12), have made a strong pitch for repayment of short-term loans by farmers in case of natural calamities at an interest rate of 7 per cent and not at the regular rate of over 10 per cent as fixed by banks.
"If India truly wants to be a superpower," Dr Abhijit Vaidya tells Kangana Pandiya, "48 per cent of our people cannot be malnourished. We need to ensure health for all."
Banerjee said the state is targeting to shift at least 10 lakh people to safer places in a bid to avoid any loss of life.
The infants were aged between a month and three months, a doctor said. District civil surgeon Pramod Khandate said fire broke out at the Bhandara district hospital at around 1.30 am. There were 17 babies in the unit and seven were rescued, he added.
Politics came into play over the Uttarakhand floods as Narendra Modi ignored suggestions given by Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde that chief ministers should not visit the flood-hit region as it hampers rescue operations.
Commercial banks are also expected to be soft on loan repayments and restructure the loans, if not write them off.
The state government is releasing Rs 6,250 crore for the cyclone relief operations. Along with this, Rs 20,000 and Rs 28,000 will be given as wage to workers of the 100-day job programme.
'When the lockdown grounded a billion people, nothing had been planned well: Testing, masks, face shields, protective gear, medical equipment, contact tracing ... nothing.' 'Before COVID, if you didn't know that the state had neither the money, nor the intent, nor the capacity to govern wisely and humanely, you were simply blind.' 'After COVID, if we continue to look to the State, look forward to a financial package or ask "What is the government doing" when faced with a calamity, the joke is on us, says Debashis Basu.
'We created so many chances and simply weren't effective with them. In fact we created a rainbow of different chances and there are just some days when the ball refuses to go in.'
... Are far-reaching social changes coming with it, asks Ajit Balakrishnan.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had informed that as per the preliminary report, the total damage due to floods in the state is estimated to be worth Rs 8,316 crore.
The Congress on Saturday sought to dismiss questions about Rahul Gandhi's absence from the country as well as his silence at a time when heavy rains have wrecked havoc in Uttarakhand.
The death toll from the Uttarakhand glacier disaster rose to 31 with five more bodies being recovered, officials said on Tuesday as multiple agencies raced against time to reach about 30 workers trapped inside a tunnel in a power project site and 175 people remained missing.
The Left rewrote history in Kerala on Sunday by becoming the first government to get a second term in four decades but its fortunes fell to a historic low in West Bengal where it failed to bag even one seat, resulting in its complete decimation in a state it once ruled for over three decades.
The Supreme Court on Friday said "a calamity and disaster" as huge as the one witnessed in Jammu and Kashmir floods "deserves national response" and asked the Centre to apprise it on Monday on the urgent steps undertaken to accelerate rescue, relief and rehabilitation operations.
However, the government rejected the army's demand to implement the scheme with retrospective effect from June last year, when the Doklam face-off between Indian and Chinese armies had begun, official sources said.
Former Uttarakhand Chief Minister B C Khanduri on Thursday asked the Centre to learn lessons from the recent natural calamity in the hill state and demanded a separate ministry for the Himalayan region to preserve its fragile ecology.
'Just because there is some misunderstanding, you cannot recall the chief secretary.' 'This is not a good development. This is an assault on federalism.'
On this day 167 years ago, the wheels of the first passenger train in the country from Mumbai to Thane started rolling.
'The lessons learnt from the triple disaster have put Japan's energy future On the right path,' notes Dr Rajaram Panda.
Even when large businesses said they were flying blind in mid-2020, the markets rallied and an incredible business boom followed. This is not to say that the markets will continue to rally and there is nothing to worry about, observes Debashis Basu.
'Because of the melting of ice as well as irresponsible human behaviour such as throwing soil and plastic into the sea, there has been a rise in temperature.' 'I fear there will be direct and dangerous consequences for us.'
With two more deaths, the fatalities due to flood this year has gone up to 18.
Pegging the cost of the covid-19 lockdown at USD 120 billion (approximately Rs 9 lakh crores) or 4 per cent of the GDP, analysts on Wednesday sharply cut their growth estimates and stressed on the need to announce an economic package. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which is scheduled to announce its first bi-monthly policy review on April 3, is set to deliver a deep rate cuts and it should also be assumed that the fiscal deficit targets will be breached, analysts said.
The Election Commission on Wednesday put off its proposed visit to Jammu and Kashmir for review of election preparedness following the flood situation in the state.
Anupam Kher reacts to the floods situation in Kashmir.
Read the fine print carefully lest your claim gets rejected, advises Tarun Mathur.
