Browsing: India

Chennai: Two school boys, aged 10 and 9 years, who had come to their grandmother’s house in Irumbedu village in Kancheepuram, drowned in a pond where they had gone fishing on Thursday evening.T Saran, 10, from Navalur near Somangalam, was a Class V student at a local school. He had been staying at his grandmother’s house in nearby Irumbedu village for summer vacation.On Thursday evening, Saran and his cousin nine-year-old Joshua went out to play. When they did not return by late evening, relatives went looking for them. A local shopkeeper told them the boys had purchased fishing hooks. Alarmed,…

Ahmedabad: A manager at a readymade garments showroom on CG Road has been accused of misappropriating Rs 1.54 lakh from sales cash meant for deposit in the company’s bank account, police said.A complaint was lodged at Navrangpura police station on Thursday. According to the complaint, the showroom follows a policy of depositing cash in the company account whenever the amount on hand reaches about Rs 8,000. The accused, who joined as manager in March last year, was responsible for customer billing, maintaining accounts and depositing daily cash collections.The alleged irregularity came to light when the company’s head office reviewed the…

Bhubaneswar: Odisha govt has prohibited strikes in power sector establishments across the state under the Odisha Essential Services (Maintenance) Act, 1988, to ensure uninterrupted generation, transmission and distribution of electricity, said an official statement from the energy department on Friday.This step was taken by govt in view of the summer and severe heatwave in different parts of the state. Electricity is very important for people apart from hospitals, industries and other sectors, said an energy department official.“State govt is satisfied that in the interest of public, it is necessary to prohibit strikes connected with the generation, transmission and distribution of…

A transformer blast at a Gurgaon substation plunged vast areas into darkness, highlighting the strain on NCR’s power grid amidst extreme heat and record demand. GURGAON: A transformer blast at a 220kV substation in Sector 72 plunged large parts of Gurgaon into darkness on Friday evening, exposing the mounting pressure on NCR’s power infrastructure as extreme heat and record electricity demand pushed systems to the brink.The outage, triggered by a technical fault that led to an oil leak and explosion in the current transfer circuit, disrupted supply across at least eight substations, stalled Rapid Metro services and left thousands of…

Governor Lakshman Prasad Acharya receives a warm welcome from Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma Guwahati: Assam is poised to become a power-surplus state soon, with construction already underway on projects involving 3,200 MW of supercritical thermal power capacity and 4,200 MW of pumped storage hydropower, Governor Lakshman Prasad Acharya said in the state assembly on Friday.During the current year, the peak power demand in Assam is projected to reach nearly 3,100 MW, and this demand is expected to rise substantially by 2031 in line with rapid industrial and economic growth.The Governor, while addressing the newly elected assembly on Friday, said…

Kanpur: A fire broke out in shops on the ground floor of a four-storey building in Maniram Bagiya under the Pheelkhana police station area on Friday, triggering panic in the locality. However, the fire department safely evacuated the trapped people from the building and no casualties were reported.According to reports, the control room, upon receiving information dispatched five fire tenders from the fire station Latouche Road, Colonelganj and Fazalganj, to the spot.On reaching the site, fire personnel found that the ground floor shops of the 4-storey building, located in a narrow lane, were engulfed in flames, with a considerable number…

Many businesses are passing on the rise in packaging prices to final product costs that the customer shells out for Pune: The sharp spike in raw material costs for plastic packaging has affected kirana stores, restaurants, bakers and several consumer-facing business owners.“Prices for the plastic that we use to pack chikki are up by almost 50% per bag. There is no alternative material we can use, so we have to buy it. We will be passing on the price hike to consumers if prices don’t go down,” Ramesh Kumar, a chikki seller in Lonavala, told TOI.Bakeries are also feeling the…

Panaji: Goa’s wildlife sanctuaries saw no major fires this summer, forest officials said, crediting predictive technology, faster field response and stronger coordination among locals and officials.Forest Survey of India data on fires in Goa’s protected areas from 2006 to 2026 shows incidents were low and sporadic between 2006 and 2017, with 1–7 cases a year. Numbers rose sharply from 2019.“To strengthen early warnings, the forest department has signed an MoU with BITS Pilani,” said principal chief conservator of forests (PCCF), Kamal Datta, and added that researchers are helping deploy mathematical and GIS-based models to assess fire risk, track weather conditions…

Chandigarh: Citing “growing concern” over stray dog attacks in several parts of Punjab, chief minister Bhagwant Mann on Friday said the Punjab govt will implement the Supreme Court’s directions on stray dogs in true letter and spirit, while ensuring both public safety and humane care for animals.Mann said an adequate number of dog shelters will be created and legally permissible measures, including euthanasia, in cases involving rabid, incurably ill or demonstrably dangerous and aggressive dogs, will be taken.Stressing that children, senior citizens and families must be able to move freely in public spaces without fear, Mann announced that stray dogs…

Lucknow: The licence fee for retail liquor shops has been slashed by 20% compared with the last financial year in order to make commercial operations of the leftover shops financially viable for entrepreneurs. The excise department has initiated the process of the fifth round of lottery draw for 660 shops that are up for grabs across UP. Since the department is chasing a target of Rs 71,278 crore for the 26-27 fiscal year, a decision to increase the number of retail vends was taken in order to cater to the population that has moved into the developing areas on the…