Thiruvananthapuram: Monsoon will be delayed by two-three days this year, the weather office said on Saturday.

The Indian Metrological Department (IMD) further said that heat wave conditions in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana will prevail till the onset of the monsoon, and added that there had been a drop in temperature in the coastal regions of Andhra Pradesh.

“In next 2-3 days monsoon may enter Kerala,” ANI quoted Meteorological Department (IMD) official M Narsimha Rao as saying.

“In the last week of May and in the first week of June, before the onset of monsoon, the severe heat wave conditions will prevail. This is a normal trend, but this year, the heat wave conditions developed after May 20, particularly in Telangana, is continuing till now. The conditions are very severe in Hyderabad, Nizamabad, Karim Nagar, Warangal and Nalgonda districts,” he added.

Earlier, the weather office had predicted the arrival of the Monsoon by May 30.

Strong winds from north westerly direction having a speed of 45-55 kmph were likely to hit the Kerala coast and Lakshadweep during the next 24 hours commencing from 2 pm on Friday, another India Meteorological Department (IMD) official had said earlier.

The official also warned fishermen not to venture into the sea in view of the strong winds.

Scanty rainfall was recorded at most places over Lakshadweep, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka on Friday.

The IMD in its long range prediction, forecast a ‘below normal’ monsoon rainfall pattern over the entire south-west monsoon season this year.

Meanwhile, the death toll in Andhra Pradesh, due to intense heat wave, has reached 1636. The most affected districts in the state were Prakasam and Guntur with 333 and 233 deaths respectively.

Authorities in Andhra Pradesh have cancelled doctors’ leave and advised people not to head outside in the middle of the day to avoid the worst of the heat.

However for many people, staying indoors isn’t much better as the weather conditions have also resulted in frequent power cuts.

New Delhi/Chennai: The National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) has sent a notice to IIT Madras over the controversial ban of a students group whose members are mainly Dalits even as DMK Chief M Karunanidhi on Sunday sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “direct intervention” for revocation of the order.

IIT-M is in the eye of a storm over derecognition of Ambedkar Periyar Study Circle(APSC) on Friday following a complaint that it was critical of Modi. The action had led to protests by political parties including Congress and AAP.

BJP, meanwhile, said the Union Government was not behind the decision as it was taken by the administration of the institute on grounds of misuse of privileges and violation of guidelines.

NCSC Chairman PL Punia told PTI today that a notice has been issued to IIT-M and a reply has been sought.

“I have issued a notice to the institute and sought its reply after taking note of the incident myself. We will take action in this regard,” Punia said, adding, “Youngsters must get freedom of speech on campuses. Imposing bans thus is like suppressing their voices. This is completely wrong.”

He further accused the Centre of being “insensitive” towards the marginalised sections and claimed that the number of anti-Dalit incidents had increased ever since the Modi government came to power.

“Such incidents have increased. These are not minor incidents, but serious ones,” said Punia, who is a Congress Rajya Sabha MP.

While seeking Modi’s intervention for revoking the order immediately to ensure that peace and a healthy atmosphere prevailed at the institute, Karunanidhi castigated Union HRD Minister Smriti Irani for “authoritarian” interference that allegedly led to the derecognition of the students group.

“Because of this incident, the otherwise peacefully functioning institute has turned into a war zone,” he said.

Without naming Irani, he said that “unilateral” and “authoritarian” interference by Modi’s ministers on such issues will impact both the youth of the country and the nation’s peace.

“Though it seems that Prime Minister Modi doesn’t place importance on needless issues like banning a democratic group, his ministers interfering unilaterally and in an authoritarian manner in such issues will impede youth’s thought process and affect the nation’s peace,” Karunanidhi said in a statement released in Chennai.

BJP National Secretary H Raja said the Union Government was not behind the ban on APSC.

“The decision to derecognise and ban the students’ group was taken by the IIT- Madras administration on grounds of misuse of privileges and violation of guidelines,” he told PTI.

New Delhi, May 28 (PTI) Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy today called on Dr Abin Suri who survived the devastating earthquake in Nepal and is recuperating at AIIMS here.

According to hospital sources, Chandy visited the hospital at 5.30 PM and interacted with Suri for about 15 minutes.

It may be recalled that a pleasure trip to Nepal by three young doctors from Kerala turned tragic with two of them losing their lives in the killer quake and another managing to survive with serious injuries last month.

