The 77th Independence Day on Tuesday was a low-key affair in Himachal Pradesh with the traditional cultural programmes missing from official and district-level functions as the state mourns the deaths and destruction caused by incessant rains.
India needs another shot of difficult reform, of the kind only possible at gunpoint. Mr Trump holds that gun to our heads now. A drastic reduction in tariff protection, other elements of sarkari wet-nursing will force entrepreneurial India to become competitive again, argues Shekhar Gupta.
Relief Commissioner Alok Pandey told reporters that the government is constantly working to ensure that there is no loss of life due to the weather phenomenon.
A senior Uttarakhand official at the site said drilling was complete.
Nine more people have died as heavy rains lashed Uttar Pradesh for the third day, taking the death toll to 28, while a red alert has been sounded on Tuesday in six districts including the worst-hit Barabanki and Gonda.
The India Meteorological Department has said that the landfall process of Cyclone 'Biparjoy' has started in Saurashtra and Kutch regions of Gujarat. The landfall process will carry on till midnight with wind speeds reaching a maximum of 140 kilometres per hour, the IMD said.
The Navy has has kept five flood teams and three diving teams on stand-by in Mumbai, the official said. These teams, trained and equipped for rescue operations, are stationed at various naval areas across Mumbai and can provide early response over a larger area, he said.
Feroze Qureshi and Monu Kumar, experts in the rat-hole mining technique, were the first to meet the 41 labourers rescued from the Silkyara tunnel in Uttarakhand after they cleared the last bit of the rubble inside the structure.
The leader of the 12-member team from Rockwell Enterprises, Wakeel Hassan, said he was approached for help by a company involved in the rescue operation four days ago. "The work got delayed while removing the portion of the auger from the rubble. We started at 3 pm on Monday and finished the work at 6 pm on Tuesday," Hassan said, adding, "We had said the work would be finished in 24 to 36 hours and that is what we did."
Earlier on Saturday, six bodies were recovered and two more were retrieved a short time later, the police said.
With the recovery of 3 more bodies from under the massive landslide debris at Malin village near Pune, the death toll in the calamity has climbed to 109, even as the NDRF operation to locate possible survivors entered the sixth day on Monday amid intermittent showers.
The intensity was measured 7 on the Japanese scale -- which ranges from zero to seven -- on the Noto Peninsula, Ishikawa Prefecture, according to NHK.
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Thursday said that Trinamool Congress MP Kalyan Banerjee has submitted a written apology for his remarks against Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia besides apologising in the House.
'It was a disaster on his part to give an oral remark which allowed ascertainment of the religious character of places of worship.' 'This disrupted the social harmony of the country.'
The weather office has forecast intense spells of rain at isolated places in Nainital, Champawat, Pithoragarh, Bageshwar, Dehradun, Tehri and Pauri districts on Sunday.
The Supreme Court on Monday directed all states and Union territories to ensure payment of compensation to family members of Covid-19 victims without wasting any time.
Relatively a lesser degree of damage, including those to houses marked the landfall of cyclonic storm Mandous in Tamil Nadu and at least four people were killed in rain-related incidents, authorities said in Chennai on Saturday.
Eight people were killed and over 60 injured on Monday when a huge iron hoarding collapsed on a petrol pump in Ghatkopar area of Mumbai amid rain and gusty wind, while several others are feared trapped, officials said.
A total of 33 teams have been earmarked by the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) to undertake relief and rescue operations in Gujarat and Maharashtra ahead of the expected landfall of cyclone 'Biparjoy' near the Jakhau port in Kutch district, officials said on Wednesday.
With the recovery of five more bodies from the debris at the landslide-affected Irshalwadi village in Maharashtra's Raigad district, the toll increased to 21 on Friday, an official said.
The Union Budget 2024-25 on Tuesday allocated Rs 2,19,643 crore to the Ministry of Home Affairs with the majority of it -- Rs 1,43,275 crore -- being given to central police forces like Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Border Security Force (BSF), and Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) which are responsible for internal security, border guarding, and security of vital installations.
India has already sent relief materials to Turkiye in four military transport aircraft.
Reddy directed the officials to treat the storm as a major challenge to avoid loss of life and property as the winds are expected to blow gales reaching speeds of up to 110 kilometres per hour.
The cyclone is expected to make landfall on Thursday evening as a 'very severe cyclonic storm' with maximum wind speed reaching up to 150 kilometres per hour, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.
A cloudburst occurred near the holy cave shrine of Amarnath in south Kashmir Himalayas on Wednesday, but there was no loss of life in the incident, officials said.
As Cyclone Dana barrels toward the coasts of Odisha, threatening to impact nearly half of the state's population, the government is racing against time to execute a massive evacuation plan aimed at relocating about 10 lakh people in several coastal districts to safety. In West Bengal, the cyclone is set to bring heavy rainfall in several southern West Bengal districts, including Kolkata, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has said.
'The nearby civilians helped us a lot in providing food, water and first aid.'
Rajasthan's three districts -- Jalore, Sirohi and Barmer -- are reeling under a flood-like situation due to heavy rainfall caused by cyclonic storm Biparjoy, an official said on Sunday.
Villages, towns, roads and highways in several regions of southern Tamil Nadu including Tirunelveli and Thoothukudi just resemble rivers in spate.
"Mr Kalyan Banerjee rose in this House and said sorry. But I will say that we all come to this House with the spirit of contribution to the nation's development...but we also come with a sense of self respect.
A sudden downpour in Delhi caught citizens off guard and caused heavy waterlogging and traffic jams on Tuesday while Mumbai breathed a sigh of relief as showers stopped a day after heavy rain brought the metropolis to its knees.
A helicopter carrying pilgrims from Guptkashi to Kedarnath crashed on Tuesday amid poor visibility and seven people on board are feared dead.
The vehicle, a Tavera, was on its way to Jammu from Srinagar and it fell into a 300-foot gorge at the Battery Cheshma area of the district around 1.15 am, they said.
As per the India Meteorological Department (IMD), which closely monitors the cyclonic storm said, 'The SCS 'Mocha' intensified into a very severe cyclonic storm, lay centred at 05.30 hours IST of 12th May 2023 over central adjoining southeast Bay of Bengal near latitude 13.2N and long 88.1E, about 520 km west-northwest of Port Blair.'
Two civic officials have been suspended in connection with the collapse and an offence has been registered against the building owner, an official said.
The cabinet of the new government led by Rekha Gupta balances representation of all major communities that propelled the Bharatiya Janata Party to power in Delhi with a massive majority after over 26 years.
The SDMA said the ill-fated private boat was carrying 73 passengers, including eight crew.
The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and other agencies resumed the search and rescue operation for the fourth day on Sunday at Irshalwadi village in Maharashtra's Raigad district where a massive landslide led to the death of at least 27 people, officials said.
Police said around half-a-dozen dumper trucks and some machines were buried under the debris caused by the landslide which occurred around 9 am in Tosham block.
Tracing the remaining persons was proving a daunting task as the river remained in spate with over two lakh cusecs of floodwater gushing, sources said.
