The drive begins just days ahead of the Char Dham Yatra in the state.
A landslide on the Kedarnath route in Uttarakhand killed two pilgrims and injured six, while heavy rain led to the temporary suspension of the Char Dham and Hemkund Sahib pilgrimages.
A Border Roads Organisation team will be stationed in Joshimath to monitor the yatra on a day-to-day basis and ensure immediate treatment of cracks on roads or any other problem that might arise, the chief minister said.
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After chairing an emergency meeting with senior officials to discuss the situation, Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said that heli services on the Char Dham route will remain suspended for two days, as the weather is bad and the safety of the passengers is the government's top priority.
Resumption of 'Char Dham yatra' after a gap of two Covid-marred years is a welcome development for thousands of people whose livelihoods depend on it, but the death of 78 pilgrims on way to the Himalayan temples in less than a month is causing concern.
Soon after the crash on Sunday, Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami held an emergency meeting and asked senior officials to prepare a strict SOP (standard operating procedure) for heli services in the state, making a thorough check of the technical condition of the choppers mandatory.
Citing the example of last year, he said many pilgrims who came for the yatra from rural areas of Uttar Pradesh had to return from Rishikesh and Haridwar as they had not registered in advance for it.
'This is probably why the late General Bipin Rawat, who hails from the Garhwal Himalaya, said that the existing roads are fine with the army.'
The weather office has forecast intense spells of rain at isolated places in Nainital, Champawat, Pithoragarh, Bageshwar, Dehradun, Tehri and Pauri districts on Sunday.
'There is a clear relationship between the Char Dham road widening and these landslides.' 'The situation has further worsened with the massive influx of tourists whose number are running into several lakhs per month.' 'No parameters have been laid down to control tourist inflow and the result is that the Char Dham yatra has seen a sharp escalation in accidents and loss of lives.'
According to a statement from the Rudraprayag police, the landslide was triggered by continuous heavy rainfall, which caused large amounts of debris and stones to fall onto the trekking route, blocking and damaging the walkway to Kedarnath Dham.
The 4.5 kilometre-long Silkyara tunnel project in Uttarakhand, which is part of the central government's strategic 900-km 'Char Dham Yatra All Weather Road', will continue after the necessary safety audit and repair of the broken structure, a senior road ministry official said on Wednesday.
Refusing to buy the argument, the bench of Chief Justice R S Chauhan and Justice Alok Kumar Verma said if the Devasthanam Board decides not to permit live streaming of the rituals on this ground, it will have to quote a line from the scripture in support of the argument.
The chief priest of the biggest Hanuman temple in Pakistan, Sant Ram Nath Mishra, has said that the Pakistani Army has always supported Hindus in their struggle against extremist groups in the country. Mishra, who is currently on a visit to Hindu religious sites across India, recounted the struggle of the Panch Mukhi Hanuman Mandir in Karachi, which was encroached upon over the decades but was restored following a landmark Supreme Court ruling in 2018. He said that the Pakistani Army and government swiftly implemented the Supreme Court's decision to return the temple land, despite opposition from hardline groups. Mishra also highlighted the need for easing visa restrictions between India and Pakistan, allowing Hindus on both sides to visit religious sites in each other's countries.
Five pilgrims and a pilot onboard a helicopter had a narrow escape when the aircraft on its way to Kedarnath made an emergency landing on the highway in Rudraprayag district on Saturday after developing a technical snag during take-off, officials said.
'...they always address problems superficially, never tackling root causes.' 'Currently, the policy response will focus on immediate relief -- getting people to safety, providing facilities, clearing debris.' 'This is necessary, but once immediate relief operations end, everything returns to 'normal' without addressing underlying vulnerabilities.'
The recent helicopter crash near Kedarnath, in which seven lives were lost, has proven yet again that aviation regulatory authorities have not learnt lessons from similar air mishaps in the challenging Kedar valley and have done little to improve flying conditions.
