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MUMBAI:

A storm off India’s west coast has strengthened to become a powerful cyclone and could hit India’s western state of Gujarat and southern parts of Pakistan on Thursday, India’s Met said. The cyclone, named Biparjoy, is expected to make landfall on Thursday afternoon between Mandvi in Gujarat and Karachi in Pakistan with a maximum sustained wind speed of 125-135 km per hour, gusting up to 150 km per hour, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Monday.

India’s Minister of Ports, Shipping and Waterways and Ayush, Sarbananda Sonowal on Monday chaired a high-level meeting with senior officials of the port authority to review preparedness for the upcoming Cyclone Biparjoy in the Northern Arabian Sea.During the virtual meeting, Mr. Sonowal directed the senior officers to take every possible measure to ensure that people living in vulnerable locations are safe, the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways said.

India’s weather office has advised fishing communities to halt operations and the evacuation of people from the coastal areas of Saurashtra and Kutch regions of Gujarat. Two of India biggest ports – Mundra and Kandla – are in the Gulf of Kutch, while the Jamnagar refinery, the world’s biggest oil refinery complex owned by Reliance Industries, is based in Saurashtra.

The Gujarat Pipavav Port Limited, in a stock exchange filing on Monday, said operations at its Pipavav Port had been suspended since late evening on Saturday due to “prevailing severe weather conditions”.

Seven teams of India’s National Disaster Response Force and 12 teams of State Disaster Response Force have been deployed in the districts likely to be affected by the storm, Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel said in a tweet.

Nearly a dozen districts in coastal Gujarat would be affected by heavy rainfall and gusting winds, although some of the districts are sparsely populated, which would limit the damage, said a weather office official, who declined to be named.

The weather office also cautioned about uprooting power and communication poles. It said there may be major damage to “kutcha and pucca roads,” flooding of escape routes. minor disruption of railways and overhead power lines and signalling systems.

“Widespread damage to standing crops, plantations, orchards, falling of green coconuts and tearing of palm fronds. Blowing down bushy trees like mango. Small boats and country crafts may get detached from moorings,” it said and added that visibility might be severely affected due to salt spray.

Biparjoy delayed the onset of the annual monsoon over Kerala, but now conditions are favourable for the progress of much-needed rains in some more parts of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu states, the weather office said.

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In the first phase of the pandemic the Samajam had served about 10,000 meals from December 2020 to January 2021, he said.

In the second phase, the free meal scheme kicked off on April 1, 2021 when COVID cases spiked affecting many families. The Samajam is currently supplying over 1,000 meals a day spread across 29 micro areas in Ahmedabad, said  CV Narayanan, General Secretary, Ahmedabad Kerala Samajam.

The Samajam has set up 10 home kitchens and the food is being prepared by families. Volunteers of the Samajam pick up the meals and serve it to the needy. Funds for preparing the meals are offered by Samajam members, well-wishers and other like-minded people. The project is self-sufficient as of now, he said.

Additionally, to extend support to humanity in these times of crisis, Ahmedabad Kerala Samajam has been undertaking various initiatives such as Emergency Ambulance Services, Home Oxygen Services, Elder Care Home Service, 24 x 7 Task force to address and guide on COVID mitigation and physical and mental well-being, distribution of food kits to the economically challenged families, end-to-end facilitation of people stranded in the city and wanting to reach Kerala through trains, and so on, the press release said.

The Ahmedabad Kerala Samajam and its members are strongly committed to serving society to the best extent possible to ensure that COVID is kept at bay.

The Samajam has been offering the meals solely depending on donations from well-wishers and other like-minded people until now. As the daily expenses for meals alone is over Rs.1,00,000, the office-bearers have requested philanthropists, charity activists and business houses to come forward to support the organisation in this initiative. This will go a long way in meeting with Corporate or Individual Social Responsibility, Mr. Ramachandran and Mr. Narayanan said.

Established in 1945, Ahmedabad Kerala Samajam is a socio-cultural organisation representing the Malayalee community in Ahmedabad with over 6,500 families as its life time members. The main objective of the organisation is to boost Kerala tradition and culture amongst the Malayalee population living Ahmedabad and foster a strong bonding with the local populace through various cross-cultural initiatives.

With an objective to nurture talent and facilitate to the best extent possible through its “Navratnas”, the Samajam has been undertaking various activities in the fields of Education, Healthcare, Environment, Humanitarian services, Arts, Sports, Youth Development and Women Empowerment.

The contact number of the office-bearers are KM Ramachandran, President:  +919825010001 and CV Narayanan, General Secretary: +91 94273 10149.

https://forms.gle/ZDpJyxE8B1Zobf7T7

Contributions can be sent to the account number given below;

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The victims, all of whom were daily labourers from Rajasthan’s Banswara district, were sleeping on the footpath when a sugarcane-laden tractor crashed into another truck.

The truck driver lost control of the vehicle and veered off the road, onto the footpath, running over 18 people who were sleeping there.

