The deep depression which had formed in the Bay of Bengal has intensified into a cyclone. The cyclone, which has been named Nilam, will cross Nagapattinam and Nellore (South Andhra Pradesh) tomorrow evening.
The wind speed will be around 80kmph and could rise to 100 kmph when the Cyclone Nilam hits. The IMD is expecting the storm surge to be around 1 metre. Low lying districts of Chennai, Kanjipuram are in danger of being inundated.
Chennai is witnessing rains and the MET department has forecast heavy rain in the region till tomorrow. A holiday has been issued for schools and colleges in Chennai, Nagapattinam, Cuddalore, Kanchepuram districts and Union Territory of Puducherry.
Fishermen in Nagapattinam, Chennai and Puducherry have been asked to not venture into the sea.
Authorities in both Tamil Nadu and Puducherry are gearing up for cyclone Nilam.
"The district has a clear contingency plan; each department including the police, fire and rescue services have been allotted specific work like clearing fallen trees, evacuating people etc. and all 21 cyclone shelters are ready," the Collector of Nagapattinam Mr T Munusamy told
In the former French colony of Pondicherry, a 46-year-old man drowned when he was swept into the turbulent sea while walking along the coast
An earlier government bulletin had said the cyclone would likely cause flooding of low-lying areas, extensive damage to thatched roofs and huts and also uproot large trees, leading to power blackouts and communication problems.
Local authorities said they were preparing helicopters and boats for any emergency. Existing cyclone shelters, schools and community halls have also been identified to serve as potential relief camps.
Many shops, government offices and private companies closed early to allow people to travel home before the cyclone struck.
Neighbouring Sri Lanka on Tuesday allowed thousands of people who had been evacuated to return to their homes after the storm, which had been expected to hit the island, changed course and moved towards India.
The last cyclone in India struck in the same southeast region in January, claiming 42 lives and leaving a trail of destruction across Tamil Nadu.
India and Bangladesh are hit regularly by cyclones that develop in the Bay of Bengal between April and November, causing widespread damage to homes, livestock and crops.
Chennai Corporation Commissioner Dr D Karthikeyan has said that the city is prepared for the cyclone. "All field officials have been asked to stay in their field offices at night; 280 corporation schools and 4 community kitchens are ready to be used as temporary relief centres; police and corporation officials would work together; we will move boats to vulnerable areas as well," Dr Karthikeyan said.
The crew member drowned after a life boat carrying him and 21 colleagues capsized in choppy waters off Besant Nagar locality in south Chennai in high velocity winds just hours before the cyclone hit the coast. He was brought dead to a hospital while 15 others were rescued.
They had attempted to escape using the life boat after the ship with 37 crew ran aground having been drifted by high velocity winds. Two others are in a serious condition, Chennai Port Trust officials said.
Navy, Coast Guard and other agencies are searching for the remaining six. The other 15 remained onboard the Pratibha Cauvery, the officials said.
In Puducherry, a 46-year-old man slipped into the rough sea and drowned when he, along with his friends, was walking on the pier to see the sea conditions during the cyclonic storm.
Authorities were relieved as the storm, forecast to be accompanied by wind speeds reaching 110 kmph, made landfall with a maximum speed of only 65-75 kmph, saving the state from large-scale destruction.
About 4,000 people residing close to coast in Mahabalipuram, a famous tourist spot known for its temples and sculptures, were evacuated to safer places, officials said.
“Cyclonic storm NILAM moved north-northwestwards, crossed north Tamil Nadu coast near Mahabalipuram, south of Chennai between 4pm and 5pm today,” a weather bulletin from the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.
The system, which brought heavy showers in several parts of the state in the last two days, would move northwestwards and weaken into a deep depression during the next six hours.
It would continue to bring more rainfall over north coastal Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, even up to 25cm or more, the bulletin said.
“Rainfall at most places with isolated heavy to very heavy falls would also occur over south coastal Andhra Pradesh, Rayalaseema and north interior Tamil Nadu during next 24 hours,” it added.
A top government official said that Nilam is unlikely to be as devastating as cyclone Sandy that tore through the northeast US and other areas.
A storm surge of up to 1.5m was expected to flood low-lying areas of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, IMD said. On Monday, comparable surges triggered by Sandy were at least 3m above normal.
To be sure, Sandy’s impact on several US cities was exacerbated by several other unrelated atmospheric events in combination with each other.
“We don’t expect anything like that,” Shailesh Nayak, secretary, ministry of earth sciences, said in a text message.
