New Delhi, Apr 26 ,2016 : Heatwave continued to sweep central and southern states of the country with Malampuzha in Kerala recording the highest temperature in 29 years at 41.8 degrees Celsius, though thundershowers in parts of Telangana gave some respite to the residents braving searing heat.
The western Odisha town of Sonepur was the hottest place in the country, recording the maximum temperature at 46.5 degrees Celsius. Bolangir in the state recorded 46 degrees Celsius and Titlagarh 45.5 degrees.
Dry weather prevailed in north and central India. Parts of Odisha and Rayalaseema continued to reel under intense heatwave conditions.
Delhi had a pleasant morning with the minimum temperature settling at 21.2 degrees Celsius, three degrees below normal for the season. Day temperature in the city rose to a maximum of 39 degrees Celsius.
Elsewhere, day temperatures hovered above normal in parts of Gangetic West Bengal, Bihar, Assam, Meghalaya, Sikkim, Jharkhand, Himachal Pradesh, east Madhya Pradesh, Vidarbha, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, interior Karnataka, Kerala and Odisha.
Malampuzha in Kerala recorded the highest temperature in 29 years. The previous maximum of 41.8 deg C was recorded on April 15, 1987, IMD officials said.
The temperatures were above normal in Alappuzha, Kozhikode, Palakkad, Kannur, Ernakulam and Kottayam districts.
Several areas have reported drinking water shortage.
In Telangana, which has been reeling under intense heatwave for past three weeks, thundershowers in few parts of Hyderabad and Medak brought some relief to people.
However, heatwave conditions prevailed over many parts of Karimnagar, Khammam and Nizamabad districts. The highest maximum temperature of 45 degrees Celsius was recorded at Nizamabad and Ramagundam.
The MeT department said heatwave conditions are “very likely” to prevail over many parts in all districts of Telangana during the next two days.
At least 49 people have died due to heatstroke in Telangana, as per state Disaster Management department.
In Bihar, the Patna district administration declared summer vacation in all schools from May 5 in view of the prevailing heatwave conditions. The city sweltered at 44.1 degrees Celsius, which was also the maximum in the state.
Bhagalpur and Gaya recorded maximums of 44 and 43.1 deg C, respectively.
Heat wave conditions continued to sweep Jharkhand with mercury in Dhanbad and Deoghar districts settling at 43 deg C mark. Steel hubs of Jamshedpur and Bokaro had a maximum of 42.9 and 41 degree C, respectively. Lakshadweep too witnessed dry weather conditions.
In the north, Punjab and Haryana recorded the season’s maximum temperatures that hovered around 40 degrees mark.
The maximum in Chandigarh was 39.1 deg C. Hisar was the hottest at 41 deg C in Haryana. In Punjab, Ludhiana and Patiala braved hot weather at 40.1 deg C.
Dry weather conditions prevailed in Uttar Pradesh with Etawah recording a high of 42.8 degrees Celsius.
@ Agency report.
New Delhi, Apr 26 ,2016 : The Centre today strongly opposed the plea seeking setting up of National Court of Appeal with regional benches in major cities for deciding cases arising from high courts, saying that it is a “fruitless endeavour” and will not lessen the burden of two crore cases pending in trial courts.
“The idea is to grant justice at lower level. What the court of appeal will do as there are two crore cases pending in the lower court in comparison to fifty thousand cases at the Supreme Court,” Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi told a bench headed by Chief Justice T S Thakur.
“We will only be adding to lawyers’ pockets. The Supreme Court should not consider this when it’s own dockets are full,” he said to the bench also comprising Justices R Banumathi and U U Lalit.
Rohatgi termed the hearing as “fruitless endeavour” on various grounds including the fact that the Constitution does not permit it.
At the outset, the bench asked the Attorney General to look into the suggestions advanced by senior advocate K K Venugopal, who has been appointed as an amicus curiae, on the issue.
“We will refer the matter to a larger bench…We will examine this as to whether this court has power to issue directions or recommendations on this,” the bench said.
The apex court had earlier said it may refer to a five-judge constitution bench the plea seeking setting up of National Court of Appeal.
The court had also asked Rohatgi to assist Venugopal in formulating “suggestions and points” for its consideration in the case.
The apex court was hearing a PIL by Puducherry-based V Vasanthakumar pressing for setting up of a National Court of appeal at Chennai, Mumbai and Kolkata and quashing of the government order rejecting his proposal on the issue.
In February 2014, Kumar had moved the apex court with the same prayer when it had disposed of the matter directing the Centre to respond to his suggestion within six months.
Later, the Centre rejected his suggestion on the ground that it would require an amendment in Article 130 of the Constitution which “is impermissible as this would change the constitution of the Supreme Court completely.”
Vasanthakumar has now approached the apex court again seeking quashing of this decision of the central government.
@Agency report.
New Delhi, Apr 25,2016: In a boost to Rio-bound athletes, the Sports Ministry has decided to provide Rs one lakh per month as Out of Pocket allowance to the sportspersons under the TOP scheme in their preparation for the Olympics and Paralympics Games at Rio de Janeiro.
“Out of Pocket allowance of one lakh rupees per month to be given to TOP athletes for Rio Olympics/Paralympics,” the Youth Affairs and Sports Ministry wrote in its official twitter account.
Till date, 77 Indian athletes in eight disciplines have qualified for the Olympics and many more are likely to qualify in the next two months.
Target Olympic Podium (TOP) scheme is a sports ministry initiative under which Olympic medal prospects are funded by the government for top class training as part of their preparations for the Games.
@ Agency report.
Nainital: The nine dissident Congress MLAs told the Uttarakhand High Court that they had not left the party but only wanted removal of the Chief Minister and his government so that a “better” regime can be formed under another leader.
