With the cooling down of heatwaves as the monsoon spreads across the country, power demand has fallen by 12.5 per cent from the start of this month till Monday. Peak power demand of the country had touched a record of 210 Gw last week, mostly due to rising temperatures and opening up of the economy. Compared with the beginning of this month, almost all states have seen a fall in power demand. Punjab, however, is an exception where the power demand on Monday was 17 per cent higher than on June 1.
India off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin revealed he was in contention to play in the second Test against England at Lord's till a sudden spell of rain before the toss forced the team management to change the playing XI.
Such weather conditions are not typical for May which tends to be the hottest month of the year in Delhi with a mean maximum temperature of 39.5 degrees Celsius.
India is likely to experience below-normal monsoon rainfall this year, with a 20 per cent chance of drought due to the end of La Nina conditions and the potential for El Nino to take hold, private forecasting agency Skymet Weather said on Monday.
Svetlana Gomboeva collapsed as she checked her final scores
The British authorities declared a national emergency and for the first time issued a 'red extreme' heat warning for large parts of England.
The national capital battled weather conditions in the "red category" as the maximum temperature recorded at the Palam observatory was 46.1C,
To prevent dehydration, drink plenty of water, natural fruit juices, or vegetable juice every day, suggests Dr Divya Gopal.
The epicentre is 39 km away from the county seat of Luding and there are several villages within the 5-km range around the epicentre.
Quizzed on PSG's jet trip to Nantes at a news conference on Monday, Galtier and Mbappe looked at each other and the World Cup winner burst out laughing as his coach responded with a quip.
Mother Dairy hiked milk prices by Rs 2 per litre in the Delhi-NCR market effective Tuesday, citing an increase in its procurement rate of raw milk from producers. This is the fifth increase in milk prices since March, with the cumulative hike now totalling up to Rs 9 per litre, or 16 per cent, by Mother Dairy -- one of the leading milk suppliers in Delhi-NCR with volumes of more than 30 lakh litres per day. When contacted, R S Sodhi, MD of Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), which markets milk under Amul brand and is a major player in Delhi-NCR, said that there is no plan to increase its milk prices in the near future.
Retail inflation fell to a 15-month low of 5.66 per cent in March, mainly due to a decline in food prices, government data showed on Wednesday. The inflation figure in March is within the RBI's comfort zone as it is below 6 per cent. The retail inflation based on Consumer Price Index (CPI) was 6.44 per cent in February 2023 and 6.95 per cent in the year-ago period.
Temperatures in March will be critical to determining the impact of any unusual heatwave conditions on this year's wheat crop in North India. It is that time of the year when the crop enters its vital grain-filling stage, say meteorologists and crop experts. So far, the high day temperatures in the North are not believed to have any significant impact on the final yields since the crop hasn't entered a stage where heat affects yields.
The average temperatures observed pan-India for April was 35.05 degrees, which was the fourth highest in 122 years.
The mean maximum temperature for the month of March was 28.2 degrees Celsius in 2020 and 2019. It was 32.8 degrees Celsius in 2018; 30.7 degrees Celsius in 2017 and 31.5 degrees Celsius in 2016, according to the India Meteorological Department data.
The paper said 65,130 people were killed in 3,175 incidents of floods. Some 40,358 people died in 117 tropical cyclones, with 344.9 deaths per mortality event. There were 706 heat wave incidents that claimed the lives of 17,362 people, the paper said, adding there is a rise in the number of casualties because of this type of EWE.
Suburbs like Bandra, Santacruz and Chembur, and pockets in central Mumbai such as Dadar reported the outage for over 15 minutes starting at 2130 hrs.
Senior IMD scientist R K Jenamani said the monsoon covered south and central Arabian Sea, entire Kerala, parts of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu between May 31 and June 7.
In Pune temperatures in the last two days have been hovering around 40 degree Celsius.
The experts said that climate change is not only raising temperatures and making India's heatwaves hotter, but also changing weather patterns that further drive dangerous weather extremes.
Santosh Patkar of Devgadh Taluka Sindhudurg district of Maharashtra is a worried man these days. Devgadh, which is known as the home to world famous Alphonso variety of mangoes, has seen an unusual drop in yields which is affecting farmers' income. Being one of the primary agricultural produce from the area, Santosh is not untouched by this somewhat rare phenomenon. He said in his own mango garden, yields have come down by a third from most trees.
Gurugram in Haryana witnessed a scalding 48.1 degrees Celsius, the highest since May 10, 1966, when the city logged 49 degrees Celsius.
