New Delhi President Ram Nath Kovind, Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday greeted the nation on the occasion of Diwali, the festival of lights.

“Wishing all fellow citizens a happy and prosperous Diwali. May the festival of lights illuminate every home and every family, in our country and across our shared planet,” the President said in a tweet.

Naidu in a series of tweets said that Diwali signifies the victory of good over evil.

“I extend my warm greetings and good wishes to the people of our country on the auspicious occasion of Diwali, the festival of lights. Diwali signifies the victory of good over evil and reaffirms our faith in the noble qualities that Lord Ram embodied.

“Also associated with Goddess Lakshmi – the harbinger of wealth, grace and prosperity – Diwali is celebrated not only in India but all over the world by the people of Indian origin. May this festival bring illumination, peace, prosperity and happiness in our lives,” Naidu said.

The Prime Minister also took to Twitter and said: “Happy Diwali! May this festival bring happiness, good health and prosperity in everyone’s lives. May the power of good and brightness always prevail.”

Diwali is one of the biggest festivals of India which is celebrated with great enthusiasm and happiness across the country.

(IANS)

Jammu/Srinagar Srinagar city recorded the season’s coldest night at minus 2.2 degrees Celsius while the minimum temperatures throughout the Kashmir Valley dropped below the freezing point on Wednesday, the weather office said.

“The minimum temperatures remained below the freezing point in the valley as Srinagar recorded the coldest night of the season so far at minus 2.2 degrees Celsius,” an official from the Met Department said.

The night’s lowest temperature was minus 5.2 degrees Celsius in Pahalgam and minus 6.6 in Gulmarg.

The official said the minimum temperatures were likely to drop further due to clear night sky during the next three to four days.

Kargil town at minus 9.0 degrees Celsius was the coldest town of Jammu and Kashmir followed by Leh at minus 8.4.

Minimum temperatures also dropped in the Jammu division on Wednesday.

Jammu city recorded 9.1 degrees Celsius, Katra 10.1, Batote 6.1, Bannihal 7.2 and Bhaderwah 4.0.

(IANS)

New Delhi Former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram on Tuesday said the lesson of the 4-1 victory in the parliamentary and assembly bypolls in Karnataka is that the alliance has turned out beneficial.

“The 4-1 win in the Karnataka bye-elections is similar to the Test series of Indian cricket team led by Virat Kohli. Lesson to be learnt: Alliance has turned out to be beneficial,” Chidambaram tweeted.

The senior Congress leader’s remarks came after the Karnataka ruling coalition Janata Dal-Secular and Congress took lead in two seats each in the vote count for the three Lok Sabha and two assembly seats.

According to early trends at 9.45 a.m., the Bharatiya Janata Party was expected to hold on to its Shimoga seat but might lose the Bellary seat where its trailing by over one lakh votes.

The JD-S was leading over BJP in Ramanagara and Mandya, while the Congress was leading in Jamkhandi and Bellary.

Counting of votes began at 8 a.m. in Bellary (reserved), Mandya and Shimoga Lok Sabha seats and Jamkhandi and Ramanagara assembly seats for the polling held on November 3.

Prior to the bypolls, the JD-S held Ramanagara and Mandya seats, while the Congress Jamakhandi and the BJP Bellary and Shimoga.

(IANS)

New Delhi The national capital and its surroundings continued to suffer toxic air quality on Tuesday with only a slight improvement from “emergency” to “severe” category.

The Air Quality Index (AQI) of Delhi at 9 a.m. was recorded 403, on a scale of 0 to 500. The AQI on Monday at the same time was 415, which had gradually worsened to 435 by evening.

According to the India Meteorological Department, the shallow fog in the morning mixed with the pollutants that lead to smog.

On Tuesday, there was a slight drop in moisture, which was good for dispersion of pollutants.

The pollution monitoring agencies said that the extra load of pollutants coming from stubble burning from neighbouring states also registered a slight drop, leading to slight improvement — though still in the danger zone.

“The condition is expected to prevail till Diwali,” said the System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR)

However, it might improve if no additional emission from firecrackers add to Delhi’s air, it added.

The average volume of particle pollutant PM2.5 , or particles with a diametre less than 2.5 mm, was 257 microgrammes per cubic meters, considered “severe”.

