The National Security Strategy document should flag all major issues concerning security strategy and provide guidelines to concerned departments to work out suitable action plans. Since the global and regional geopolitical canvas is dynamic, the NSS document should be deliberated at length before formulation and should be reviewed periodically, recommends Commodore Venugopal Menon (retd).
'All is well in Visakhapatnam for now.'
The maximum death toll has been reported from Idukki district, where 43 people have lost their lives so far, as per official estimates. 28 deaths were reported in Malappuram and 27 in Thrissur.
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.
At least 36 people were killed and 19 injured when a bus carrying passengers skidded off the road and rolled down into a 300-foot gorge in Jammu and Kashmir's Doda district on Wednesday, officials said.
The cover provided under the Centre's Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana, which is a vital safety net for them, ended almost a year back on May 31, 2020. Ever since, there hasn't been much progress on the higher insurance coverage of Rs 5 lakh promised under the newly launched Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana, reports Sanjeeb Mukherjee.
Palodhi in Rajasthan simmered at 51 degree Celsius and the maximum in Ahmedabad shattered a century-old record.
With the cyclone set to make landfall on Wednesday, Maharashtra and Gujarat activated their disaster response mechanism, deploying NDRF teams and evacuating people from areas likely to be hit.
The much-awaited Ram temple consecration will be held in Ayodhya on Monday in a grand ceremony with Prime Minister Narendra Modi attending the rituals, following which the shrine will be opened for the public a day later.
A bench headed by Justice L Nageswara Rao directed the state governments to get help from the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) and legal services authorities to identify sex workers and maintain confidentiality pertaining to the identity of sex workers.
The state government has begun preparations to deal with the fallout of the cyclone as it will bring very strong wind and heavy rainfall in the region, officials said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal over phone and discussed about the prevailing condition on Monday.
The 15-member team, equipped with specialised diving equipment including a re-compression chamber and remotely operated vehicles capable of searching underwater, went straightway to the mine site in the remote Lumthari village in East Jaintia Hills district.
There were no immediate reports of any loss of life or damage to property.
Modi assured to extend all required assistance to the state to face the situation, the Chief Minister's office said.
The two firefighters had gone missing after the well caught fire on Tuesday and their bodies were recovered by a National Disaster Relief Force team on Wednesday morning, said Oil India Spokesperson Tridiv Hazarika.
The cyclone lay about 720 km east northeast of Chennai over the Bay on Monday and it is very likely to move west southwestwards and intensify further into a severe cyclonic storm by Tuesday.
Tamil Nadu government deployed state and national disaster response force teams in Kanyakumari district, which bore the brunt of the rain fury.
Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu said efforts are on to rescue the 300 stranded people, and they could be airlifted as the weather clears. Power and water supply has been snapped in several areas.
The visuals on social media also showed huge traffic on the National Highway-24 and Sarai Kale Khan where vehicles were crawling. Water from the overflowing Yamuna river reached ITO, a key route to commute from east Delhi to central Delhi and Connaught Place.
The fire department said they received a call around 4.23 am about a fire in the factory at Udoh Nagar area after which seven fire tenders were rushed to the spot, the official said.
The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) has directed its rescue teams to ensure that the country's major medical oxygen generation plants based in Odisha and West Bengal are 'running and alive' during Cyclone Yaas that is developing in the Bay of Bengal, a senior officer said.
Finance Minister P Chidambaram told reporters after the meeting that the situation in Uttarakhand is better than what it was on Tuesday and Food Minister K V Thomas is taking steps to rush more food grains to the flood-hit Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh.
Nearly four lakh people have been affected across seven districts of Assam.
Only traces of rainfall were recorded in a few areas of the national capital on Thursday which continued to experience sultry weather.
There was a rush of people on the bridge, which was reopened for the public just four days ago following the renovation work, when it snapped around 6.30 pm, officials said.
Parts of Raigad, Ratnagiri districts in the coastal Konkan region and Kolhapur district in western Maharashtra, have been worst affected by the floods. Besides that, heavy rains have been pounding parts of Satara district.
Chief Minister K Palaniswami announced a solatium of Rs 4 lakh to the kin of each of the victims
A high-powered submersible pump from Coal India Ltd will be put into operation on Thursday.
Dramatic visuals showed fidgety people inside the cable cars that hung in air against the backdrop of a rocky hill cliff that overlooked a densely-forested valley.
The CM announced an ex gratia relief of Rs four lakh for the deceased and Rs one lakh each to the injured and assured that the state government will bear all medical expenses.
The severe cyclonic storm, which brought in its wake heavy rain coupled with gale wind till early Sunday, uprooted hundreds of trees and snapped cables in Kolkata and in the coastal districts of North and South 24 Parganas and East Midnapore, bring life to a near-halt.
Inclement weather badly hampered cremation of bodies and removal of debris at Kedarnath on Friday besides affecting distribution of relief in over 200 segregated villages where people have lost their homes and are faced with acute foodgrain shortage.
Nearly 6,000 passengers were stranded as train services on the Konkan Railway route in Maharashtra's Ratnagiri district were suspended on Thursday after a river overflowed following heavy rains, while incessant downpour badly hit road and rail traffic in several parts of the state, including around Mumbai, as authorities called in NDRF to help the administration in rescue efforts.
The cruise which was scheduled to dock at the shore for the tourists to visit Chirand, an archaeological site, got stuck because of water deficiency in the Ganges near the Doriganj area of the district.
The NDRF has engaged all its resources for rescue of those trapped under the debris of an under-construction bridge which collapsed in Kolkata.
Official sources said Mangaluru city witnessed 'unforeseen' rainfall, flooding roads, damaging shops and houses.
Flash floods triggered by incessant rains have claimed 26 lives in Gujarat in the past 48 hours while four lives have been lost in Rajasthan, authorities said on Wednesday.
India needs another shot of difficult reform, of the kind only possible at gunpoint. Mr Trump holds that gun to our heads now. A drastic reduction in tariff protection, other elements of sarkari wet-nursing will force entrepreneurial India to become competitive again, argues Shekhar Gupta.
Cities are setting the rules that now carry life and death implications for their residents, and most of these rules are sought to be set by the municipal authorities who have never wielded such power, reports Subhomoy Bhattacharjee.
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