The vessel is believed to be privately-owned and used by navy, customs and police personnel for joint patrolling.
'It has the potential to sow seeds of furthering discord when the direction of the discourse is aimed at propagating the perceived supremacy of 'cultural nationalism' from a distant past over the prevailing dominance of 'Constitutional nationalism',' argues N Sathiya Moorthy.
The cyclone on Tuesday passed the Mumbai coast and much to the relief of the people in Maharashtra's capital, just brought rains and there was no loss of life or damage to property
It will also be the third cyclone to hit the western state in June since 1965, the meteorological office said.
The state government has begun preparations to deal with the fallout of the cyclone as it will bring very strong wind and heavy rainfall in the region, officials said.
Tropical storm 'Tauktae' (pronounced as Tau'Te) which had intensified into a very severe cyclonic storm, lies close to the Gujarat coast, the India Meteorological Department said. "The landfall process has started and will continue during next two hours," the IMD said.
Amidst suspicion that perpetrators of terror attacks in Mumbai came by a boat, Gujarat Coast Guard are investigating the owner of a fishing vessel which was apprehended off the Mumbai coast in connection with the incidents, coast guard sources here said."The Mumbai Coast Guard has found a fishing vessel which might have links with the terror strikes. It has some connection with the Porbunder district. We are investigating the matter," Commodor of Coast Guard said.
An estimated 1.5 lakh people are being shifted from low-lying coastal areas in Gujarat while 54 teams of the NDRF and SDRF remained deployed on Sunday in view of the India Meteorological Department's (IMD) warning that the very severe cyclonic storm Tauktae will reach the state coast on Monday evening and cross it on early Tuesday morning.
Cyclone Biparjoy made landfall near Jakhau Port in Gujarat on Thursday evening with a wind speed of 115-125 kmph gusting to 140 kmph as heavy rains lashed the coastal region, where several areas plunged into darkness due to power cuts and a large number of trees, electric poles and hoardings got uprooted.
The IMD has issued an orange alert for Mumbai, warning of very heavy rains at isolated places with strong winds on Monday as the very severe cyclonic storm Tauktae is likely to pass close to the Mumbai coast towards Gujarat.
A total of 33 teams have been earmarked by the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) to undertake relief and rescue operations in Gujarat and Maharashtra ahead of the expected landfall of cyclone 'Biparjoy' near the Jakhau port in Kutch district, officials said on Wednesday.
The Indian Coast Guard has seized 1,500 kg of heroin.
The early onset of the southwest monsoon brought continuous rainfall across southern and eastern India, contributing to this record.
The cyclone would bring light to moderate rains at most places and 'heavy to very heavy downpour' at some places on November 6.
More than 17,000 people living near the coastal areas in Gujarat have been evacuated by authorities in view of the approaching tropical cyclone Nilofar which, however, has gradually weakened and is expected to hit the state merely as a "depression".
The cyclone is expected to make landfall on Thursday evening as a 'very severe cyclonic storm' with maximum wind speed reaching up to 150 kilometres per hour, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.
Rain-related incidents claimed nine more lives in Gujarat, taking the death toll to 16 in two days, while another 8,500 people were relocated and rescued from flood-affected areas with rains continuing to lash some parts of the state for the fourth consecutive day on Wednesday, officials said.
Coast Guard and National Disaster Response Force teams carried out rescue operations in the flood-affected Navsari district.
The CG and ATS personnel seized the boat Al Sakar which had 50 kg heroin on board, in the Arabian Sea, the official said.
Sunita added that "I hope, and I think for sure, I'm gonna be going back to my father's home country and visiting with people and getting excited about the first, or not the first, but the Indian national who's going up on the Axiom Mission coming up, pretty awesome," she said.
This would be the second cyclonic storm in the Arabian Sea this year.
Earlier, in September, authorities seized around 3,000 kg of the drug at the Mundra port in Gujarat's Kutch district.
It claimed that Pakistani smugglers many times tried to use the Gujarat coast to smuggle drugs, but all such attempts were foiled.
The indigenously designed and developed Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH-Dhruv) and the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas will not be part of the upcoming Republic Day flypast in India due to the grounding of the entire fleet of ALH-Dhruv helicopters following a crash earlier this month. The grounding of the helicopters is a result of a Coast Guard ALH crash in Porbandar, Gujarat on January 5, which claimed the lives of two pilots and an aircrew diver. The decision to exclude the ALH-Dhruv and Tejas from the flypast comes as a high-level probe panel investigates the cause of the crash.
More than 300 coastal security exercises have been conducted with state authorities post the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack to beef up the country's security, Indian Coast Guard Director General K Natarajan said on Thursday.
Strong winds with speed of 45-55 km/h and reaching occasionally upto 65 km/h, would continue along and off Maharashtra and south Gujarat coasts during the next 24 hours, local Met department 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.
The new regional headquarter of the Indian Navy to be set up in Gujarat will help protect the porous 1660 km long coastline in Gujarat, said Gujarat leader of Opposition Shaktisinh Gohil.
'The intensity and frequency of heatwaves will be much higher than in previous years over Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha.'
Gale-force winds, heavy rainfall and high tidal waves swept the coastal belts of Maharashtra and Goa as Cyclone Tauktae hurtled northwards towards Gujarat.
The landfall process of the eye of the extremely severe cyclonic storm Tauktae, which hit the Gujarat coast in Saurashtra region between Diu and Una, ended around midnight, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.
If as critics point out, the environmental impact assessment study was commissioned only after the auction process got underway with not all the stakeholders getting to know of it, then the government has already compromised the trust it could have enjoyed with Kerala's public including its coastal communities, points out Shyam G Menon.
An NDRF team has a strength of about 45 personnel and each unit is equipped with tree and pole cutters, communication gadgets, inflatable boats and a small basic medical unit.
There is no word yet on the progress of rescue operations for the accommodation barge SS-3 and the Sagar Bhushan oil rig.
The India Meteorological Department has said that the landfall process of Cyclone 'Biparjoy' has started in Saurashtra and Kutch regions of Gujarat. The landfall process will carry on till midnight with wind speeds reaching a maximum of 140 kilometres per hour, the IMD said.
The National Disaster Response Force has deployed its teams in vulnerable areas of Gujarat to deal with cyclonic storm Nilofar that will hit the state's coast on Friday.
'In a world which is full of categories, hatred and ideologies, there was this basic decency.'
Low pressure over south-central Maharashtra and south Konkan is likely to move over the Arabian Sea and intensify into a depression in the next 48 hours, the India meteorological department said on Thursday. Under the influence of this cyclonic circulation, heavy rains are expected over the ghat areas of Maharashtra, Konkan and south Gujarat during the next two days, the IMD said.
The very severe cyclonic storm 'Biparjoy' intensified into an 'extremely severe cyclonic storm' and is likely to cross Saurashtra-Kutch and adjoining Pakistan coasts around the afternoon of June 15 as a 'very severe cyclonic storm (VSCS)', the India Meteorological Department said on Sunday.
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