'If democracy does not exist, if there are no political spaces, there is no media, there is no civil society, what do we rejoice?'
The tourism industry plays a vital role in the town, accounting for 70 per cent of its economy, according to experts.
Read Prime Minister Manmohan Singh statement after he visited Uttarakhand on Wednesday
China on Wednesday said it was opposed to the joint Indo-US military exercises being held near the Line of Actual Control (LAC), asserting that it violates the spirit of the two border agreements signed between New Delhi and Beijing.
Wants another committee to review adverse report of experts against 6 dams
The exact number of people dead or washed away may never be known, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna said today as estimates of casualties in the worst natural disaster in the state run from several hundreds to several thousands.
Twenty-seven mountaineers remained missing on Wednesday after rescue workers brought 14 injured members of their team to safety, a day after an avalanche claimed 10 lives in Uttarkashi.
Rejecting criticism of tardy relief operations in flood-ravaged Uttarakhand, Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram has said government was making all efforts and complimented armed forces personnel for their untiring efforts in rescuing the stranded people.
Manual horizontal digging will start soon in addition to the ongoing top-down drilling to rescue the 41 trapped workers in the Silkyara tunnel in Uttarkashi, the NDMA said on Monday.
'The Himalayas are the Creator of Life.'
The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Centre and Uttarakhand government to step up rescue operations to evacuate people caught in flash floods in the state.
After failing to trace her parents, who had gone to Kedarnath pilgrimage, a 35-year-old woman allegedly committed suicide in Gwalior, police said on Saturday.
We need to have patience as it is a dangerous operation,NDMA member Lt Gen (retd) Syed Ata Hasnain said.
'I feel numb with the trauma we have been going through ever since we first got the news. For close to two weeks, we have been hearing my child will be rescued today. That today never comes'
General Pande said, "25-28 buildings (of the Army) have developed minor cracks and the soldiers have been temporarily relocated. If needed they will be permanently relocated to Auli."
27 mountaineers perished in an avalanche in the mountains of Uttarakhand last week. The mountaineers were returning from a trek to the Draupadi's Danda mountain peak when disaster struck at 8.45 am in the morning.
'The difficulty of coordinating the response in Uttarakhand suggests that the country is ill-equipped to deal with a large earthquake in a mountainous area. The effects would be many times worse,' warns Dave Petley, expert on landslides
Incessant rains unleashed more death and destruction on Monday in parts of north India, with 37 people killed in landslides and other rain-related incidents in the last two days even as the Army and NDRF teams stepped in to intensify the relief and rescue operations.
At least 50 major landslides occurred in just four road stretches in calamity-torn Uttarakhand, where hundreds of pilgrims are feared to have perished in flash floods, an official said.
Yet another effort has been made by the state government for a scientific study with the help of satellite imagery of the crisis in the sinking town, Bhatt, who is associated with the Chipko Movement, said.
What happened in Uttarakhand is a national tragedy. Why couldn't Dr Manmohan Singh announce that he was forming an Uttarakhand Relief and Rehabilitation Committee, with himself as chairman but inviting Narendra Modi to become the deputy chairman, asks T V R Shenoy.
Since the yatra began, as many as 28 tourists en route to Kedarnath have died due to various reasons.
These human interventions in nature, along with climate change, are responsible for the disaster faced by the pilgrim town of Joshimath in Uttarakhand, which is sinking, he said.
Amid protests by a group of residents in Joshimath, the Chamoli administration on Thursday put a ban on all construction activities in and around the 'sinking' town even as nearly 50 families staying in houses at risk have been evacuated so far.
The vertical approach was one of the at least five options on which preparatory work had begun some days back, as anxiety mounted over the fate of the men trapped in the under-construction tunnel on Uttarakhand's Char Dham route.
The sacred portals of Badrinath shrine in Garhwal Himalayas were reopened on Monday after a gap of six months amid chants of vedic hymns and elaborate rituals.
'The entire public needs to be evacuated immediately. Any day, the entire town can collapse.'
In Delhi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah assessed the situation in Joshimath and steps taken to ameliorate people's hardship at a meeting attended by Union ministers Nitin Gadkari, R K Singh, Bhupendra Yadav and Gajendra Singh Shekhawat and top officials.
The MeT department forecast very heavy rains over the next 48 hours in the mountainous areas of the state especially the disaster-prone Pithoragarh, Uttarkashi, Chamoli and Rudraprayag districts where torrential rains may trigger flash floods, cloudbursts and landslides asking people as well as authorities to be alert.
The number of houses that have developed cracks has now risen to 826 out of which 165 are in the "unsafe zone", a bulletin from the Disaster Management Authority said.
The district magistrate said that a central team will survey the damage to properties due to the land subsidence and suggest a way forward while coordinating with the local administration in relief and rescue efforts.
The Yamuna surged to a record 208.48 metres at 8 am, the Central Water Commission said on Thursday, adding that it is likely to rise to 208.75 metres by 4 pm.
Over 6,000 people are feared to have been killed in the devastating floods, cloudbursts and landslides in Uttarakhand in June, the government said on Tuesday.
'It is an existential crisis. We cannot recover lost ground through social media. We need to forge alliances and reshape our ideological contours.'
Here is the timeline of the disaster and the rescue efforts that followed.
Talking to PTI, he said the development works should be implemented by protecting the lives of the people.
t is wrong to relate the situation in Joshimath with the NTPC tunnel since it is being constructed with the help of a tunnel boring machine
The incident occurred near Gween village in the district when the overloaded private bus, on its way to Ramnagar, fell into the 200-metre-deep gorge, Pauri Superintendent of Police Jagat Ram Joshi said.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday conducted an aerial survey of rain-ravaged areas of Uttarakhand to asses the damage which the state government has pegged at Rs 7,000 crore.
A look at some of the most tragic disasters in India in recent decades.
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