'Monkey menace' has reached epic proportions in India. So pronounced is the problem of monkeys, that they have even derailed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's plans of making his parliamentary constituency of Varanasi Wi-Fi-enabled.
In Uttar Pradesh, southwest monsoon has been normal so far where rains and thundershowers occurred in few places since Friday.
More than 50 people have been killed and over two lakh others affected by the floods caused by torrential rain across Pakistan, officials said on Monday.
Facing allegations from the Bharatiya Janata Party of not taking timely action to rescue Bihari pilgrims in Uttarakhand, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday made a veiled attack on his Gujarat counterpart Narendra Modi saying he was no 'Rambo' but took steps for assisting pilgrims there.
The Opposition party asked whether the prime minister will take responsibility for the 'deadliest rail tragedy' of this century.
Cyclone Hudhud pounded the coastal districts of Andhra Pradesh and Odisha with heavy rain and winds of almost 200 kmph on Sunday killing four people and left a trail of destruction with Vishakapatnam where the very severe storm made landfall the worst hit.
At least 33 people have been killed in flash floods in Bihar till Tuesday evening and 25.71 lakh people are affected in 16 districts of the state.
The team probing the incident examined 808 suspects and 118 witnesses to collect strong evidence against the accused, the CID said in a release.
Despite low casualty figure, the storm left behind a trail of destruction as thousands of people lost their houses.
The deep depression in North Andaman Sea and its neighbourhood intensified into a cyclonic storm on Wednesday and is likely to cross Andhra Pradesh and Odisha coast on October 12.
The intensity of the blast was so high that window panes in adjoining buildings were shattered and shocked people were seen running helter-skelter, an eyewitness said.
In a zone-wise classification of districts in the country, the Union health ministry has designated all 11 districts of Delhi as red zone. The city has 272 wards.
Apprehending trouble in the state especially in violence-affected Bodoland Territorial Autonomous District Council areas in the aftermath of declaration of results of election in the state on Friday, the Assam government has requested the army to be in stand by for quick deployment, if the need arises while helicopter surveillance is being continued in vulnerable areas of the violence-affected BTC areas and along India-Bhutan border.
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.
Restoration of road and tele-communication network in the Kashmir Valley, ravaged by floods, will take three to five days. The Centre has directed free flow of transport via Manali and Leh to Srinagar, the only available surface network, a top central government official said on Monday.
The flood situation remained critical in Assam, affecting 7.35 lakh people in 18 districts where one lakh hectares of cropland have been inundated by the surging waters of the swollen Bahmaputra and its tributaries.
Private weather agency Skymet said Mumbai is at 'serious risk of flooding' between July 3 and 5.
As Delhi hospitals faced a severe oxygen crisis for the third consecutive day, the DDMA roped in three senior bureaucrats on Thursday to ensure a smooth movement of tankers and facilitate oxygen supply to the needy establishments, and directed the police to provide the security logistics from the manufacturers' sites to various health facilities in the city.
An overarching law governing public healthcare is a glaring gap in India's fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. In India it is left to individuals to quarantine themselves voluntarily. Moreover, the 123-year old The Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897, governs healthcare emergencies in India.
Stalin has given due respect to seniority in the pecking order, but has also taken into consideration the demands of individual ministries and the suitability of individuals, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
An FIR has also been lodged against boat operator in Sonpur Police Station.
A devastating fire at a multi-storeyed building in Kolkata that claimed nine lives turned into the epicentre of a political slugfest on Tuesday, with the Trinamool Congress government and the Bharatiya Janata Party pointing accusatory fingers at the Railways and the state administration respectively, even as the bereaved families grieved at the loss of their near ones.
'Just because there is some misunderstanding, you cannot recall the chief secretary.' 'This is not a good development. This is an assault on federalism.'
Heavy rains in the last three days triggered flash floods in parts of Bihar, where 41 people have died so far, and inundated large areas in Assam and North Bengal, paralysing normal life and snapping rail link to the Northeast from the rest of the country.
In a curious turn of events on Wednesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi picked Rajeev Topno, a 1996 batch Indian Administrative Service officer from the Gujarat cadre and a part of the Prime Minister's Office under former PM Manmohan Singh, as private secretary.
The police lodged a suo motu case against unknown persons in connection with their involvement in the mishap, a police officer said.
The experts said that climate change is not only raising temperatures and making India's heatwaves hotter, but also changing weather patterns that further drive dangerous weather extremes.
The PM held bilateral meetings with three ASEAN leaders, including his Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Xuan Phuc and Myanmar's State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, and discussed key bilateral and regional issues.
At least 15 people have died in heavy floods and landslides triggered by continuous rain for the last three days in Assam, where airforce helicopters, army, National Disaster Response Force and State Disaster Response Force have been pressed into service for rescue work, officials said.
A portion of the Nanda Devi glacier broke off in Uttarakhand's Chamoli district on Sunday, triggering an avalanche and a deluge in the Alaknanda river system that washed away hydroelectric stations, leaving at least seven people dead and 125 missing who are feared dead.
A total of 147 people, including patients and visitors, were rescued after the fire broke out at the ESIC Kamgar Hospital at Marol in suburban Andheri, said an official of the Disaster Management Cell of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation.
The Bill was supported by the members across party lines, however, some suggested to add in its purview hospital sanitary staff, ASHA (accredited social health activist) workers and 'Corona warriors' in emergency services such as police and personnel from other departments.
Four people have died including one each in Delhi, Karnataka, Punjab and Maharashtra.
Teams of the National Disaster Response Force started landing in Gujarat with the help of the Indian Air Force to undertake preventive evacuation of people living on the west coast, an IAF official said.
Mili establishes Janhvi Kapoor as an actor striving to be taken seriously, observes Sukanya Verma.
After a brief suspension due to bad weather early in the morning, the rescue operations in rain-hit Uttarakhand resumed on Sunday on a war footing to evacuate 22,000 pilgrims still stranded in high altitude areas amid a MeT department warning of light to moderate rains in the region from Monday.
The weatherman said when 'Amphan' makes the landfall between West Bengal's Digha, some 180 km from Kolkata, and Hatiya island in Bangladesh on Wednesday afternoon or evening, it will pack sustained wind speed of 155 to 165 kmph, gusting at 185 kmph. The gale-force wind, blowing at a speed of 240 to 250 kmph and gusting to 275 kmph at one point, had lost intensity and was moving at a speed of 200 to 210 kmph, gusting to 230 kmph on Tuesday evening.
An eyewitness said some people in a minibus and private cars were trapped.
A 13.2 MW small hydro project on the Rishiganga river was swept away in the glacier burst in Uttarakhand on Sunday, but there is no danger of floods in the downstream areas as the water level has been contained.
The exponential number of downloads can be attributed to a call by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, asking people to have the app on their mobiles, combined with the government's push for downloading of the app through other channels, reports Neha Alawadhi.