India's wheat production is projected to have declined nearly 3 per cent to 106.84 million tonnes while the overall foodgrain production is estimated to have touched record 315.72 million tonnes in the 2021-22 crop year. The wheat production is estimated to have declined due to heatwave that resulted in shrivelled grains in the northern states of Punjab and Haryana. Releasing the fourth advance estimate for the 2021-22 crop year, the Union agriculture ministry on Wednesday said a record output is also estimated for rice, maize, gram, pulses, rapeseed and mustard, oilseeds and sugarcane.
In Delhi, Safdarjung, the base station for the national capital, recorded 44.2 degrees Celsius, while Mungeshpur observatory in northwest Delhi, reported 47.3 degrees Celsius.
The government has no plans to import wheat as it has sufficient stocks to meet the country's requirements, official sources said. The Food Corporation of India (FCI) has enough stock for public distribution, they added. "There are no plans to import wheat into India. "The country has sufficient stocks to meet our domestic requirements," a source said.
Large swathes of the country reeled under heatwave conditions on Tuesday with Churu in Rajasthan recording a high of 48 degree Celsius.
The economic growth may have slowed to 3.5 per cent in fourth quarter of 2021-22 from 5.4 per cent in the previous three-month period due to the impact of higher commodity prices on margins, decline in wheat yields and on higher base, Icra Ratings said on Monday. The agency said the hiccups in the recovery of the contact-intensive services attributable to the third wave of Covid-19 in the country may have also affected the economic growth in the quarter. Even the gross value added (GVA) at basic prices (at constant 2011-12 prices) in Q4 FY2022 seems to have eased to 2.7 per cent from 4.7 per cent in Q3 FY2022, it said.
The rupee depreciated 6 paise to 77.50 against the US dollar in the opening trade on Wednesday as a surging American currency in the overseas markets and persistent foreign fund outflows weighed on investor sentiment. Besides, rising global crude prices impacted the domestic unit, forex traders said. However, a higher opening in the domestic equity market restricted the rupee's fall, they added.
Parts of northern and western India reeled under scorching heat with temperatures hovering near the 50 degree-mark in Rajasthan, while the India Meteorological Department said no immediate respite is likely from the ongoing heatwave conditions.
Labour union leader Shrirang Barge said the state government would have known Dharmadhikari has a massive following and that the event would have attracted several lakh people, so why were arrangements for water, shade etc, missing.
After a ban on wheat exports, India's cereal grain procurement for the central pool was struggling to rise significantly until the middle of last week, informed trade and market sources. Farmers have been holding on to their produce as the price of wheat in the open market recouped some of the losses it suffered in the aftermath of the ban. According to trade estimates, around 18.12 million tonnes (mt) of wheat was procured in the central pool up until May 18. Before the export ban was enforced on May 13, it was 17.96 mt.
A bulletin from the India Meteorological Department said heatwave conditions are likely to prevail in some parts of Adilabad, Nizamabad, Karimnagar and Khammam districts.
Leading economists have pencilled in a high 13-15.7 per cent uptick in the economy in the first quarter of 2022-23 with an upward bias. Soumya Kanti Ghosh, the group chief economic adviser at State Bank of India, on Tuesday said he expects the GDP to clip past 15.7 per cent in the first quarter with more chances of the final numbers printing in higher, while Aditi Nayar, the chief economist at the rating agency Icra, said the economy will grow much lower at 13 per cent in the June quarter. The national statistical office will announce the first quarter GDP numbers later next week.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Wednesday slashed India's GDP growth forecast for FY23 to 7 per cent from the earlier estimate of 7.2 per cent mainly on account of higher inflation and a tight monetary policy. India's economy grew 13.5 per cent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2022-23, reflecting strong growth in services, ADB said in its second supplement to Asian Development Outlook Report 2022 (ADO 2022). "However, GDP growth is revised down from ADO 2022's forecasts to 7 per cent for FY2022 (ending March 2023) and 7.2 per cent for FY2023 (ending March 2024) as price pressures are expected to adversely impact domestic consumption, and sluggish global demand and elevated oil prices will likely be a drag on net exports," ADB said.
Scores of Punjab farmers protesting against the government over various issues, including a bonus on wheat and beginning paddy sowing from June 10, spent the night on the road after they were stopped from marching towards Chandigarh.
Tourists have been thronging hills as the heatwave has hit the plains and the second wave of COVID-19 seeing a significant decline in the country, although the gross violation of Covid-appropriate behaviour by the visitors was accounted for in Haridwar on Friday.
The mercury in Delhi, which recorded its hottest day of the year so far at 45.6 degrees Celsius on Sunday, came down to 42.4 degrees Celsius, according to the India meteorological department.
Delhi is likely to receive the first monsoon showers on June 30 or July 1, India Meteorological Department (IMD) officials said on Tuesday.
'It is high time that we act instead of just talking about how and why the climate is changing.'
The heat wave has caused havoc and triggered an emergency situation in major hospitals of the province.
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