They told Justice U C Dhyani that they were not against the Congress and only wanted to “clean it” up as they felt that the regime under former Chief Minister Harish Rawat “did not show the party in a good light”.
The MLAs, who have challenged their disqualification by Speaker Govind Singh Kunjwal, denied in the court that they had joined the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) and added that they had “differentiated themselves” from the BJP when they signed the memo sent to the Governor seeking division of votes.
Appearing for the MLAs, senior advocate C A Sundaram argued that dissenting against the government by a member of the ruling party was part of a “healthy democracy” and would not amount to leaving the party or defection.
He said the CM and the Speaker “are assuming that the government and party are the same” and if this view was accepted then “it would be a death knell for democracy”.
“Then no member of ruling party would be able to criticise the government,” he said.
“Deserting a government or a leader/ Chief Minister (by a member of a ruling party) does not amount to leaving the party or defection. Even under the 10th schedule of defection means deserting the party and not dissent,” he argued.
“I am dissenting against choice of CM. This is an essential part of intra-party democracy. You cannot disqualify someone for speaking against the CM,” he contended and added that the “only overt act” they committed was to ask the Governor “to dismiss the government and CM” which “would not amount to giving up membership of the party”.
“As Congressmen we continue to say that this government under this CM (Rawat) must be changed. We are saying change the CM from within the party. They (Congress) will not lose the right to form another government under another CM,” he said and questioned whether it means that “we have left the party”.
Sundaram said they had “only objected to the Speaker not following the procedure that the majority (26 BJP and nine Congress MLAs) wanted” and that cannot be said to mean that the nine gave up party membership.
He alleged that the Speaker was biased towards the Rawat government as he showed “undue haste” in disqualifying the nine MLAs before the floor test scheduled for March 28 and was also defending the government and the CM in court.
@ Agency report.
A fresh forecast by a team of scientists has warned that Facebook, Google and Cisco may face the prospect of their Silicon Valley headquarters becoming swamped by water as rising sea levels threaten to submerge much of the property in San Francisco Bay Area, The Guardian reported.
Even under optimistic scenarios where rapid cuts in greenhouse gas emissions avoid the most severe increases, the companies may face cut-off from others around the world, the team noted.
“Without significant adaptation, social media giant Facebook’s new campus appears most at risk,” the report added. Facebook’s campus at the San Francisco Bay shoreline is a 430,000 square feet complex — with a nine-acre garden rooftop — and is an extension of its Menlo Park base.
“Facebook is very vulnerable. They built on a very low site. I do not know why they chose to build there. Facebook thinks they can pay enough to protect themselves,” Lindy Lowe, a senior planner at California’s Bay Conservation and Development Commission, was quoted as saying.
The elevation that Facebook gave to its premises will not be sufficient from saving it from a 1.6-feet rise in sea levels by the end of the century. The search engine giant Google located in Mountain View and technology company Cisco headquartered in San Jose may get some respite. But should the Antarctic ice sheet disintegrate, the sea water will be pushed up beyond six-feet and swamp both.
“Even with a small increase, the sea comes into the 101 highway by the Googleplex and the whole areas could be screwed up,” Kristina Hill, an environmental planning and urban design expert at the University of California-Berkeley, was quoted as saying.
“Google and Facebook will have to redo their campuses. I do not think there has been much success in getting Google to support adaption, it is not really on their radar,” Hill added. Nearly $100 billion worth of commercial and residential properties around the Bay Area are at risk from sea level rise and severe storms.
@ Agency report.
Washington, Apr 24 ,2016: Indian workers are the “worst” and “hardest” to understand, Republican governor of US state of Maine Paul LePage said, stirring another controversy by his party members in this election cycle.
In his address to the Maine Republican convention, wherein the party selected its delegates for the July national convention, Page alleged that foreign workers are being used in local restaurants.
LePage said workers from India are “hardest” and “the worst ones” to understand and one has to get an interpreter to talk to an Indian. However, he then quickly described Indians as “lovely” people.
LaPage’s remarks came a day after Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump mocked Indian call centres but described India as a “great place”.
However, both LePage and Trump suffered a setback at the Maine Convention, which elected 19 of the 23 delegates who are Cruz supporters.
Maine is a small northeastern state in the US.
@ Agency report.
New Delhi, Apr 24 ,2016: Chit fund companies have duped thousands of gullible depositors of at least Rs 80,000 crore, according to estimates of CBI which is probing such cases across the country.
Agency sources said the amount is likely to be higher than the initial estimate as the probe is still on. These companies with operations across the country lured people by offering attractive interest rates and, in the case of Pearls Group, land.
Over Rs 30,000 crore has allegedly been collected from small investors by the chit fund companies operating in four eastern and northeastern states — West Bengal, Assam, Odisha and Tripura, while Pearls Group which operates in Punjab and other north Indian states duped investors to the tune of Rs 51,000 crore, they said.
The deposits mobilised by the companies was allegedly used to purchase land, open media outlets, hotels and other businesses, denying depositors their dues.
The sources said the figure of Rs 80,000 crore is an estimate based on investigation so far and quantification of deposits collected from investors is still going on.
CBI has so far registered 76 cases, based on over 253 FIRs in these four states with 31 charge-sheets being filed by the agency in connection with the scam.
The agency has filed three cases against Rose Valley Group and seven against Saradha Group in connection with the fraud, called Saradha scam.
The sources said over six crore people have been duped by the companies across the country with majority of them allegedly being trapped by Pearls Group which has been operating for last 20 years before being busted by the agency.
The sheer sweep of the scam makes it one of the most difficult cases to be investigated by the agency in which several big operators including a former Union Minister, a state minister, an MP, a former journalist and politicians are being probed by it, they said.
@ Agency report.
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