Over 56 per cent turnout was recorded on Monday in 54 assembly seats, including in Varanasi, in the seventh and last phase of Uttar Pradesh polls, marking the end of the voting process spread over two months in the crucial state.
Some low-lying places like Hindmata, and areas in Dadar and Sion, including the Gandhi Market and road number 24 in Sion, were inundated, forcing pedestrians to wade through the water and making it difficult for motorists to commute.
Voting will be held on Thursday for the first phase of Gujarat Assembly elections in 89 seats spread across 19 districts in Saurashtra-Kutch and southern parts of the state where 788 candidates are in the fray.
The IMD director said, the cyclonic storm Tauktae in the Arabian sea is moving away from the Kerala coast and is now approaching the Karnataka coast.
Large crowds thronged popular boulevards, tourist hubs and entertainment centres across India and many joined special prayers at places of worship on Sunday as people stepped out to celebrate the New Year without COVID-19 restrictions.
Chief Minister Vijay Rupani said people living in the coastal belt would be shifted to safer places.
He would be the first non-Jammu and Kashmir cadre officer to be posted in Srinagar after the cadre was merged with the Assam, Goa, Mizoram and Union Territory (AGMUT) cadre following the bifurcation of the erstwhile state into the union territories of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh on August 5, 2012.
The curtain came down on rumbustious electioneering over the last two months when assembly polls were also held in four other states - Goa, Uttarakhand, Punjab and Manipur.
Prasanna D Zore/Rediff.com reports from Shivaji Park and the MMRDA ground to sense the mood of Shiv Sena workers -- from the Uddhav Thackeray and Eknath Shinde camps.
As many as 79 people have lost their lives in incidents related to cyclone Tauktae in different parts of Gujarat, officials said on Thursday as the authorities carried out restoration work in affected areas and launched damage assessment exercise.
"To make sure there isn't a Covid surge in the country, PM Modi has asked us to be careful. The government is also preparing if at the Covid cases increase. Today, mock drills are conducted across Covid hospitals in the country to make sure people get proper treatment," Mandaviya said.
After a long hiatus of more than 20 months, the government had on November 26 announced the resumption of scheduled international commercial flights from December 15.
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.
With the tropical cyclone Tauktae set to cross the Gujarat coast and make a landfall as an 'extremely severe cyclonic storm' by Monday night, the state government has shifted over 1.5 lakh people to safer places and mobilised disaster response teams.
'Already, the temperature has touched 39 degrees in some parts of Gujarat and now we are in the last week of February.' 'We need to activate the heat action plan from March 1.'
The 10-day Ganesh festival began on Saturday under the shadow of the coronavirus pandemic, with devotees restricting celebrations to their homes and using online platforms to get 'darshan' of the Lord at temples, amid strict COVID-19 restrictions imposed by governments.
Alert to the looming threat from the 'Omicron' variant, states began to re-tighten curbs and urgently trace people who arrived from abroad in the last one month while a demand to not allow flights from the affected countries was made by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai.
Sixteen deaths in rain and flood-related incidents have been reported from western Maharashtra in the last seven days, while the toll in Karnataka rose to five since Sunday.
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 intensity of rainfall is likely to increase with the likelihood of very heavy falls at a few places and extremely heavy falls at isolated places on May 15, reports Sanjeeb Mukherjee.
While the city received some showers late Wednesday night, it remained almost dry on Thursday.
The run-up to the polls, which should have been a humdrum affair, became a cause celebre after it was marred by violence, arrests, sit-ins in far-away Delhi and a Supreme Court intervention asking officials to ensure peaceful polling.
In the third phase of the Lok Sabha election on April 23, 116 seats spread across 13 states and two Union Territories, will go to the polls.
The cyclone would bring light to moderate rains at most places and 'heavy to very heavy downpour' at some places on November 6.
Goa's poll panel chief has already taken cognisance of similar remarks allegedly made by the Delhi CM.
The IMD has predicted heavy rainfall over Karnataka and Kerala for the next few days.
Words and actions like those of R N Ravi and a vocal section of the state BJP have only added to Tamil fears and suspicions, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
5 states that contribute just under a fifth of the Lok Sabha's seats will go to the polls early this year.
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.
When Sheena got down from his car on the evening of April 24, 2012, Rahul says she told him, "Bye. Love you. See you later."
The two western states, already battling a raging pandemic, which has put their health infrastructure under severe strain, opened new fronts to tackle the fallout of the storm which is expected to make a landfall close to Mumbai on Wednesday. They are likely to be impacted most by the cyclone.
While those who attended 'Livelihoods in Lockdown' learnt a lot, was anyone from the government listening?
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.
South leads; North-East at bottom but moves ahead, finds out the IndiaSpend Team
Venugopal is valued highly by Mrs Gandhi and Mr Gandhi. They consider him a loyalist, more to the point, one who can deliver.
The 10-day-long annual Ganesh Chaturthi festival began on a low-key note on Friday with several state governments prohibiting public celebrations due to the Covid pandemic and devotees taking the virtual route to pay obeisance and join the festivities.
The deep depression in the Arabian Sea has intensified into cyclonic storm "Ashobaa" and is expected to further develop into a "super cyclonic storm" in next 24-36 hours, the weather office said on Monday.
As the dust finally settles on the outcome of the Lok Sabha elections 2019 and Bharatiya Janata Party along with its NDA allies emerges as the clear winner, here is a list of who won in each of the 7 phases of elections.
A day after opposition parties, including the Congress launched a scathing attack against the Union government and the railways for charging money from migrants for the travel, sources in the railways said the national transporter is spending around Rs 80 lakh per service for the special trains, and it has run 67 such trains carrying around 67,000 stranded migrants since May 1--- incurring an expenditure of over Rs 50 crore.
