The right to life and health of the public at large cannot be sacrificed at the altar of a right to celebrate a festival
Vandana Chaudhary shares her story.
As heavy rains batter several parts of west and south India, the meteorological department on Friday said isolated extremely heavy falls are very likely over Konkan, Goa and central Maharashtra in the next two days.
The local, district and police administration are reaching out to meat traders to ensure this, officials said.
'The problem is that all this reconstruction work is being monitored by the prime minister himself with inputs being provided directly by the PMO so nobody in the state government dare contradict them even if their suggestions are totally contrary to what the ecology of this region requires.'
Mumbai and its adjoining areas were lashed by heavy showers on Tuesday, causing water-logging at a number of places, including railway tracks, which slowed the movement of trains and vehicles on roads.
The Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) on Friday allowed Chhath Puja celebrations at designated sites in the city except the banks of Yamuna river.
During her three-day visit, Priyanka will cover a distance of 100-km by boat in Ganga from Prayagraj to Varanasi.
Away from the distraction of its new high-profile politics, Wayanad's worries seemed very down to earth, discovers Shyam G Menon.
The farmers entered the national capital riding their tractors and trolleys and proceeded towards Kisan Ghat where heavy police deployment has been made.
A day after heavy showers battered Mumbai, the rain intensity reduced briefly on Monday morning and picked up momentum again, leading to water-logging at some places and disrupting local train services, officials said.
'The situation has improved because oxygen tankers are now coming.' 'Before this it was chaotic.'
Time to pack your bags and pamper the wanderlust in you.
Very light rains and thundershowers occurred at isolated places in Uttar Pradesh though, and a fresh warning of heavy showers was issued in Himachal Pradesh as the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said heavy to very heavy rainfall is likely in several parts of the country, including the northern region, over the next six-seven days.
The water level of major rivers, including the Ganga and the Yamuna, in Uttar Pradesh has crossed the danger mark at several places.
Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi may be well above 40 years of age, but his party activists on Friday insisted on disallowing anybody above 35 to enter the venue of a Youth Congress meet convened by him in Varanasi.
Literally testing the waters in the politically crucial state, Priyanka Gandhi, who is in charge of eastern UP for the party, travelled about 100 kilometres on the Ganga over three days, ending Wednesday in Varanasi.
Over 20,000 people were evacuated to safer places in these three districts. State capital Mumbai too witnessed water-logging in many areas after overnight rains on Thursday.
Meet the cleanliness warrior from Nagaland who is cleaning up the holy ghats of Varanasi...
In Assam, nearly 27.80 lakh people across 26 districts have been affected by the deluge. The deaths were reported from the Barpeta, Kokrajhar and Morigaon districts. The death toll due to floods and landslides this year has risen to 122.
According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), the Ayanagar weather station recorded 99.2 mm rainfall, the maximum in the city, during the 24-hour period ending at 8.30 am on Thursday.
Sometimes it is the man behind the machine who makes mistakes, sometimes it is the machine which does so, and sometimes it is a combination of both and some other factors that leads to an accident, notes Helicopter pilot IAF Veteran Air Commodore Nitin Sathe.
'With just 2.4 per cent of global landmass, India houses six to eight per cent of planetary biodiversity and hence is a prime target of wildlife criminals.'
'The politics of Goa is moving around a sole entity, which is land.'
The long-term plans for Varanasi will take time to materialise but what has changed is the mood, says Aditi Phadnis
'So we had Akshay Kumar dressed up like Robert Vadra on his offday, and trying to not look fan-struck...'
Currently, the Brahmaputra at Guwahati, Nimatighat in Jorhat, Tezpur in Sonitpur, Goalpara and Dhubri towns, while the Barak at AP Ghat in Cachar and Badarpurghat in Karimganj are flowing above the danger mark.
What is particularly worrying is that the vast majority will not have access to testing or even to proper treatment. These cases could have been avoided if the government had shown the political will to do so, observes Rashme Sehgal.
Retracing the journey that brought coffee from Araku Valley in Andhra Pradesh to an upscale caf in the aristocratic district of Le Marais in Paris.
New Union minister L Murugan's declaration of Kongu Nadu as his native place, instead of Tamil Nadu, may be part of a grand BJP strategy to create new states out of existing ones, particularly those that have anti-BJP governments, mulls N Sathiya Moorthy.
After five weeks of lockdown, migrant workers' patience ran out and so did the money, which forced them to leave Mumbai on bicycles.
The manner in which a large proportion of common people have mortgaged their rationality and questioning spirit to let hatred, prejudice, and bigotry take over their minds is a cause of worry, observes Mohammad Sajjad.
On the eve of the final phase of the Uttar Pradesh elections, Rediff.com's Aslam Hunani reviews the political landscape in the epicentre and beyond.
Heavy rainfall and electrocution of a worker at the venue of his public meeting in Varanasi on Thursday forced Prime Minister Narendra Modi to cancel his visit to his Lok Sabha constituency for the second time in about three weeks.
The prime minister thanked the people but said it was the start of a long battle, as he urged them to follow social distancing to stop the chain of transmission of Coronavirus which has infected 360 people and claimed seven lives in India.
More than 3,000 squads under health and local self-government departments have started the process of cleaning houses and public places, official sources said.
'Water is not an economic resource, but we treat water as an economic resource meant for the benefit of human beings.' 'Water is more of a life source than an economic resource.'
Accusing the erstwhile Congress governments of pursuing "vote bank politics", PM Modi reached out to the numerically significant Nishad community in Uttar Pradesh
Modi government has pledged to lay 700,000 kms of broadband cable.
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