Delhi Rains Highlights: IMD issues ‘orange alert’ for Delhi-NCR, traffic alerts issued amid felling of trees and waterlogging

The fatalities in road accidents have increased by four per cent compared to last year's data till August 15, according to Delhi Police.

As per the police's crime statistics, accessed by PTI, a total of 831 fatal accidents took place this year till August 15, which is an increase of 4.01 per cent from 2023, during which 799 accidents during the same period were fatal.

In 2022, as many as 793 such incidents took place till August 15.

The data showed that a total of 1,432 and 1,428, cases of fatal accidents were reported in 2023 and 2022, respectively, in the national capital.

However, the cases of simple accidents have dropped by one per cent with this year's tally of 2,596, compared to 2,624 in 2023, till August 15. (PTI)

Delhi in August received 378.5 mm of rainfall -- the city's highest in 12 years, according to the India Meteorological Department.

The Safdarjung Observatory registered 378.5 mm of rainfall till Thursday, surpassing the previous high of 321.4 mm recorded in August 2013, the IMD said.

The highest precipitation in last 15 years was recorded in 2010 when the city received 455.1 mm of rainfall, IMD data shows. (PTI)

Heavy overnight rainfall caused waterlogging, traffic congestion, and power outages in several areas of Gurugram on Thursday.

Traffic movement, especially on the Delhi-Gurugram Expressway, slowed to a crawl during peak hours due to the waterlogging.
Areas such as Rajiv Chowk, Golf Course Extension Road, Railway Road, Subhash Chowk, Udyog Vihar, and Narsinghpur, among others, were also inundated.

Waterlogging in parts of old Gurugram, including Sadar Bazar, Gurdwara Road, and Old Delhi Road, led to traffic jams that lasted till the afternoon. 

A senior traffic police officer said vehicular movement was choked near the Sirhaul border, Rajiv Chowk, Narsinghpur and some other locations in the morning.

Power outages were also reported from different areas of the city.

The local Met office said Gurugram recorded 6 mm rainfall in a 24-hour period. Light to moderate rainfall is expected during the day. PTI

The Delhi High Court on Thursday refused to quash the criminal defamation proceedings in a complaint lodged by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Rajiv Babbar against Shashi Tharoor in 2020 and directed the Congress MP and other parties to remain present before the trial court on September 10.

The court of Justice Anoop Kumar Mendiratta held that “no grounds are made out for quashing” the defamation proceedings against Tharoor and observed that it is expedient that the trial court continues the proceedings. The court also vacated the stay on the proceedings that it had directed in 2020. A detailed verdict is yet to be made public. Read More

A 72-year-old man was booked for allegedly threatening a woman doctor and her colleagues at Sanjay Gandhi Memorial Hospital in Delhi and using abusive language against them on Wednesday.

The doctor lodged a complaint at the Mangolpuri police station, identifying the man as Bhupendra Singh.

The Delhi Police arrested a man who was trying to get inside the Parliament building with a “forged entry pass”, which had purportedly manipulated the date of issue, on Tuesday morning.

“The person, identified as one Danveer Singh, approached the CISF staff and showed his entry pass. However, the same seemed to have manipulations with the date of its issue and hence he was apprehended and taken into custody,” said Devesh Mahla, Deputy Commissioner of Police, New Delhi. Read More

Former BJP MP and Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) ex-president Brij Bhushan Singh sought the quashing of all criminal proceedings against him over allegations of sexual assault of wrestlers before the Delhi High Court on Thursday. He argued that there is “a hidden agenda” behind the complaints against him as he was the president of WFI at the time.

Submitting that there is “no commonality of the cause”, Singh’s counsel Rajiv Mohan argued that “because he (Singh) was president of WFI and the common agenda was to remove him from the post of president”.

A DTC low-floor bus carrying around 50 passengers was completely gutted after catching fire in east Delhi's Jagatpuri area on Thursday, officials said.

No passengers were injured in the incident as all were rescued shortly after the bus caught fire, the officials added.

Station Officer of Delhi Fire Service (DFS), Anoop Singh said a call was received at 9.42 am and three fire tenders were rushed to the spot to douse the flames.

The cause of the fire is suspected to be a short circuit in the vehicle's air conditioning system, Singh said. The Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) bus was en route to Seemapuri when the incident took place, he added.

An eyewitness, Surender Bhola, said a biker noticed smoke coming from the bus engine. He alerted the bus driver, who immediately stopped the vehicle and instructed the passengers to get off, Bhola said. According to the eyewitness, there were around 50 passengers in the bus and all were rescued.

The incident caused a massive traffic jam at the Jagatpuri traffic light, affecting other commuters. Traffic police later managed to regulate the flow, the DFS officer said.
(With PTI inputs)

The Delhi High Court on Thursday extended the interim protection from arrest for suspended IAS officer Puja Khedkar. The extension remains in effect until the next hearing date which is September 5, 2024.

Justice Subramonium Prasad of the Delhi High Court has deferred the hearing on suspended IAS officer Pooja Khedkar's anticipatory bail plea to September 5.

The deferral was due to the Delhi Police sought time to go through the rejoinder filed by the applicant Puja Khedkar and also to file a fresh status report.

