There is a definite attempt to put the landslides on the backburner because news of them and climate change worry Wayanad's tourism and real estate businesses greatly. Whatever I experienced of Wayanad's 2024 by-elections; the July landslides were not a burning issue, observes Shyam G Menon.
The deadly landslides in Kerala's ecologically fragile Wayanad district were triggered by a heavy burst of rainfall, made 10 per cent heavier by climate change, according to a new rapid attribution study by a global team of scientists.
He said scientists have noticed a trend of very deep cloud systems developing over the southeast Arabian Sea, and added that sometimes, these systems intrude into the land, like in 2019.
An accurate early warning system that correlates rainfall and the potential for landslides. That is the imperative, say experts as rains create havoc in hills across India and the toll mounts in Kerala's Wayanad slopes where landslides buried entire homesteads and possibly hundreds of people.
'Except that the population was much less.' 'I remember my uncle and family moving away from the base of a hill whenever it rained for more than a couple of days without a dry day in between.' 'Perhaps the older generations knew if it rained for more than a certain time, they must pack up to a camp or to a relative.' 'As some of the interviews of the survivors on the Malayalam television channels show, the elderly people had a premonition a tragedy would happen, and those who acted on those premonitions survived.'
Kerala's election discourse operates surreptitiously. Its explicit face focuses on important national and local issues. At the same time, it seeks to secure apt communal equations to ensure votes, notes Shyam G Menon.
'I don't think we have ever seen such alignment of everything that we need in the banking sector.'
Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, Ram, Laxmi, stories from the Hindu epics are seen in carvings, paintings and murals, as well as recognisable figures from mythology, like Garuda, Sheshnag, Nandi and Apsaras, notes Deepa Gahlot, savouring the beauty of Cambodia.
Away from the distraction of its new high-profile politics, Wayanad's worries seemed very down to earth, discovers Shyam G Menon.
'An earthquake of a slightly higher magnitude in the Western Himalayan region is going to be catastrophic -- not just because of the fragility of the region but because of how densely we have occupied it.'
Mini cloud bursts are marked by intense short spells which may not exceed 10cm in one hour-a classical definition by India Meteorological Department, he noted.
'But extremely difficult, expensive and time consuming to rebuild it.'
He also said that a policy would be formulated for management of water as parts of the state, especially the western Maharashtra region, witnesses floods during monsoon due to rise in river water levels.
Parts of Raigad, Ratnagiri districts in the coastal Konkan region and Kolhapur district in western Maharashtra, have been worst affected by the floods. Besides that, heavy rains have been pounding parts of Satara district.
With his name or without, Jim Corbett continues to live on in his home in Uttarakahand's Kaladunghi and in the jungles he loved.
'My belief that I could protect the Himalayas was shattered.'
Norway nabbed the first gold medal of the Winter Games on Saturday
China has smothered most outbreaks within its borders, keeping new case numbers low.
The Tokyo 2020 Olympics torch was lit by the rays of the sun in ancient Olympia on Thursday to mark the final step towards the July 24-Aug 9 Games, currently in question because of the coronavirus pandemic. Actress Xanthi Georgiou, in the role of high priestess, used a parabolic mirror in a scaled-down ceremony closed to spectators at the site of the ancient Greek Olympics to ignite the torch and mark the start of a torch relay. The torch will be handed over to Tokyo Games organisers in Athens on March 19.
'By annoying the Arabs and cozying up to Iran, Pakistan may end up losing Arab economic support, annoying the Americans and increase Shia-Sunni tensions domestically,' Colonel Anil A Athale (retd) points out.
'India imports 70 per cent of its bulk drugs from China. Are we going to live without antibiotics?' asks Debashis Basu.
'The lay of the runway is not at all safe.' 'Even operating a 737 is dangerous there.' 'During the monsoon, they must ban landing on runway 10.'
An independent website run by the 'Shan Herald Agency for News' said the project was being constructed at a 'secure site' near Maymyo.
In a corner of Kolkata lived a man who made Latin American music cool before urban India became hip to salsa. Sumit Bhattacharya remembers Monojit Datta, ace percussionist, guru and unknown legend
'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).'
Have a look at these photos taken from the incredible world we live in. These are the winners of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition 2020.
'The anti-India biases of the Western elite can be attributed to the unease these privileged nations feel at the rise of Asian nations like India and China.' 'But what ought to shock all right-thinking Indians is that many of our own countrymen/women have joined this chorus,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'The last three decades were the era of D, where D stands for deforestation, destruction, degradation, disaster, damages, diseases, difficulties... and finally it leads to death.'
The third phase of Lok Sabha elections scheduled for Tuesday will see the maximum number of seats going to the polls in a single phase -- 117 across 15 states and Union Territories. It will also be a test for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party which will aim to defend the maximum number of seats at 62. This time the BJP will be tested in its bastion Gujarat -- where polling will be held for all the 26 Lok Sabha seats in the state -- apart from Karanataka, Chhattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh, where the party had done well in 2014. Here are some of the big political leaders' who await their fate on Tuesday.
Kerala has seen one of the worst floods in its history during this monsoon. From August 8 to 20, nearly 223 people have lost their lives, 33 are missing and around 1.2 million individuals from 3,02,441 families are in 3,941 relief camps. Initial losses are estimated to be around Rs 200 billion (Rs 20,000 crore). With the rescue measures in its last leg, the Kerala government is looking at raising funds to rebuild the state. In an interaction with Gireesh Babu and T E Narasimhan, Kerala Finance Minister T M Thomas Isaac says he has a three-pronged strategy to raise funds. Edited Excerpts.
A group of shepherds were asked to vacate the land by troops of the PLA.
In the fourth such incursion since March, two helicopters of the People's Liberation Army of China hovered for about five minutes in Uttarakhand's Chamoli district and "could have carried out aerial photography of Indian ground troops," according to official sources in the government.
Twenty years ago, over 50 days in the summer of 1999, the Indian Army fought some of the toughest battles in the annals of military history to evict the Pakistan army from Kargil. The battle to recapture Tiger Hill was a major turning point in the Operation Vijay campaign, points out Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
The Indian Air Force is probing the incident, an IAF source said.
Geetanjali Krishna approached her trip to Greece -- the cradle of democracy where the notions of equality, free speech and civic liberty first took shape -- as much as pilgrimage as a holiday.
'Loss of faith in the fairness of the system and the perception that one cannot expect justice are the first few steps to the slippery slope of anarchy,' warns Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
More than two weeks after a wall collapsed in suburban Mumbai, killing 30 people and injuring more than 100, Rediff.com's Prasanna D Zore and Hitesh Harisinghani visit the area to know how the survivors devastated by the deluge are coping with their lives.
Over 20,000 people have been displaced with officials warning the situation could get worse.
35 others have been injured in the landslides and flashfloods triggered by torrential rains.
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