RAIN TAKES CITY BY SURPRISE, EXPECT CLOUDY SKIES TODAY

MUMBAI: The city on Thursday witnessed unseasonal rain, which the weather bureau said was owing to the “influence of active weather systems in the Arabian Sea”. The suburbs and island city recorded 1.2mm rain between5.30amand8.30am,with cloudy conditions continuing throughout the day.

The last time Mumbai recorded rain in December was when Cyclone Ockhi went past thecityonDecember5and6,2017, when53.8mmrainwasrecorded in the suburbs and 82.2mm in southMumbai.Itwasalsothealltime highest December rain for Mumbai.TheIndiaMeteorological Department (IMD), which said that cloudy conditions will continue in the city on Friday, announced that a deep depression in southwest Arabian Sea had developed into tropical CyclonePawan,thefifthcyclone in Arabian Sea this year and the eighthinthenorthIndianOcean in 2019.

“The tropical Cyclone Pawan and a weather depression [that weakened into a low pressure area] over east central Arabian Seamovedwest-northwestwards [about 700km west-southwest of Mumbai], led to active rainfall conditions for the west coast. Light drizzle was witnessed in Mumbai on early Thursday morning.Rainisnotexpectedon Friday. But cloudy conditions will continue,” said SG Kamble, scientist, IMD.

The cyclone will have no impactovertheIndiancoastand movesteadilytowardstheSomalia coast and is expected to weaken by Friday, said Kamble.

Private weather forecasting agency Skymet, too, said there willbenorainonFriday,butonly cloudy conditions. “The deep depression has begun weakening.Underitsinfluence,Mumbai will see a drop in temperatures, but no rain is expected,” said Mahesh Palawat, vice president (meteorology and climate change), Skymet.

KANPUR: A 24-year-old woman, gang-raped in December last year,wasassaultedandsetonfire by five men, including two accusedinthegangrapecase,one ofwhomwasreleasedonbailless than a week ago.

The incident happened in Uttar Pradesh’s Unnao district early on Thursday.

The woman suffered 90% burns,saiddoctorsattheDrShyama Prasad Mookerjee (Civil) Hospital in Lucknow, where she wasshiftedbeforebeingairlifted to New Delhi in the evening to receive treatment at Safdarjung hospital. Of the two accused in thegangrapecase,onewasouton

NEW DELHI: A day after being released on bail, former finance minister P Chidambaram on Thursdaycalledthegovernment an “incompetent manager” of the economy and criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his “silence” on the slowdown.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday granted bail to Chidambaram in the INX Media money-laundering case; he spent 106 days in custody, including in Tihar jail.

Addressing a press conference at Congress headquarters in Delhi, he said nothing summed up the state of the economy better than the series of numbers, 8, 7, 6.6, 5.8, 5 and 4.5— a reference to quarterly growth rates of the GDP in the last six quarters.

“The government is unable to look for the obvious clues bail, while the other wasn’t even arrestedearlier.Thewomanwas onherwaytotheBaiswaraBihar railway station to catch an early morning train to Rae Bareli for a because it is stubborn and mulish in defending its catastrophic mistakes such as demonetisation,flawedGST{GoodsandServicesTax}, taxterrorism, regulatory overkill, protectionism, and centralised control of decisionmaking in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO),” Chidambaram alleged.

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) hit back at Chidambaram, accusinghimofviolating bail conditions, and said the case against him was essentially about corruption he was allegedly involved in as the finance minister. His bail conditions stipulated that he not speak about the case.

Earlier in the day, Chidambaram joined other Congress members in their protest against the steep hike in onion prices.

Later, atthepressconference, ChidambaramallegedthatModi has been “unusually silent” on the economy. court hearing when she was stoppedbytheaccusedat4.30am, said superintendent of police, Unnao, Vikrant Veer.