Puja Khedkar, facing allegations of cheating and improperly securing OBC and disability quota benefits, through her rejoinder in the Delhi High Court informed that the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) lacks the authority to disqualify her. Khedkar argued that the UPSC, which administers the civil services examination, does not have the jurisdiction to disqualify candidates in such matters.
(With ANI inputs)

Delhi HC grants time to ex-BJP MP Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh to file note on contentions seeking quashing of FIR, charges framed against him in sexual harassment case lodged by several women wrestlers.
(PTI)

The online Passport Seva Portal will remain unavailable from 8 pm today (Thursday) to 6 am on September 2 (Monday).

The public notice stated that all appointments booked on August 30 have been rescheduled, and applicants will be informed about the rescheduled dates via SMS on their registered numbers.

The temporary shutdown of services is due to technical maintenance.

passportindia.gov.in

According to the Nowcast warning by IMD valid till 11 am, an orange alert (be prepared or updated) has been issued in the entire Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR).

The Delhi Traffic Police issued several traffic alerts due to water logging and the uprooting of a tree.

?The tree fallen instance was reported on MB Road in the carriageway from Sangam Vihar towards Badarpur.
?Waterlogging affected areas include the Outer Ring Road in the carriageway from Bhera Roundabout towards Peeragarhi
?MB road in the carriageway from Badarpur towards Mehrauli
?GGR/ PDR underpass,
?Ring Road under Dhaula Kuan Flyover,
?Near APS colony under GGR flyover,
?Rohtak Road in the carriageway from Nangloi towards Tikri Border,
?MB Road in both the carriageways from Khanpur towards Shooting Range T-Point.

Pharma companies such as Alkem Laboratories and Entod Pharmaceuticals Pvt Ltd and others have moved the Delhi High Court seeking that the government’s recent notification banning 156 fixed-dose combination (FDC) drugs be quashed.

Taken up briefly for hearing before the division bench of Acting Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela on Wednesday, the companies also pressed for interim relief, seeking that the existing stock of the now-banned drugs manufactured before the notification came into operation, and available with the stockists and retailers at present, be permitted to be exhausted.

Former BJP MP Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh has moved Delhi High Court seeking quashing of all criminal proceedings, including the FIR and chargesheet accusing him of sexual assault on women wrestlers during his tenure as Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) Chief.

Singh is also seeking that the charges framed against him by a Delhi trial court, too, be quashed.

Disposing of a public interest litigation (PIL) by lawyer Gantavya Gulati highlighting the absence of an equivalent to Indian Penal Code (IPC) Section 377 (unnatural offences) in the newly enacted Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), the Delhi High Court on Wednesday directed the Union government to treat the plea as a representation and decide on the same “as expeditiously as possible, preferably in six months”.

A bench of Acting Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela observed that “prima facie, to this court, while the perpetrator has been made gender neutral thereby permitting any gender to be recognised as the wrongdoer, the gender of the victim remains specified as a woman”.

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday granted four more weeks to the Centre to respond to a petition by the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) challenging its suspension.

The Centre had suspended the WFI on Dec. 24, 2023, three days after it elected new office bearers, for allegedly not following the provisions of its own constitution while making decisions.

The Centre sought four more weeks to file response to the plea which first came up for hearing in April, saying that it was awaiting the decision of the high court on a petition by certain wrestlers challenging the election held in the WFI last year.

The counsel for the petitioner asserted that the Centre does not "care about" the court's earlier directions asking it to file the reply, news agency PTI reported. 

More than 4,000 children aged below five have died due to different illnesses like sepsis, pneumonia, and septic shock at the Delhi government-run Chacha Nehru Bal Chikitsalaya from 2019 till June this year, according to data obtained through an RTI, news agency PTI reported. 

The highest number of these deaths was recorded in 2019 at 875, while the lowest number of fatalities was recorded at 548 last year. A total of 314 deaths were reported this year until June.

In 2020 and 2021, when the country grappled with multiple waves of the COVID-19 pandemic, the facility for children witnessed 866 and 626 deaths, news agency PTI reported. 

A month after three civil service aspirants drowned in the flooded basement of Rau’s IAS Study Circle in Old Rajinder Nagar, a Delhi court on Wednesday rejected an application moved by the CEO of the coaching centre, requesting access to the building.

Last week, Senior Advocate Rebecca John, representing Abhishek Gupta, informed the court of Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Nishant Garg that he wants access to the building so that students can continue studying. John also argued that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) couldn’t seal the building as that was the responsibility of other civil authorities.

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) will hold ward committee elections on September 4 to appoint chairpersons and deputy chairpersons for each of its 12 zonal bodies, as per an official notice.

The elections will be conducted via secret ballot in line with the Delhi Municipal Corporation Regulations of 1958.

Councillors have until August 30 to submit their nominations to the municipal secretary.

Polling for six MCD zones—City and SP Zone, Rohini Zone, Najafgarh Zone, West Zone, South Zone, and Central Zone—will take place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Hansraj Gupta Auditorium at the civic body headquarters, news agency PTI reported.

Delhi Mayor Shelly Oberoi inspected waste collection centres in West Zone’s Tilak Nagar and Vikaspuri wards on Tuesday, and found garbage piled up and spread onto the main roads. She directed private waste management agencies and Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) officials to clear the waste within two days and repair all collection centres.

Oberoi said she would revisit the areas for inspection after two days. During the inspection, the mayor also found a 2-3 km stretch of road near one of the collection centres in Vikaspuri ward covered with garbage to the extent that the road had to be closed. The mayor also instructed the zonal deputy commissioner to beautify the area once the garbage was cleared.

An yellow alert has been issued for Southwest and Southeast Delhi-NCR. There is no alert for northern areas of Delhi-NCR, according to weather department.

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