A devastating fire at a multi-storeyed building in Kolkata that claimed nine lives turned into the epicentre of a political slugfest on Tuesday, with the Trinamool Congress government and the Bharatiya Janata Party pointing accusatory fingers at the Railways and the state administration respectively, even as the bereaved families grieved at the loss of their near ones.
At least a dozen officers from Gujarat are handling key assignments in various important central positions
The hospital, in the commercial hub of Bandra-Kurla Complex, will serve as an isolation facility for non-critical COVID-19 patients. Expected to be ready in a fortnight, the new makeshift facility can be scaled up to 5,000 beds, if needed. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation will run the hospital that will have, among other things, oxygen facilities and pathological laboratories. Sohini Das reports.
More than 1.20 lakh Himachalis have already returned home in less than a week's time. There is a list of 21,000 others approved for return, and at least two lakh more are still awaiting official nod for their return. Will this influx see a spike in coronavirus numbers? That is the administration's main worry, reports Ashwani Sharma.
Rediff.com's Syed Firdaus Ashraf traces the journey of PM-CARES from its founding to finally admitting it is not a government fund.
Releasing the 'Standard Operating Procedures', the ministry said that the period from October to December witnesses large gatherings for religious worship, fairs, cultural functions, processions, etc, and it is important that necessary preventive measures are followed for such events which may last a day, a week or more.
In a zone-wise classification of districts in the country, the Union health ministry has designated all 11 districts of Delhi as red zone. The city has 272 wards.
'It is perplexing to see the leader of the First World with a first rate medical infrastructure come up short on its foresight to handle the pandemic,' notes Group Captain Murli Menon (retd).
Cyclone Nisarga slammed Maharashtra coast with wind speeds of up to 120 kmph, making landfall at 12.30 pm at Alibaug near Mumbai. The process was completed by 2.30 pm, a senior India Meteorological Department official said. Alibaug witnessed wind speeds of up to 120 kilometres per hour. It weakened into a 'deep depression' late on Wednesday evening, the IMD said.
This is the second time in a week that the Karnataka state capital is witnessing such severe waterlogging.
Banerjee said the state is targeting to shift at least 10 lakh people to safer places in a bid to avoid any loss of life.
The 50 per cent capacity rule will not apply to offices dealing with health and other essential services.
'Tens of millions will be working from home for months at a time, which means the smartest brains in business will be focussed on creating more efficient WFH processes,' predicts Devangshu Datta.
Since the disastrous 2005 floods, that crippled Mumbai, little work has been done on disaster management and relief preparations.
A massive fire broke out on stage at an event for the Make in India week that's being held in Mumbai.
A section of the over 50-year-old bridge on the arterial Diamond Harbour Road in south Kolkata collapsed on September 4 in which three people lost their lives.
'When a person is capable of infecting 50 others, will you think about the privacy of the person or about protecting the lives of people?'
Responding to cyclone Hudhud, the armed forces have repositioned their resources to assist the civil administration to launch rescue and relief operations in the affected regions of Andhra Pradesh and Odisha.
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.
As Cyclone Hudhud is closing in on the Andhra Pradesh coastline and is expected to make a landfall near Visakhapatnam by Sunday afternoon, about 1.11 lakh people in five coastal districts have been shifted to safer places.
Teams of the National Disaster Response Force started landing in Gujarat with the help of the Indian Air Force to undertake preventive evacuation of people living on the west coast, an IAF official said.
Chief Minister K Palaniswami announced a solatium of Rs 4 lakh to the kin of each of the victims
The panel will also recommend a fiscal consolidation road map for the central and state governments, study the impact of GST on the divisible pool, and propose performance-based incentives for states.
'If a major earthquake of the kind that hit Nepal hits us in Delhi, 35 per cent of our homes would be destroyed.'
Nepalese rescuers resumed their search on Monday for four persons still missing after a passenger plane with 72 people, including five Indians, crashed into a river gorge while landing at the newly-opened airport in the resort city of Pokhara, killing at least 68 people onboard.
Hoping that the new state of Telangana will come into being by January, over a dozen Congress leaders from the region are said to be lobbying hard with the party high command for the chief minister's post.
The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), in its circular, had asked all employers to make payment of wages to their workers without any deduction for the period their establishments were under closure during the lockdown to contain COVID-19.
Top officers across various ministries participate in the meeting that started at 8 pm on Saturday. The meeting is currently underway. The country is currently witnessing a second and more severe wave of the pandemic.
All educational institutions in Shimla and Kullu districts will remain closed on Monday as heavy to extremely heavy rains continue to lash the state, district officials said.
Restoration of road and tele-communication network in the Kashmir Valley, ravaged by floods, will take three to five days. The Centre has directed free flow of transport via Manali and Leh to Srinagar, the only available surface network, a top central government official said on Monday.
'Dharavi will be completely slum free by 2040'
As the Kerala government looks for the best technologies to rebuild infrastructure, start-ups see a bigger role for themselves.
China's parliament on Thursday adopted the 14th Five-Year Plan, the mega blueprint containing billions of dollars worth of projects, including the controversial hydropower project on the Brahmaputra river in Tibet close to the Arunachal Pradesh border over which India has raised concerns.
106 people died on a single day on Thursday.
In the travel advisory, the Health Ministry again asked people to refrain from travelling to China in view of the coronavirus outbreak in its Hubei province and said travellers on return from the neighbouring country could be quarantined.
A 13.2 MW small hydro project on the Rishiganga river was swept away in the glacier burst in Uttarakhand on Sunday, but there is no danger of floods in the downstream areas as the water level has been contained.
In a minor relief for residents of flood-hit Chennai, the rains have stayed away for the last few hours.
The top court asked Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre, whether protesting farmers are protected from COVID-19.
Private weather agency Skymet said Mumbai is at 'serious risk of flooding' between July 3 and 5.
Showing a photograph of the mishap site published in a newspaper, she said that it looked like a site of bomb blast. There were various aspects which should be looked into.