The safe limit of PM2.5 and PM10 is under-60 and 100 units, as per national standards. The international standards are 25 units for PM2.5 and 50 units for PM10.

[IANS]

Bengaluru Karnataka’s ruling coalition Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) and Congress are leading in two seats each in the vote count for the three Lok Sabha and two assembly seats, a poll official said.

According to early trends at 9.45 a.m., the Bharatiya Janata Party was expected to hold on to its Shimoga seat but might lose the Bellary seat where its trailing by over one lakh votes.

The JD-S was leading over BJP in Ramanagara and Mandya, while the Congress was leading in Jamkhandi and Bellary, an Election Commission official told IANS here.

Counting of votes began at 8 a.m. in Bellary (reserved), Mandya and Shimoga Lok Sabha seats and Jamkhandi and Ramanagara assembly seats for the polling held on November 3.

Prior to the bypolls, the JD-S held Ramanagara and Mandya seats, while the Congress Jamakhandi and the BJP Bellary and Shimoga.

Congress candidate for Jamkhandi assembly seat Anand Siddu Nyamagouda was leading over BJP’s Shrikant Kulkarni by a margin of 16,516 votes, as per leads from EC website after nearly two hours.

Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy’s wife Anitha Kumaraswamy of JD-S was leading in Ramanagara assembly segment over BJP’s L.A. Chandrashekar by a comdfortable margin of 34,995 votes.

Chandrashekar had quit the BJP and re-joined the Congress just days ahead of the bypolls. His nomination, however, remained since he withdrew from the bye-election after the final date of withdrawal.

While, Congress’ V.S. Ugrappa from Bellary Lok Sabha (reserved) seat was leading over BJP’s J.Shantha by a margin of 1,00,723 votes.

From the Mandya Lok Sabha seat, L. Shivarame Gowda of the JD-S was leading over BJP’s Siddaramaiah by a margin of 38,920 votes.

In Shimoga parliamentary seat, BJP’s state unit president and former Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa’s son B.Y. Raghavendra was leading over JD-S nominee Madhu Bangarappa, the son of former Chief Minister S. Bangarappa, by a margin of 9,665 votes, the EC trends showed.

The vote counts were being conducted in the engineering and government colleges that have been taken up as counting centres.

Around 66 per cent of the 54.5 lakh electorate have voted in the five bypolls.

(IANS)

Sabarimala Hours ahead of the one-day special pilgrimage of the Sabarimala temple, devotees facing Kerala Police’s questions and checking protested on Monday.

The famed temple that witnessed massive protests against the September 28 Supreme Court verdict allowing hitherto banned age group of girls and women to enter the Lord Ayyappa shrine, saw many devotees complain and shout slogans as the police stopped them for checking.

At 8 a.m., the police opened the barricade and started allowing devotees to walk to Pamba — the base town of the temple. With the shrine set to open at 5 p.m., hundreds of pilgrims at Nilackal and Erumely were seen arguing as they faced repeated obstacles from the police from advancing.

What irked them most was the insistence to check their identity proofs and answer questions as they tried to reach the sanctum sanctorum that would close at 10 p.m. on Tuesday.

At Erumely, all pilgrim vehicles were stopped. The devotees protested and shouted Lord Ayyappa slogans as they arrived at a bus depot of the Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC), demanding transport to proceed to the hilltop shrine.

“We have been asked to wait since last (Sunday) night. We are all on a pilgrimage and we have no other intentions. We are not particular that our vehicles should be allowed. The KSRTC should then operate the buses to take us forward,” said an angry devotee, as others echoed his demand.

Following the growing number of protesters, the police has agreed to allow private vehicles from Erumely till Nilackal.

Vishnu Das, 70, was angry at the way the police was managing the pilgrims’ progress. He said it was the first time in his 56 years of visit to the shrine that he has been put into such difficulties.

“The police are out to create trouble and the scene here is as if it’s a battleground. The police is very intimidating. Till last year, there were no issues at all.

The visit to Sabarimala is suppose to bring solace, but this time everything has changed,” said Das, as he was walking towards Pamba.

The arrangements at the temple town is such that all pilgrims arriving on their vehicles have to get down at Nilackal and then take a KSRTC bus to Pamba, about 20 km, and then start the trek to the temple, situated on a hilltop.