While Dr Deepak Thomas from Kannur and Dr A S Irshad from Kasaragod were killed in the earthquake, Dr Suri, who was also part of the group, managed to escape with injuries.

The three doctors, working at National Health Rural Mission programme at Mananthavady in Waynad district, had gone to Kathmandu for an excursion in April.

Srinagar, May 28 (PTI) Reserve Bank Governor Raghuram Rajan today said it was a ‘worthwhile ambition’ to pursue Make In India campaign but cautioned that the whole effort should not be made towards producing for overseas markets as global slowdown could create problems.

The Reserve Bank chief also underlined the need for creating conducive regulatory atmosphere and infrastructure for promoting manufacturing and services sector.

“It is a worthwhile ambition to make in India, to produce in India. Let us not think too much where do we sell. Let us create the conditions both for manufacturing and service jobs.

We may end up with world class service firms, a few world class manufacturing firms and a few extraordinary domestic firms which are focused on domestic market,” he said.

The RBI governor, who is on a two-day visit to Kashmir, was replying to questions of students from Kashmir University’s Business School at SKICC here.

“The beautiful thing is that you do not have to choose who we produce for. What we need to do is build up the infrastructure, work on simplifying business regulations and build good human capital,” he said.

Rajan, however, added that the Modi government’s flagship scheme should not entirely focus on outside markets.

“By all means we should try our best to produce for the world but if the world is growing slowly, there would not be as much demand as when the world is growing fast,” he added.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had launched Make In India campaign in September last year to make the country a hub of global manufacturing and create jobs for growing population.

New Delhi, May 28 (PTI) Former Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi today met Prime Minister Narendra Modi here, further fuelling speculation on a possible tie-up with BJP when he said he will be with a formation that is opposed to incumbent Nitish Kumar post-Assembly polls.

Parrying queries over any pre-poll alliance, he told reporters that he would partner with a formation which did not include Nitish Kumar, his former mentor and now a bitter critic.

Manjhi has launched his own outfit Hindustani Awam Morcha, after an unceremonious exit from the post of Chief Minister and JD(U).

Asked about RJD leader Lalu Prasad’s overtures to him to join a grand alliance, which is likely to include Kumar, against BJP, he said a tie-up between Prasad and Kumar is unlikely to work as RJD voters would not support Kumar while the JD(U) leader has a small voter base.

“If there is a need to ally with any party following the election, I will go with a formation which does not include Nitish Kumar,” he told reporters.

He claimed he met Modi to raise the issue of farmers’ plight in Bihar and demanded a CBI inquiry into alleged irregularities in paddy procurement.

Manjhi, a Mahadalit, is being eyed by the BJP-led NDA as well as Prasad as their new ally as the Mahadalit community has the potential of tilting the scale in favour of whichever major formation he chooses to align with.

Many believe that his populist policies when he was the Chief Minister, besides his sacking from the hot seat by JD(U), has generated some sympathy for him in his community even though he remains an untested commodity in the politically crucial state.

Prasad had recently proposed that Manjhi be included in the grand alliance against BJP, inviting sharp response from Kumar.

New Delhi, May 28 (PTI) In no mood to back down on the issue of jurisdiction over appointments, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is reaching out to non-BJP chief ministers to mount political pressure on the Modi government even as the matter reached court.

Kejriwal is conveying to chief ministers of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal among others that the Centre’s notification, throwing its weight behind Lt Governor Najeeb Jung, was detrimental to India’s federal structure and it may happen to their states as well.

Sources said Kejriwal is sending separate letters to his West Bengal counterpart Mamata Banerjee, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and Bihar’s Nitish Kumar.

They said AAP may separately approach leaders of major Opposition parties to persuade them to raise the issue during the monsoon session of the Parliament.

On May 25, Banerjee posted a few tweets putting her weight behind Kejriwal.

“Too much interference in the federal structure is unacceptable. The state govt is an elected body. Central govt is also an elected body,” one of her tweets said.

“Every elected body has its own jurisdiction. One must respect the other,” she said in another tweet.

Sources said Banerjee tweeted as Kejriwal called her up for “advice”.

Speaking at the assembly yesterday, Kejriwal had said that the notification conferring more powers on Lt Governor Najeeb Jung was part of an “experiment” to take the country towards “dictatorship”, asserting that it was ready for a long fight on the issue.

In the notification, the Centre had given absolute powers to the LG in appointment of bureaucrats while also clarifying that he need not “consult” the chief minister on subjects like police and public order.

