Over 1200 cinema halls in Maharashtra will down their shutters from May 16 with their owners pressing for reduction in taxes, increase in seating capacity and simplification of rules for licence renewal.
The former Madhya Pradesh chief minister said, 'India is not a dharmashala or a multinational which anybody can lead.'
The India Meteorological Department, which had issued a red colour-coded alert for north India for May 25-26 when the prevailing heatwave conditions are expected to peak, said dust and thunderstorms are likely to bring some relief on May 29-30.
Godavari Dange, a school dropout who was widowed at the age of 19 is now changing the lives of farmers in her village and beyond.
For Tuesday, the IMD said heavy to very heavy rains, with extremely heavy rainfall at isolated places, are likely over Assam and Meghalaya.
The slow progress of the south-west monsoon has led to overall deficiency of rains by 22 per cent over the last fortnight, the meteorological department on Wednesday said.
Lashing out at the BCCI for converting Indian public to "zombies of cricket" by foisting tournaments like IPL "tamasha", former Sports Minister MS Gill asked the Board to have some sanity in its thinking and shift the matches of the lucrative T20 competition out of drought-hit Maharashtra. Gill, who served as the Union Sports Minister from April 2008 to May 2009 and currently a Rajya Sabha member from Punjab, was reacting after Bombay High Court raised questions on why water should be "wasted" on hosting IPL matches in Maharashtra when the state is facing one of its worst-ever droughts. In total, 20 IPL matches are scheduled to be held in Maharashtra in three venues -- Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur. "The drought condition in Maharashtra is so severe that in a few days people in areas like Marathawada will not even have a glass of water to drink. As a former Sports Minister and ex-Agriculture Secretary, I know that several parts of Maharashtra are bone dry and I am amazed that in this situation the BCCI wants to hold these IPL matches," Gill told PTI.
'Poverty-stricken and drought-affected families in Bundelkhand and Marathawada are selling their children for as little as a few hundred rupees.'
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