Cyclone 'Phailin', which was to make landfall two days from now, possibly near Gopalpur in Odisha and in north Andhra Pradesh, on Thursday intensified into a severe cyclonic storm travelling slightly northwest and lying about 800 km from Paradip in Odisha.
The Centre has assured all help to Odisha and Andhra Pradesh where a "very severe" cyclone is expected to hit on Saturday and sent nearly 500 personnel of National Disaster Response Force for relief and rescue operations.
The location of the landfall is north of Dhamra and south of Bahanaga, close to Bahanaga block, on the coast, around 50 km of Balasore, he said.
The World Meteorological Organisation/Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific Panel on Tropical Cyclones, at its twenty-seventh session held in 2000 in Muscat, Oman, agreed to assign names to the tropical cyclones in the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea.
Pakistan has expressed serious concern over India's recent development of an anti-ballistic missile system
'It is the most prone month for the development of cyclones in the pre-monsoon period.'
Scores of people die every year due to cold waves that sweep across the north Indian plains.
By now, monsoon should have reached the central India, including parts of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, eastern Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat, but it is yet to reach Maharashtra.
An unspecified number of people were evacuated from coastal areas of Odisha where Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapara, Bhadrak and Balasore were likely to experience heavy rainfall accompanied by high-velocity winds, particularly on May 19 and 20, IMD Director General Mrutyunjay Mohapatra said.
India has the ability in all respects to be a great power and address our security challenges in the best national interests, says Commodore Venugopal Menon (retd).
The MeT department warned of heavy to very heavy rainfall in Gangetic West Bengal till Saturday, ahead of Durga Puja festivities.
Star javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra was on Saturday recommended for the coveted Khel Ratna Award by the committee constituted by the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) for the third time in a row. The 22-year-old Chopra is the only track and field athlete to be recommended by the AFI for the country's highest sports award this year.
The displacements were a result of a combination of increasing hazard intensity, high population exposure and high levels of social and economic vulnerability, a report says.
The 'eye' or centre of the cyclone is estimated to be 15 km in spread so it will take nearly an hour to cross the coast completely, officials said adding that the impact of the storm will be maximum for the next six hours
To look at it rationally, a steel plant in Visakhapatnam without ownership of mines perhaps will not be worse off if it starts using Australian ore instead of hauling the mineral from Bailadila in Chattisgarh, especially when sea freight is down and rail charges are up.
The train collided with a goods train amid dense fog. A high-level probe has been ordered into the incident. Passengers with major injuries have been sent to Cuttack Medical College Hospital. All passengers are stated to be out of danger.
Chief Minister Vijay Rupani said people living in the coastal belt would be shifted to safer places.
With Cyclone Phailin set to hit Odisha and Andhra Pradesh coasts on Saturday evening, rail, road and air traffic has been badly disrupted in the states.
Chances are any such disruption will not occur on the major shipping lanes but on some edge of the ocean between India and China. Even if there is no actual disruption, the costs of averting one can be punitive. The setting for this is provided by the energy shortage both countries face, says Subhomoy Bhattacharjee.
People in coastal districts of Andhra Pradesh heaved a sigh of relief on Thursday as the third cyclonic storm in over a month, which was expected to cause extensive damage, weakened before it hit the state.
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.
All 40 trawlers which went missing in the Bay of Bengal following a storm were traced on Monday, but two of them capsized leaving seven fishermen missing, officials said.
Two persons were killed in Uttar Pradesh's Ballia district as strong winds and thunder showers hit several parts of the state. While one died in a tree fall incident the other was hit by lightning, the police said.
Here is a list of previous cyclones that have struck the country.
India and the US had on July 17 signed a preliminary agreement for cooperating on emergency crude oil reserves, including the possibility of India storing oil in the US emergency stockpile.
Coastal districts of Andhra have been put on alert and control rooms are being set up in Hyderabad and coastal districts to deal with the situation. Mohammed Siddique reports
Floods in West Bengal have claimed over 40, with water levels rising arlamingly in East Midnapore, North and South 24 Parganas, Hooghly, Howrah, Birbhum and Burdwan districts.
'There are enough funds to solve this problem.'
Hudhud leaves a trail of destruction in Visakhapatnam, home to a major naval base.
India would look to continue their ruthless streak
A summary of sports events and persons who made news on Wednesday.
Here are highlights of the 68th Republic Day parade.
'Foreign policy-making cannot be shifted out of Delhi and the regional satraps, who do not have a national perspective, should not be allowed to dominate foreign policy. But regional inputs should be integral to foreign policy-making at every step of the way,' says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
Narendra Modi's promise to allow states a bigger say in strategising and building foreign policy is unexceptionable, says TP Sreenivasan.
Modi's name sparks muted enthusiasm, scepticism among youth; people expect better development pace from the prime minister
Ten trade unions with a combined membership of 15 crore workers in public and private sector, including banks and insurance companies, are on a nationwide strike to protest against changes in the labour laws.
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