Southwest monsoon missed its date with the Kerala coast on Thursday but a top weather scientist sought to play the incident down saying it was not a "sign of worry.' "True, the onset over Kerala has not happened,' Ajit Tyagi, Director General of the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said here. The IMD had earlier forecast that the southwest monsoon will hit the Kerala coast on May 29, four days ahead of its normal June 1 onset.

Though officially the onset of monsoon in the country is yet to be declared, the northern limit of monsoon has touched the extreme south/ southeast part of Bangladesh close to Mizoram. The normal date of onset of monsoon over Kerala Coast is June 1, while over the city of Guwahati, the onset normally takes place on June 5. By June 6, NE region is generally covered by monsoon. However, variation of seven days in this respect is quite possible, said H Pathak, Director of the Regional Meteorology Centre (RMC) here.

Kerala will demand more water and control over water regulating structures in its territory at the talks with Tamil Nadu on review of the Parambikulam-Aliyar Project (PAP) agreement to be held here on Friday. Chief Secretaries of the two States will lead the talks supported by seven-member teams consisting of higher officials.

Industries Minister Elamaram Karim has said that major projects entailing private investment of nearly Rs.10,000 crore were in the pipeline in Kerala. At a press conference here on Tuesday, he said the

Here is some cheering news on the monsoon front. The countdown has finally begun for its onset over Kerala. According to the India Meteorological Department, conditions are fast becoming ripe for the system to set in during the next 3-4 days. The normal date of the onset is June 1. Experts at the IMD said numerical weather prediction models indicated that the west-south-westerly cross-equatorial wind flows from the southern hemisphere, which bring in the monsoon, were steadily becoming faster and deeper. Wind speed

Kerala is examining the possibilities of exercising its riparian rights to seek higher allocation from the Parambikulam-Aliyar rivers in view of the steep increase in utilisation of water from the river basins of the Bharathapuzha and the Chalakudi. The matter was discussed at a high-level review meeting convened by Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan here on Monday in preparation of the Chief Secretary-level conference to be held in the State capital on May 30.

Healthy Brew: Differently-abled children benefit hugely from the training provided at Tata Tea's vocational centres (Pic By C.P. Shanmugham)

From SLAPPs to hiring professional protesters, industry's working overtime to find new ways to attack. In the first week of April this year, a group of men came and stood outside the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), New Delhi. They carried placards with offensive slogans directed at me. We understood the picket to be the latest in a dangerous pesticide industry mindgame.

With a parliamentary panel finding misutilisation and diversion of tsunami relief funds, an empowered group of ministers (e-GOM) headed by union home minister Shivraj Patil has undertaken a review of the Rs 10,000 crore rehabilitation scheme. Since 2008-09 is the deadline for implementation of the rehabilitation scheme, the e-GoM issued a directive to the affected states and union territories that the work should be expedited to complete the task within the stipulated time.

All schools across the country will have toilet facilities by the year end, Union Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh said on Thursday. While Sikkim, Puducherry, Mizoram and Haryana have already achieved this target, Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Tripura, Jharkhand, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal and Rajasthan will do so by July. The remaining States that include Arunachal Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Punjab, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand will be able to cover all schools by November.