State authorities turned 282 schools into relief centres in Chennai. The city’s port halted cargo operations. Twenty three ships were moved to safer areas.
About 150,000 people were moved to shelters in Nellore district in Andhra Pradesh, district official B. Sridhar said.
In Sri Lanka, authorities said two people were killed and thousands displaced due to heavy rain and strong winds from the storm.
Sri Lanka’s disaster management centre said 4,627 people across the island nation had been displaced by flooding, while 56 were evacuated in the central region because of threats of landslides.
One woman died on Tuesday after a tree branch fell on her, while another person was killed in flooding, the agency said. Floods also damaged about 1,000 houses
Cyclone ‘Nilam’ nears TN coast Kalpakkam Nuke plant goes on alert With cyclone 'Nilam' intensifying into a severe storm, Madras Atomic Power Station at coastal Kalpakkam on Wednesday said the situation was being "closely watched" and asserted the plant is designed to withstand a wind velocity of 160 kmph.
Presently, both the reactors at MAPS were operating "safely", its Director K Ramamurthy said in a statement as 'Nilam' cyclone was expected to cross Tamil Nadu-Andhra Coast close to Chennai this evening.
The Met office has forecast gusty winds with a maximum surface wind speed of 45 kmph to 110 kmph. "Kalpakkam being a coastal site (about 55 km from Chennai), all the structures and equipment were designed to withstand even the wind velocity of 160 km per hour," he said.
Ramamurthy said all agencies have been instructed to be on standby alert. Additional personnel have been deployed to keep vigil on "important systems" and "the situation is being watched closely for any developments and to take immediate appropriate action
The Congress-led UPA Government at the Centre stood for protecting the interests of big corporate houses in the country, CPI (M) state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan said Tuesday.
Inaugurating a national seminar on Assault Against Women organized by the Party Kozhikode North and South Area Committees, he said this was evident from shifting Petroleum Minister S Jaipal Reddy in the recent cabinet rejig by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Stating it was not an appropriate political step, he said Reddy was divested off Petroleum portfolio on behest of a major industrial house in the country.
On the ill-treatment meted out to Sunanda Pushkar, wife of Union Minister of State for Human Resource Development Sashi Tharoor at a reception accorded to the latter yesterday, he said it reflected the culture of the Congress Party. The police, responsible to protect her, remained a mute spectator to the incident in Thiruvananthapuram yesterday, he said.
Launching a scathing attack on communal forces, he said these forces had grown to the extent of even dictating on the attire of women in the state. Congress-led UDF government in the state took a lenient attitude towards misdeeds of these forces, he alleged. Accusing the communal forces for denying social freedom to women, he said efforts should be made to alienate them and their design by the society. These forces had also attempted to deny education to women to meet their agenda, he said. Calling upon the class movement to take up the issues relating to women aimed at their empowerment, he said shrinking responsibilities by them would denigrate the movement.
The state government will take over the Pariyaram Medical College Hospital, said Cooperative Minister C N Balakrishnan. The last cabinet meet had decided to take over the hospital, he said.
The minister said the employees of the hospital would be retained and the legal side of it is being examined. The finance department has been entrusted to calculate the assets and liabilities of the hospital differently.
When asked him about CMP general secretary M V Raghavan’s demand for fresh elections after dissolving the administration panel of the hospital, the minister told them to
the former about it.
M V Jayarajan had earlier stated that the government takeover of the college will not be opposed if all the existing employees of the hospital are absorbed as government
Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh reshuffled his Cabinet after inducting 22 including seven cabinet ministers, two Ministers of State with independent charge and 13 Ministers of State.
Mr. Suresh told the media from Delhi that he had received an invite from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for the swearing-in ceremony that is scheduled to take place Sunday morning. Mr. Tharoor’s inclusion in the Ministry is still in the realm of speculation, but there are sufficient hints that he will get another stint in the Union Council of Ministers. Reports from the national capital indicate that the move to induct Mr. Tharoor into the Cabinet has come from the highest level of the Congress.
For Mr. Suresh, who was brought up by his mother braving straitened circumstances after his father’s death when he was a class four student, this will be a big break. He has served as Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) secretary and been discharging duties as convener of SC/ST MPs and also Congress MPs from Kerala. He has all along been a strong camp follower of Mr. Antony.
Mr. Suresh’s election to the Lok Sabha from the Mavelikara reserved constituency in 2009 had come under a serious question when the Kerala High Court declared the election void over a question of his caste. However, a Division Bench of the Supreme Court, comprising present Chief Justice Altamas Kabir and Justice A.K. Patnaik, reversed the High Court’s judgment.