The Anti-Corruption Bureau of the Delhi government, which is probing a number of high-profile case, has also been barred from registering any case against officers and political functionaries of the central government.

However, the Delhi High Court ruled that the ACB has the authority to probe central government officials, including Delhi Police personnel. The Centre has challenged the High Court order in the Supreme Court.

The AAP government also moved the Delhi High Court challenging the Centre’s notification.

The Delhi Assembly yesterday passed a resolution holding the notification “completely unconstitutional, illegal and invalid”.

Bareilly, May 28 (PTI) A 22-year-old student of MBBS at a local medical college here committed suicide in her hostel room here, police said.

When Priyanka Singh, who had taken admission in the MBBS course in SMRS medical college in 2012 , did not turn up for breakfast and lunch today, her friends went to her hostel room where she was found hanging from the ceiling fan, college PRO said.

The body has been sent for post mortem examination and reasons leading to the extreme step were being ascertained, said SP (rural) Brijesh Srivastava.

New Delhi, May 28 (PTI) Delhi Police are expecting to get former union minister Shashi Tharoor’s wife Sunanda Pushkar’s viscera report from US-based Federal Bureau of Investigation in the next 15 to 30 days, which is likely to throw light on the kind of poison that caused her death as concluded by AIIMS panel of doctors.

Police Commissioner B S Bassi said the polygraph test on three key witnesses in the case will be conducted in the next seven to ten days.

The investigators hoped both the viscera report and polygraph test will give a direction to the probe into the high-profile case.

Sunanda’s viscera samples were sent to the FBI lab in Washington in February to determine the type of poison that is suspected to have caused her death. An AIIMS medical board had identified poisoning as the reason behind her death but did not mention the type of the poison.

They had listed some kind of poisons most of which were radioactive isotopes that cannot be detected by labs in India.

Highly-placed sources said that the final viscera report is expected in the next 15 to 30 days.

Bassi rubbished media reports that the viscera report has been received.

“Certain media reports that we have received Sunanda’s viscera sample from FBI are baseless. FBI is aware of our need. There is a laid down procedure and guidelines which are followed in such cases before which the findings cannot be reached upon. We are still waiting for the report,” he told reporters.

Asked when the police would conduct the polygraph test on three witnesses, Bassi said that they have asked experts to give them a date and they hope to get it done in a week or ten days.

When questioned whether police will move court for polygraph test on other witnesses including Shashi Tharoor, Bassi said that he would not like to “speculate” on the issue.

Tharoor has been questioned thrice in this case so far.

Sunanda was found dead in a five-star hotel suite here on January 17 last year, a day after she was involved in a spat with Pakistani journalist Mehr Tarar on Twitter over the latter’s alleged affair with Tharoor.

Three suspects in Sunanda Pushkar murder case, two of them employed by Tharoor and the third, a friend, will undergo lie detector test after a Delhi court had on May 20 allowed investigators to conduct it following their consent.

Police have accused the three of concealing “material facts” like a power cut in room no. 345 at Leela Hotel on January 17, 2014 around 7 PM where Sunanda was found dead around 8 PM.

Berlin, May 27 (AFP) German authorities evacuated around 20,000 people from their homes in the western city of Cologne today after a World War II bomb was unearthed during construction work.

The unexploded US-made device, which lay five metres underground and was discovered Friday, was set to be defused later in the day, and river traffic on the nearby Rhine was to be halted during the operation, city officials said.

Residents living within a kilometre of the site have been told to leave their homes, among them around 1,100 people from a large old people’s and care home, they said.

Cologne Zoo, also within the danger zone, was to remain shut for the day.

Hundreds of police, firefighters and other helpers were involved in clearing the site for the city’s largest evacuation since the end of the war.

Seventy years after the end of fighting, parts of Germany remain riddled with unexploded bombs from the Allied campaigns, and construction workers regularly stumble upon them.

Srinagar, May 27 (PTI) An alleged drug peddler was held and over 100 kg of narcotics substance was recovered from his possession in Bandipora district of north Kashmir, police said today.

On a tip off, police arrested the peddler, identified as Lala Sheikh, a resident of Phali Pora village of Hakbara area of Hajin in the district, and recovered 102 kg of Bung and 1.1 kg of charas from his possession, a police spokesperson said.

He said police has registered a case under NDPS Act against him and investigation has been taken up.