Sreekumar Varma of the Pandalam Royal family, the custodian of the jewellery of the Sabarimala temple, said he was hurt by the way things have unfold.

“All along it has been a peaceful pilgrimage to Sabarimala. But today the temple has been turned into a ‘police station’. It pains us all,” said Varma.

The temple town is witnessing one of its stringent security arrangements. There were more than 2,300 police officials posted at various point up the pilgrimage path after the state tookover the shrine’s security on Saturday.

Several metal detectors have been kept at a various points and crowd combating arrangements were also in place. The media was allowed to go up the pathway at 9.15 a.m.

The Kerala government has announced it will implement the apex court ruling pitting it against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and numerous Hindu groups which have been up in arms against the verdict.

(IANS)

Jammu Landslides in Ramban district on the Jammu-Srinagar highway on Monday blocked the road that was restored for one-way traffic less than a day ago, a senior traffic department official said.

Landslides hit the Battery Chashma area earlier. “Traffic was restored from Jammmu to Srinagar last evening. Today it was scheduled to open for those travelling from Srinagar to Jammu,” he said.

It would harm the apple business as the untimely snowfall has caused damage to the orchards in the valley and majority of trucks moving from Srinagar to Jammu carry apples for sale in the terminal markets.

Delay in delivery due to the landslides was likely to cause huge losses to the Jammu and Kashmir Horticulture industry.

[IANS]

Cambridge International has conferred an impressive 210 ‘Outstanding Cambridge Learner Awards’ on Indian students. The awards recognise exceptional exam performances in 2017-18 in four categories – ‘Top in the World’, ‘Top in the Country’, ‘High Achievement Award’, and ‘Best Across’.

In all, 62 ‘Top in the World’ awards have been won by students of schools across India. Of them, 13 are from Bengaluru schools — Gitanjali Raghavendra and Nitin Nagarkar of National Academy for Learning; Divij Gupta and Teghveer Singh Rekhi of Inventure Academy; Nayantara Ghosh, Aryaan S. Anand, Udayveer Singh Sodhi, and Riddhi Sahima Verma of Mallya Aditi International School; Kathryn Nicole Sam of Ryan Global School; Sannivas Reddy N. of Greenwood High; Sapolnach Prompiengchai of Sarala Birla Academy; Pavan R. Kashyap of Deccan International School; and Vedaant Kuchhal of Head Start Educational Academy.

The ‘Top in the World’ award recognises students who have achieved the highest marks in the world in a Cambridge IGCSE or Cambridge International AS & A Level subject in the November 2016, March 2018 and June 2018 Cambridge exam series.

Ruchira Ghosh, regional director (South Asia), Cambridge International, said Indian students have not only performed well in STEM subjects but also in subjects such as Cambridgeglobal perspectives, environmental management, drama and music.The award-winners will be recognised for their impressive academic achievements at a Cambridge Outstanding Learner Awards ceremony early next year.

With India’s northeastern region being a pivot area of New Delhi’s Act East Policy, its importance again came into focus during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s annual bilateral summit with his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe in Tokyo on October on 28-29.

With Modi describing Japan as the cornerstone of India’s Act East Policy and the two countries agreeing to work together in more concrete terms for the development of the Indo-Pacific region, the Northeast has emerged as a key link in this chain.

The Indo-Pacific region stretches from the east coast of Japan to the east coast of Africa and both India and Japan agree that the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) regional bloc has to play a central role for the peace and prosperity of the region.

According to an India-Japan Vision Statement issued following the Tokyo summit, both Modi and Abe “reiterated their unwavering commitment to working together towards a free and open Indo-Pacific.

“The two leaders also affirmed that Asean unity and centrality are at the heart of the Indo-Pacific concept, which is inclusive and open to all,” it stated.

Under the Act East Policy, the Northeast, which shares historical and traditional bonds with the Asean region, is seen as the springboard for India’s increasing engagements with Southeast Asia and for this New Delhi has roped in Tokyo in a big way.

Japan’s role in development work in the Northeast is also expected to boost connectivity between the member-states of the Bimstec sub-regional grouping.

The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (Bimstec), which came into existence in 1997, comprises seven countries lying in the littoral and adjacent areas of the Bay of Bengal — Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand.