If the two Congress MPs get the nod, Kerala would get its biggest ever contingent of eight in the Union Ministry. The State now has six members in the Union Ministry, two of them—A.K. Antony and Vayalar Ravi—Cabinet Ministers. Five of the present Ministers are from the Congress and one from the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML). If Mr. Suresh and Mr. Tharoor are inducted, the number of Congress Ministers from the State will go up to seven. Some changes in the portfolios being held by Overseas Indian Affairs Minister Vayalar Ravi and Union Ministers of State K.V. Thomas, and K.C. Venugopal are also being talked about, but there is as yet no confirmation of this.
Former Union Minister Shashi Tharoor and MP from Thiruvananthapuram and five-time Member of Parliament Kodikkunnil Suresh from Mavelikkara were inducted into the Union Council of Ministers. After the induction of the two, the state has got the biggest ever contingent of eight in the union ministry.
Mr. Tharoor, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs in the second UPA Cabinet, was forced to submit his resignation on April 18, 2010, following his involvement in the controversy over the Indian Premier League (IPL) Kochi franchisee.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had asked him to tender his resignation amid mounting political pressure over the controversy. If he does get to be sworn in, it would be a major reversal of fortunes for him.
Shashi Tharoor was given Human Resource Development and Kodikkunnil Suresh Labour & Employment.
The seven cabinet ministers sworn were K Rahman Khan, Dinsha Patel, Ajay Maken, Pallam Raju, Aswini Kumar, Harish Rawat and Chandresh Kumari Katoch. Of the seven new ministers sworn in with Cabinet rank, only two are new faces. The rest, including Ajay Maken and MM Pallam Raju, have been elevated from minister of state rank.
Manish Tiwari and Chiranjeevi were sworn in as Ministers of State with independent charge.
Other Ministers of State sworn in are Tariq Anwar, K Jayasurya Prakash Reddy, Rani Nara, Adeer Ranjan Choudhary, A H Khan Chaudhary, Sarvey Satya Narayana, Ninong Iring, Deepadas Munshi, Porika Balram Naik, Kriparani Killi and Lalchand.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Defence Minister A K Antony, Vice President Hamid Ansari, ministers, opposition leader Sushma Swaraj and many others attended the function.
Thousands of people from various walks of life on Saturday took part in the CPI-M-sponsored human chain here pressing for speedy implementation of the Rs 5,181 crore Kochi Metro Rail project, the foundation stone of which was laid by Prime minister Manmohan Singh last month.
The protesters forming the human chain along a distance of 25 km route from Aluva-Petta also demanded that the execution of the project should be handed over to Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) and Metroman E Sreedharan.
They included CPI(M) state Secretary, Pinarayi Vijayan, former Supreme court judge V R Krishna Iyer, film director Ranjith, former Ministers S Sharma, M K Premachandran, Binoy Vishwam, M M Lawrence, P Rajeev, MP, former Union Minister, P C Thomas.
The protestors criticised the state government's "lackadaisical" attitude in appointing Sreedharan to head the Kochi Metro project. Besides CPI(M), various organisations including the Merchants Association participated.
A crucial Kochi Metro Board meeting on Oct 19 here had failed to take a decision on the agency which will execute the project. The board was informed that DMRC will not take any work outside Delhi without permission of its board.
Meanwhile, Kerala Ports Minister K Babu alleged that the previous CPI(M) led LDF-Government had failed to do anything for the Kochi Metro project.
It was ironic that now, they were launching agitations for the project's speedy implementation
Kodikunnil Suresh, senior Congress MP from Mavelikkara constituency in Kerala, will certainly become union minister in the cabinet revamp in the cabinet revamp scheduled for tomorrow (Sunday).
The credentials of Suresh lie in the fact that he had won five times as an MP and that nobody from a Dalit background from Kerala has not yet included in the union cabinet. Suresh also had gathered the support from Defence Minister A.K. Antony.
Sources say that a senior minister from Kerala will be either elevated as governor or given position of the party’s national level.
Kodikunnil Suresh was elected to the Lok Sabha for the first time in 1989 and thereafter in the 1991, 1996, 1999 General Elections to the Lok Sabha from Adoor Constituency. He was defeated in the 1998, 2004 elections. He served as the member of the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee and member of AICC.
Meantime, External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna, a former Chief Minister of Karnataka, sent his resignation to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh after apparently being told of plans to revamp the Cabinet. It has since been accepted.
