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.
'Union Budgets are often used as political instruments and that was the intention of this government too.' 'But while the exercise has settled two fronts, it has left open several others and this has the potential to aggravate with time,' predicts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
The unrelenting heatwave sweeping large parts of the country has claimed at least 110 lives and left over 40,000 people grappling with suspected heatstroke between March 1 and June 18 this year, health ministry sources said on Thursday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi was on Tuesday poised to form the government for a third consecutive term with the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance getting a majority in the Lok Sabha, notwithstanding crushing losses in three Hindi heartland states after a bitterly fought election that was projected as a referendum on his popularity.
'Evacuation' has been key to disaster management in Odisha. The aim is to achieve zero casualty.
If Meena resigns, it is likely to put pressure on other ministers whose areas also saw poor performance in the general elections.
There is little doubt that the prime minister's own charisma exceeds that of his party, but 2024 is proof that no party can ultimately depend on one person to deliver victory all the time, points out R Jagannathan.
Asserting that her government has zero tolerance to incidents of rape, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday said an amendment to existing laws will be passed in the state assembly next week to ensure capital punishment to convicted rapists.
Early trends from counting of votes on Tuesday threw up disappointing results for the BJP-led NDA in the Lok Sabha elections, which appears to be losing heavily in its strongholds of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan although it is expected to form the government with about 290 seats.
Patnaik said the state has also urged the Centre to stop train and flight services to Odisha till April 30.
Now, every state election -- first up, Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand later this year, then Delhi in January and Bihar in September next year -- will be seen by his followers for evidence of his recovery, and by rivals of sharpening decline, points out Shekhar Gupta.
'The concept of an MP IPL team is the brainchild of Kamal Nath.' 'If the Congress government comes to power in the state, he will assemble an IPL team for MP with the assistance of his business contacts.'
The premises are alleged to be of the domestic help of Jharkhand Rural Development Minister Alamgir Alam's personal secretary Sanjiv Lal.
Megha Engineering and Infrastructure, the little-known Hyderabad-based firm that in recent years won the prestigious Zojila tunnel deal among other projects, forayed into city gas and acquired a media group, was the second largest donor to political parties using electoral bonds.
At least 34 people were killed during Cyclone Fani, which barrelled through coastal Odisha on Friday last, causing widespread destruction and leaving hundreds grappling with water shortage and power cut.
Though seven opportunities have been granted to the states, it appears that full compliance has not been affected and several states are in default, it said.
Facing opposition fire for exit polls allegedly being used for stock market manipulation, Axis My India's chief Pradeep Gupta has said he is open to facing all kinds of investigations and it would help do business in a much better way if the government frames specific regulations for pollsters.
While the markets have factored in a number close to 350 for the BJP and almost 400 for the NDA, 50 seats fewer could trigger a market correction
"His own government has destroyed Gandhian institutions in Varanasi, Delhi and Ahmedabad," the Congress leader alleged.
A new realignment should be expected in equations between the non-BJP, non-Congress parties and the government at the Centre. Aditi Phadnis reports.
Such private universities are empowered to award general degree programmes without the specific approval of the UGC, the official said.
Beyond welfare politics, the BJP has assiduously worked to appropriate regional icons.
Though electoral verdicts have historically been accepted, even though grudgingly, by all parties, there has been a sharper edge to the questions being raised by Opposition parties this time over the polling process, including the Election Commission.
A special CBI court in Godhra on Saturday granted the probe agency four-day custody of Jay Jalaram School's principal Purushottam Sharma, teacher Tushar Bhatt, and middlemen Vibhor Anand and Arif Vohra, all of whom are alleged to be involved in irregularities in the May 5 NEET-UG exam in Godhra.
Entire districts without electricity and untold damage is what is left behind after Cyclone Fani, known as the worst storm to hit the state, barrelled through on May 3. Take a look at how the state is now picking up the pieces after the storm and inching towards reconstruction.
Legendary coach Arsene Wenger on Tuesday committed himself to "digging out talent" in India and place the country on world football map.
Call it the art of staying rooted yet bending with prevailing political winds. With Telangana going to the polls in December, and assembly and Lok Sabha elections in Andhra and Odisha scheduled next year, what factors have influenced parties' recent moves?
The party fielded Maneka Gandhi from Sultanpur, while Uttar Pradesh minister Jitin Prasada has replaced Varun Gandhi in Pilibhit.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said the people have given his government a mandate for stability and continuity for the third consecutive term after seeing its work of 10 years and accused the Congress of trying to build a narrative that it has defeated the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance in the Lok Sabha polls.
Alamgir Alam had distanced himself from the activities of Lal while speaking to reporters after the ED raids, pointing out that he had earlier served with other ministers of the state government too.
"If you see in the context of alliances and statistics, then this is the strongest alliance government," Modi said while addressing newly-elected MPs and leaders of the NDA from across the country following his election as leader of the ruling bloc ahead of his government's swearing-in on Sunday.
Retail inflation eased to an 11-month low of 4.83 per cent in April as prices of some kitchen items declined though overall food basket firmed up marginally, according to a government data released on Monday. The Consumer Price Index (CPI)-based retail inflation was 4.85 per cent in March. It was 4.7 per cent in April 2023.
Stocks of public sector undertakings (PSUs) have been on fire in the past year as investors cheered an improvement in key operating metrics and embraced counters of these state-owned enterprises, analysts suggest. The S&P BSE PSU Index has gained over 90 per cent in the past year, rising much higher than the S&P BSE Sensex, which has rose nearly 19 per cent during this period, according to ACE Equity data. The BSE PSU Index, reports show, has delivered a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 28 per cent (including dividends reinvestments) over five years and risen by almost 60 per cent in the past year.
As Modi takes guard for a third term with trusted and seasoned hands around him, the BJP is hopeful that he will prove his detractors wrong and continue to fuel the party's expansion horizontally and vertically with his inventive policies in government and new set of ideas in politics with the core of Hindutva, development and welfarism remaining intact.
Over 65 Union ministers are likely to take oath, going by the visual of the meeting Modi held with his likely council of ministers.
by relentlessly campaigning to highlight the indifference of the Centre to safeguard the interests of Odisha in these inter-state disputes, the BJD is seeking to pin down the BJP.
Nine workers, including five women, died and 10 others were injured in a blaze at a fireworks-manufacturing unit in Sivakasi on Thursday, a senior police official said.
Vaishnaw on Saturday said he had ordered a high-level probe into the derailment on Friday night.
The two-page booklet "Aama Bapuji: Eka Jhalaka" (Our Bapuji: A Glimpse) -- published on the occasion of 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi -- presents a brief account of his teachings, works and links with Odisha, while also stating that he "died due to accidental reasons in a sudden sequence of events on January 30, 1948 at Delhi's Birla House".
Over 60 per cent voter turnout was recorded on Monday in 49 constituencies in six states and two Union territories in the fifth phase of Lok Sabha elections, with Baramulla in Jammu and Kashmir recording its highest-ever voting percentage.
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