At around 3 pm on Wednesday, India's daily peak power demand touched 220 gigawatts (Gw)-the highest daily peak ever in the history of the country. The ministry of power in its estimates had projected country's power demand to cross touch 220 Gw during the months of April-June. With a cooler April due to unseasonal rains, the peak shifted to May.
For the first time, large display screens and consoles for participation from galleries, ultraviolet germicidal irradiation, special cables between the two Houses and polycarbonate separators will be in place.
On Tuesday, the current lot of G20 visitors toured three colonial landmarks in south Mumbai -- the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation's heritage building headquarters, the magnificent Gateway of India and the Taj Palace hotel.
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.
A deep depression over the Bay of Bengal intensified into a cyclonic storm, named Remal, on Saturday evening and is likely to turn severe before making landfall between the coasts of West Bengal and Bangladesh on Sunday midnight, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.
' Number of school hours per day may be reduced. Sports and other outdoor activities which expose students directly to the sunlight may be appropriately adjusted in the early morning'
'The Election Commission cannot be regulated by the government.'
The 77th Independence Day on Tuesday was a low-key affair in Himachal Pradesh with the traditional cultural programmes missing from official and district-level functions as the state mourns the deaths and destruction caused by incessant rains.
States have been told to prepare in advance to counter any impact of an adverse southwest monsoon.
Tamil Nadu CM Jayalalithaa said the "unprecedented" northeast monsoon killed 470 people and nearly a lakh livestock besides damaging crops in over 3.83 lakh hectares.
In a significant development, India is believed to have placed a funding request of around $55 million in its first call with the Pandemic Fund of the World Bank, sources said. The fund has been set up to finance critical investments in a bid to strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response capacities at national, regional, and global levels, with a focus on low- and middle-income countries. It was created in the aftermath of the Covid-19 global pandemic.
The frequency of very heavy downpours seems to have increased.
Heavy rain lashed national capital New Delhi on Saturday, causing massive traffic jams due to waterlogging as vehicles had to negotiate flooded streets which exposed the civic bodies' lack of preparedness.
Climate change has hampered the ability of the forecasting agencies to accurately predict severe events and weather bureaus across the world are focusing on augmenting the observational network density and the weather prediction modelling to improve predictability, India Meteorological Department (IMD) Director General Mrutyunjay Mohapatra has said.
Despite high exposure to floods, Assam, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, and Sikkim are the best performing states in terms of flood early warning systems (EWS), according to the report by independent policy research think tank The Council on Energy Environment and Water.
Strict lockdown-like restrictions are already in place in the southern stateand the Pinarayi Vijayan government decided to clamp the complete shutdown in the wake of severe spike in the positive cases.
The action took place on the high seas at the peak of the Monsoon season in the first half of July when Pakistan Navy Ship Alamgir moved from its side to Indian waters across the maritime boundary line between the two countries, Government sources told ANI.
Between 8.30 am and 11 am, the IMD's Colaba observatory (representative of south Mumbai) recorded 79.4 mm rainfall, while the Santacruz observatory (representative of suburbs) recorded 44.5 mm rain, she said.
Rahul Gandhi took a dig at PM Modi, saying his 'Digital India' scheme cannot become a "euphemism" for an Internet controlled by large remote corporations.
National Disaster Response Force teams were rushed from Delhi to the affected areas in both Pithoragarh and Chamoli districts to help in the rescue operations along with along with State Disaster Response Force, Sashastra Seema Bal and Indo-Tibetan Border Police and local agencies, officials said.
"The two former defence ministers had some clarifications and doubts on the situation which were clarified by the CDS and the Army chief," sources said.
Heavy rains lashing Mumbai since Sunday have thrown rail, air and road traffic out of gear, with several trains and flights being cancelled. With IMD forecast of heavy rains for Tuesday, the authorities declared a holiday in the city and adjoining regions, asking people to avoid stepping out of their houses.
The Centre will review the situation on a fortnightly basis.
The India Meteorological Department in its first forecast for 2014 had said southwest monsoon will be below normal at 95 per cent of the long-period average.
In Chennai, rains are expected to start early Thursday morning and intensify gradually. Government schools in the city have been shut down for the next two days
According to an IMD forecast issued on Thursday, a heatwave spell will persist over northwest and central India during the next five days and over east India during the next three days.
In his remarks, Admiral Singh complimented his force for continuously maintaining 'peak combat-readiness' and 'high tempo' of operations over the past few months, they said.
Rain deficiency in eastern and western Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Gangetic West Bengal, Assam and Meghalaya is 20-46 per cent less than normal as of June 17.
A portion of the 15-foot tall private compound wall, totally wet due to heavy rains lashing the area for the past few days, fell on the adjoining tiled-roof houses in Nadur village.
A National Disaster Relief Force team was also camping in the district. Relief camps have been set up at 83 places to accommodate flood victims, officials said.
The prime minister also asserted that in view of the COVID-19 situation, the states must ensure that people follow all health precautions such as wearing of face masks, hand sanitisation and maintaining an adequate physical distance with each other while undertaking rescue efforts.
'Evacuation' has been key to disaster management in Odisha. The aim is to achieve zero casualty.
From Covid to climate change, Shankar Acharya's look at some of the trends and events that might shape 2022.
'This virus came in December 2019 and how this virus is going to behave in October and November, we don't know yet.'
Inflation, remained in negative territory for the 7th month in May
The national capital received heavy precipitation resulting in waterlogging on several roads and traffic jams at various intersections.
India-China relations have always attracted Parliament's attention and there have always been useful and productive and constructive discussions how to engage with China, notes Rup Narayan Das.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) kept its key policy repo rate unchanged at 8.0 percent on Tuesday, as widely expected, while expressing concerns about risks to its target to bring consumer inflation down to 6 percent by January 2016.
About 2.14 million people were displaced in India last year due to natural disasters, according to a United Nations-backed report which said the country was third after the Philippines and China to record the highest levels of displacement in 2013.
Dubbing the government's decision to bring an ordinance on food security as an "election gimmick", the Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday accused the Congress of running away from a debate on the crucial issue in Parliament.