Krishna, who was surprisingly made the External Affairs Minister after 2009 elections, said he was stepping down to pave the way for youngsters and strengthen the hands of leadership for strengthening the party.
There were indications that he could be asked to lead the Congress in Karnataka where assembly polls are due next year.
Late in the night, reports emerged that Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni and Social Justice Minister Mukul Wasnik also had offered to quit working for the party.
Whether Rahul Gandhi would join the government is still a matter of conjecture even as the Prime Minister held consultations with Congress President Sonia Gandhi for about an hour, apparently to give final touches to the exercise.
Some more Ministers are likely to quit ahead of the reshuffle, which could be the last before the Lok Sabha elections slated for 2014.
Among the probables for induction are Chiranjeevi, whose 18 MLAs provide stability to the Congress government in Andhra Pradesh after the merger of his party PRP.
Speculation is that former Chief Minister K. Vijay Bhaskar Reddy's son Surya Prakash and two MPs from Telengana region are likely to be made union ministers.
From West Bengal, where ally Trinamool Congress quit the UPA two months back, Congress MPs A.H. Khan Chowdhury, brother of late Ghani Khan Chowdhury, PCC President Pradeep Bhattacharya and Deepa Dasmunsi are among those being said to be considered for induction.
Trinamool had six ministers in the Council of Ministers, including one at the Cabinet level.
The possible names of the successors in the External Affairs Ministry include Commerce Minister Anand Sharma and Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal. The other changes could include ministers holding dual portfolio shedding one of their responsibilities.
Younger ministers like Sachin Pilot, Milind Deora and Jyotiraditya Scindia are likely to be upgraded in the exercise.
There have been berths vacated by DMK representatives A. Raja and Dayanidhi Maran in the last two years after their names cropped in the 2G scam. However, DMK President M. Karunanidhi had recently made clear that his party will not like to reclaim their lost berths.
Thursday also Minister of State in the PMO V. Narayanasamy met Karunanidhi at his residence in Chennai when DMK leader is believed to have stuck to his position.
There is speculation that some young faces, considered close to Rahul, like Manicka Tagore and Meenakshi Natarajan could be inducted into the council of ministers.
With the death of Vilasrao Deshmukh, there is a vacancy for a cabinet minister from Maharashtra.
Tourism Minister Subodh Kant Sahai and Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaisawal have come under attack from the Opposition on the coal block allocation issue.
Yet another M'wood bachelor, Vineeth Sreenivasan, will enter wedlock in a traditional Hindu ceremony on Wednesday in Kannur. After keeping his love affair under the wraps for eight years, the actor finally revealed the details about his long-term girlfriend Divya Narayanan after the success of his latest romantic flick, 'Thatthathin Marayathu'.
Who does not enjoy being in the limelight? But here's Vineeth Sreenivasan, who despite being an actor, director, playback singer and lyricist, does not prefer to make public appearances, apart from the promotional events for his movies.
Vineeth, who is getting married to his long-term girlfriend Divya Narayanan on October 18 in Kannur, does not want his wedding ceremony to be an extravagant affair.
wedding ceremony was a grand affair, with Mollywood celebrities and politicians walking the red carpet, dressed in their glamorous best. Vineeth and his wife Divya Narayanan dazzled in traditional attires.
We spotted celebrities like Samvrutha Sunil, Lal Jose, Nivin Pauly, Aju Varghese, Shaan Rahman, Jagdeesh, Bhagath Manuel, Vineeth Kumar and many more at the do. The guests caught up with each other after savouring a sumptuous traditional sadya. The venue was packed with Vineeth's fans, and the guests had a tough time making their way through.
The guests were indeed surprised to see the groom, Vineeth, in a rather different look. Unlike his usual casual avatar, Vineeth looked charismatic in a black suit with gelled, spiked hair. His bride Divya Narayanan sported a simple look, dressed in a coral blue sari embellished with sequins.
Interestingly, the function saw a rare public appearance of some of the celebrity wives. Mammootty's wife Sulfath, his daughter-in-law and actor Dulquer Salmaan's wife Amal Sufia, and Nivin Pauly's wife Rinna and son Daveed were spotted at the do.
As the guests caught up with each other, more than sharing the latest gossip and filmi news, they had a lot to talk about the exquisite dinner spread out in a huge hall. Chettinadu and north-Indian delicacies were the highlight. Producer and chef Naushad made the perfect host for the evening, as he guided the guests to try out the special dishes on the menu.
While a majority of guests left the venue soon after the dinner, a few of Vineeth's close friends and relatives stayed back until the bride and the groom made the exit.