Membership in the bloc allows India to engage more with the extended neighbourhood in Southeast Asia under New Delhi’s Neighbourhood First Policy via northeastern India.

This will also help keep in check China’s growing influence in the region through Chinese President Xi Jinping’s pet Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) project.

India has not joined the BRI on the grounds that it has put participating nations in debt traps and also does not respect the territorial integrity of other countries.

Last year, India and Japan established the Act East Forum to serve as a driving force for cooperation between the two countries in the Northeast and the second meeting of the Forum was held on October 8 in which key infrastructure projects, including road development, in the region were identified.

“The two Prime Ministers welcomed the progress made for the development of India’s northeastern region through the India-Japan Act East Forum by identifying and implementing projects for enhancing connectivity, sustainable forest and ecological management, disaster risk reduction and people-to-people exchanges,” the Vision Statement said.

At an interaction organised by the New Delhi-based think tank Brookings India ahead of Modi’s visit to Japan, Japanese Ambassador Kenji Hiramatsu referred to a statement by Modi that Japan is the only country with which India will partner on the connectivity agenda.

Hiramatsu said that India and Japan can not only contribute to some infrastructure project in the Pacific, his country is also keen to support development work in the northeastern part of India.

He said that the Act East Forum was set up to discuss how Japan and India can collaborate together in many areas, including infrastructure, people-to-people exchange and disaster management in the Northeast.

He also mentioned some of the key infrastructure projects in the region identified during the second meeting of the Act East Forum.

These include National Highway 40 between and Shillong and Dawki, National Highway 51 between Tura and Dalu — both in Meghalaya — and National Highway 54 between Aizawl and Tuipang in Mizoram.

The possibility of a corridor linking Gelephu, the border area between Assam and Bhutan, and Dalu, the border town between Bangladesh and Meghalaya, in collaboration with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) is also being explored.

This will include the Dhubri-Phulbari bridge project, which will be the longest river bridge in India when completed, as the third phase of the Northeast Road Network Connectivity Improvement Project.

Development of main district roads (MDRs) and other district roads (ODRs), which will have positive socio-economic effect, is also being considered.

“We are very happy to have connectivity projects together in the Northeast to eventually connect with neighbouring countries like Myanmar or Bangladesh,” Hiramatsu said at the interaction.

Disaster management is another area of cooperation India and Japan are discussing and Hiramatsu said that his country has a lot of experience to share with the Northeast, a region that is prone to floods and earthquakes.

The October 8 Act East Forum meeting decided to expedite Japan’s contribution to resilient infrastructures in the Northeast and through capacity development project on highways in the mountainous regions.

Both sides are also discussing knowledge sharing on the issue through a Japan-India workshop on disaster risk reduction.

Following the October 29 summit in Tokyo, India and Japan also exchanged notes on seven yen loan agreements for key infrastructure projects in India, including two in the Northeast — renovation and modernisation of the Umiam-Umtru Stage-III hydroelectric power station in Meghalaya, and sustainable catchment forest management in Tripura.

Biodiversity conservation and forest management projects in Nagaland and Sikkim are also under consideration.

People-to-people ties also form a key aspect in Japan’s engagement with northeastern India and for this it has been decided to promote Japanese language education in the Northeast.

Gauhati University and Cotton University in Assam, English and Foreign Languages University in Meghalaya, and the National Institute of Technology in Nagaland have expressed interest in this.

IANS

With Monsoon waning and post-monsoon showers receding, state appointed Drishti Lifesaving lifeguard agency, has started the process of setting up safe swim-zones along the state’s coastline, a statement issued said.

Cyclonic winds had triggered underwater and rip currents in the seas that had led to the deferring.

“Starting November 1, all beaches will be open for swimming and beach activity,” Drishti said.

The agency maps the weather and sea conditions each morning and accordingly sets up safe swim-zones along the beaches which are manned by its 600-strong lifeguard force.

Although most beaches in Goa are safe, Drishti advises all to adhere to some basic safety measures — ideally swim only in the swim-zones marked with red and yellow flags. Non swim-zones are marked with red flags.

There are signage at the entrance of each beach enlisting safety tips, the statement said, adding that 24 ‘no-selfie’ zones had been identified to prevent accidents.

Goa is one of the top beach tourism destinations in the country and attracts nearly eight million tourists, of which half a million are foreigners.

(IANS)