Terming it a "very sorry state of affairs", the apex court said the state was just trying to find some excuse or the other.
Snowfall in the higher reaches of Garhwal Himalayas and intermittent rains in lower areas affected the Char Dham yatra on Tuesday with the pilgrimage to the famous Kedarnath shrine suspended till May 16 and yatra to Badrinath halted temporarily.
Since the yatra began, as many as 28 tourists en route to Kedarnath have died due to various reasons.
Rudraprayag District Disaster Management Officer Nandan Singh Rajwar told PTI that the accident took place above the forests of Gaurikund amid poor visibility due to bad weather.
The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has removed all references to the Mughals and Delhi Sultanate from its class 7 textbooks. The new textbooks, released this week, have been designed in line with the new National Education Policy (NEP) and the National Curriculum Framework for School Education (NCFSE) 2023, which emphasize incorporating Indian traditions, philosophies, knowledge systems, and local context into school education. The textbooks now include new chapters on ancient Indian dynasties, sacred geography, and government initiatives like Make in India and Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao. The revamp has been met with criticism from opposition parties who equate it with "saffronisation."
The suspension of the Char Dham Yatra this year and its cancellation the next will be a huge blow to Uttarakhand's unorganised sector
The restoration work of the Kedarnath shrine, which was destroyed in last year's floods, will be done by the Archaeological Survey of India.
Tour operators in Odisha are set to suffer losses as tourists and pilgrims have started cancelling their bookings to various destinations in north India following the devastating floods in Uttarakhand.
The ministry of tourism is less concerned about the impact of the floods on life and property, but is more focused on promoting tourism, says Swathi Seshadri. Anupam Chakravartty reports
Microsoft's Indian-origin CEO Satya Nadella, in communication with employees, said the company will align its cost structure with revenue and customer demand.
The sacred portals of Badrinath shrine in Garhwal Himalayas were reopened on Monday after a gap of six months amid chants of vedic hymns and elaborate rituals.
Lifting the ban on the yatra, a division bench of the court comprising Chief Justice R S Chauhan and Justice Alok Kumar Verma said the pilgrimage will start with restrictions like a daily limit on the number of devotees visiting the temples.
Around 1,000 devotees will be allowed to visit Kedarnath shrine daily when its portals are opened on May 4, Chief Minister Harish Rawat said and sought to allay safety concerns of pilgrims.
Snowfall and rain hit the Char Dham Yatra on Tuesday with thousands of pilgrims halted en route to Kedarnath and Yamunotri temples in the Garhwal Himalayas as a precautionary measure.
Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi will undertake a yatra to Kedarnath on Thursday, trekking 18 km up into the Uttarkhand mountains to pay obeisance at the temple which faced the brunt of flash-floods two years ago and has since been spruced up.
Travel companies, seeing massive cancellations, are now advising tourists to visit these destinations in August.
With questions being raised whether large-scale deaths in Uttarkhand could have been averted, the MeT department today said it had issued "timely" warnings of heavy rains and landslides while the state government claimed there was not enough prior indication of a "crisis of this magnitude".
Many low-lying areas in West Bengal's sub-Himalayan region were reeling from a flood-like situation while major rivers in Bihar were flowing above the danger level at several places as unabated heavy rain lashed the country's eastern parts on Sunday.
Projects would be bid out shortly while work on them would start after acquisition of 90 per cent land
Kunal Kemmu's default mode performing comedy is overacting. When surrounded by much more competent theatre-trained actors, he falls consistently short. (In the past, this role would have been tailor-made for Govinda), observes Deepa Gahlot.
The family members of 26 people from Madhya Pradesh, who were killed in the Uttarakhand accident, cannot believe that the pilgrimage met with a tragic end.
The temple doors were opened at 8.50 am and the prime minister arrived just about half an hour later to offer prayers and perform a 'rudrabhishek'.
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