Over 20,000 people have been displaced with officials warning the situation could get worse.
India's decision to skip the meeting came after a year of bilateral discord over China's stubborn opposition to India's entry into the Nuclear Suppliers' Group and a UN ban against Pakistan-based terrorist group Jaish-e-Mohammed leader Masood Azhar.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ambitions abroad may run the risk of foundering on constraints at home.
'Ex-servicemen engineers and technicians are true professionals worthy of being 'Make in India' agents. They can be trusted to bring long term dividends -- it is in their character to be long term loyalists!' says Air Marshal P V Athawale (Retd).
In a minor relief for residents of flood-hit Chennai, the rains have stayed away for the last few hours.
30 years ago, after India sent in troops to resolve a crisis in the Maldives, Ambassador B S Prakash was part of an Indian government team assigned to the islands to help the then president. This is what he discovered. A Must Read!
Modi government expects cargo traffic at its ports to jump by two-thirds by 2021 as India ramps up exports of goods including cars and other machinery.
In a significant development, India for the first time on Thursday abstained from voting on the United States-sponsored resolution against Sri Lanka on alleged human rights violation which was passed by 23 votes in favour as against 12 in opposition and 12 abstentions in the United Nation's Human Rights Council in Geneva.
All the hostages killed during the 12-hour siege by Islamic State terrorists were foreigners, with most being Italian or Japanese.
The governments at the Centre and in the state were unprepared to handle the massive response to the large numbers of people, as they were not aware of the groundswell of public admonition that was against the Establishment, says N Sathiyamoorthy.
'From the beginning (I have told her) "Whatever it may be -- you are losing or winning -- on the ground you're not going to cry!" She never cried.' '"I don't want you to project that you are a loser. You are a winner".' Vaihayasi Pande Daniel/Rediff.com speaks to Leela Raj about her famous daughter, now in the West Indies for the women's T20 World Cup.
'These ISIS terrorists want to smash Western civilisation, smash India. For the time being though, their main target would be the US and Europe.'
'It is a diamond which has a very long competitive history.'
Amma will wait for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'honeymoon' with the voter to fade away before deciding on the issues that are of real concern to the state and others that may need a considered and balanced solution, say N Sathiya Moorthy and M Kasinathan