NEWS

New Delhi: The Centre is preparing a digital atlas with maps of flood-prone areas which will give real-time information and warnings about any rise in the water level of local rivers and streams that can inundate crops and homes.
Officials in the water resources ministry said, this project of the Central Water Commission with the help of the Survey of India and the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) of the Indian Space Research Organisation will help local administrations reduce the loss of life and damage to property during floods.
Countries such as the United States are already using digital flood maps successfully. But the flood warning system in India is based on water-level forecasting, which tries to predict how much the level will rise by calculating the flow of water into dams and reservoirs, the officials said.

New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation quizzed former deputy governor of Reserve Bank of India Harun Rashid Khan on Friday in connection with its probe into the Rs 13,600 crore Punjab National Bank fraud involving absconding jewellersNiravModi and MehulChoksi.
Khan was asked about the policy framework at the time when letters of undertaking (LoUs) were fraudulently issued by colluding PNB officials to Modi and Choksi; the statutory audit of the bank and also the 20:80 gold import scheme cleared by the UPA government when P Chidambaram was finance minister, sources said.

New Delhi: Tamil film industry actor-turned-politicians Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan observed a silent protest on Sunday demanding setting up of the Cauvery Management Board (CMB) amid calls for organisers to stop Indian Premier League games in Chennai. Before joining the protest at Valluvarkottam in central Chennai, Rajinikanth questioned the timing of conducting the T20 cricket tournament in the state.
“It will be nice if IPL is not played this time in Chennai, understanding the plight of the farmers due to severe shortage of water,” he told journalists outside his house before heading to the protest site.
Rajinikanth added that if it was not possible to withdraw at this stage, then the players should wear black badges to highlight the plight of the state’s farmers.

New Delhi:  In a dramatic recall of an IndiGo flight from the runway as it was about to take off for Hyderabad a jeweller and his son were arrested on Friday by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence for attempting to illegally carry gold jewellery worth over Rs 16 crore. The arrests came two days after the two were detained at Kolkata airport.

The jeweller, Sanjay Kumar Agarwal, had boarded the flight using a ticket booked in the name of his son, who was simultaneously booked on an Emirates flight from Kolkata to Dubai and had already checked in. The gold, which was an export consignment supposed to be carried by the son to Dubai, was instead recovered from the father on the recalled IndiGo flight. The jeweller was allegedly diverting gold, meant specifically for export, for sale in India.