A minister said the country had 7% less rain than normal.
Anything between 96-104 per cent of the LPA is considered as normal rainfall while precipitation in the range of 104-110 per cent is termed 'above normal'
It is believed that the crop residue burning in the nearby states of Punjab and Haryana are contributing to polluting the air.
The people of the southern part of the country could see a greater part of the partial solar eclipse because of the geometry of the eclipse path.
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.
The top court did some tough-talking and had warned that the administration at large will be made accountable even if there is a single incident of stubble burning henceforth.
'We are not saying we are going to face a drought... We are a doing and performing government. A contingency plan is being prepared,' Science Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan tells Rediff.com
Scientists have found that much of the Indus civilisation thrived around an extinct river, challenging ideas about how urbanisation in ancient cultures evolved.
'Wastewater containing excreted material can tell us how a community is doing in a particular area pertaining to any epidemic, pandemic, and other bacterial and viral diseases.'
'We need an early warning system in India.'
According to the System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research, the overall air quality of the national capital docked at 376 at 8:30 am on Tuesday.
There were no immediate reports of any loss of life or damage to property.
The woman who had accused environmentalist R K Pachauri of sexual harassment, on Tuesday tore into TERI, saying the "shameful" decision of appointing him as executive vice-chairman of the green body made her "flesh crawl", and resolved to take the case to a logical conclusion.
A Central Pollution Control Board official said the AQI entered the "severe plus" or "emergency" category late on Thursday night, the first time since January this year.
India and the United States, after sending their own respective spacecraft into Mars' orbit, have now agreed to cooperate on future explorations of the Red Planet, which America said will yield "tangible benefits" to both the countries and the world at large.
With increasing temperature, the toxic ozone levels, which cause a number of health problems especially for asthmatics, have breached the permissible limits in the city, the MET department said on Thursday.
The 77-year-old was recently diagnosed with pneumonia and was admitted to the hospital, where he died at 1.28 am, a Congress leader said.
The DMK parliamentary party appears to be a house divided, reports R Rajagopalan.
John Holdren, Director, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said the two countries were working in the fields of space, medical sciences, climate change, clean energy and agriculture.
A 58-year-old man died after a power transformer fell on him in Raigad district. 2 people died and 3 were injured in two separate cyclone-related incidents in Pune.
El Nino is expected to occur in August-September, but it is unlikely to have any major impact on the monsoon, and the weatherman expects a positive Indian Ocean Dipole, which has a strong influence on rainfall in the country.
Delhi recorded 8.6 on the UV index on Tuesday while it was 8.2 at noon on Wednesday.
The ozone hole over Antarctica expanded this month to one of the largest sizes on record due to unusually cold temperatures in the stratosphere, which could lead to more harmful ultraviolet rays reaching the Earth, according to NASA.
The image clicked on July 6 clearly shows desert sand structures, river systems and complex cloud patterns.
Next week could see some respite from the heat.
'Above 2,000 metres the gradient of the Himalayas is very steep and if you build any infrastructure (roads, dams, hydro power projects) in these regions, it will not be able to sustain these events (the onslaught of debris that comes down with great speeds).'
'The greatest danger is that the current crisis will clear a little, we'll be able to see our hands in front of our faces, and with great relief we'll forget all about it and willingly breathe poison until next November', says Mitali Saran.
The latest forecast, given by Earth Sciences Minister Jitendra Singh, was a downward revision from a previous forecast of 93 per cent given at the outset of the monsoon in June, but was nowhere near as bad some farmers had feared.
The pollution board said that the situation will improve further by Sunday if favourable conditions prevail.
Pollution levels in Delhi and satellite towns shot up again on Sunday morning, with the air quality bordering the 'severe plus' category at several places.
The Ministry of Science and Technology has approached about a dozen well-known scientists from across the world in an effort to bring them back to various departments under the ministry, said Jitendra Singh, minister of state (independent charge) for science and technology.
Chief Minister Vijay Rupani said people living in the coastal belt would be shifted to safer places.
India, along with 23 other countries, is participating in a major Indian Ocean-wide mock tsunami drill on September 9 and 10 that is aimed at testing the Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System.
The Rashtrapati Bhavan has come out with a communiqu announcing distribution of portfolios of the ministers sworn-in on Monday in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's council of ministers:
The arrival of the June-September rains has been delayed.
For the second successive year, Monsoon is likely to be below normal with parts of north-west and central India to be the most affected.
'In the last 55 years India and Pakistan have gone to wars, but nobody spoke about scrapping the Indus Waters Treaty.'
Tamil Nadu government deployed state and national disaster response force teams in Kanyakumari district, which bore the brunt of the rain fury.
Hours after 21 ministers took the oath of office and became a part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ministry, speculation began on which minister would be handed which portfolio. However, all speculation ended after the list was announced.
'When the Americans are talking about colonising Mars by 2030, India cannot be lagging behind.'