While 12 persons died on the spot, three of the eight injured died in a nearby hospital, news agency PTI quoted police as saying.

The truck driver has been arrested, the police said.

Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) took to Twitter to announce ex-gratia of Rs 2 lakh each from PMNRF (Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund).

Ex-gratia of Rs. 2 lakh each from PMNRF would be given to the next of kin of those who have lost their lives due to the accident in Surat. Rs. 50,000 each would be given to those injured.

— PMO India (@PMOIndia) January 19, 2021

“Ex-gratia of Rs 2 lakhs each from PMNRF (Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund) would be given to the next of kin of those who have lost their lives due to the accident in Surat. Rs 50,000 each would be given to those injured,” the PMO tweeted.

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This is PM Modi’s first visit to Gujarat since the coronavirus outbreak.

#WATCH: Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrives at Ahmedabad. He is on a 2-day visit to Gujarat. pic.twitter.com/oYOlDie8w5

— ANI (@ANI) October 30, 2020

PM Modi is now visiting the family of former Gujarat Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel in Gandhinagar. The 92-year-old BJP stalwart died in Ahmedabad on Thursday morning due to prolonged illness.

It is also expected that the PM would meet his nonagenarian mother Hiraba, who lives on the outskirts of Gandhinagar city with Modi’s younger brother Pankaj Modi.

The PM would then reach Kevadiya in Narmada district to inaugurate various tourism projects near the Statue of Unity, a monument dedicated to Sardar Patel.

On Saturday, he would inaugurate a seaplane service connecting Kevadiya with Ahmedabad.

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Tamil Nadu has grabbed the first position in fish landings with 7.75 lakh tonnes followed by Gujarat (7.49 lakh t), which was holding the first position for a past few years, and Kerala (5.44 lakh t) which retained the third position, according to a study report.
India’s marine fish production registered a marginal increase of 2.1% in 2019 compared to the previous year with the country recording 3.56 million tonnes in total landings from across the coasts during the year, according to the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI).This was revealed in a study report on annual marine fish landings estimates in the country during the last year released here by the CMFRI.
The data showed an unusual feature of a commercially unimportant fish becoming the most landed resource with the red toothed trigger fish (2.74 lakh t) registering a huge increase in the landings across the coasts of the country. Ironically, this fish has little demand in domestic markets and is mostly caught for the purpose of feed mills.
In another major highlight of the data, Indian mackerel, which was in the first spot in 2018, suffered the highest setback with its landings declining by 43 per cent last year.
While the states such as West Bengal (55%), Andhra Pradesh (34%), Odisha (14.5%), Karnataka (11%) and Tamil Nadu (10.4%) recorded increase in the landings, the marine fish catch decreased in Maharashtra (32%), Goa (44%) and Kerala (15.4%) compared to the previous year. The second highest landings in national-level is ribbon fish (2.19 lakh t) followed by penaeid prawns (1.95 lakh t) and non-penaeid prawns (1.80 lakh t).
As many as eight cyclonic storms in and around India of which 6 of them turned out to be severe cyclones (Fani in April, Vayu in June, Hika in September, Kyarr in October, Maha in Oct-Nov and Bulbul in Oct-Nov) affected the fishing calendar days more adversely on the west coast of the country.

Fish production declines in Kerala

Kerala suffered a significant drop of 15.4 per cent in the marine fish landings during the last year with a total landings of 5.44 lakh tonnes. Sharp decline in the catch of oil sardine and Indian mackerel, the two major resources in the state, is the major highlight of Kerala’s landings. While oil sardine dropped to a meagre 44,320 tonnes, the lowest catch in two decades, Indian mackerel (40,554 t) experienced a steep decline of 50 per cent compared to the previous year.
In 2012, the catch of oil sardine in Kerala was 3.9 lakh tonnes. Since then, there was a substantial decrease in the catch every year, but it moved up in 2017. The oil sardine landings again continued to decline for the past two years thanks to the unfavourable changes in ocean environment. After analysing the correlation between the ocean environment and biological cycle of the oil sardine, the CMFRI had forecast in January last year that sardine landing would decline in the year in Kerala waters. The contribution from Kerala towards the overall landings in the country reduced to 15.3 per cent from 18.4 per cent in 2018.
The anchovies group (74.194 t) tops the list of the most landed resources in the state followed by red toothed trigger fish (62,782 t) and penaeid prawns (46,615 t).

Increase in value of fish
The estimate of the value of marine fish landings based on price at landing centres across the country during 2019 was Rs.60,881 crores with 15.6 per cent increase over 2018. The unit price per kg of fish at landing centre rate was Rs. 170.5 (12.2 per cent increase). At the retail level, the estimated value of marine fish was Rs. 92,356 crores (15 per cent increase over 2018). The unit price at the retail market level was Rs. 258.7 (12 per cent increase over 2018). The marketing efficiency determining the producer’s share of the consumers was found to be 66 (0.6 per cent increase over 2018).
In Kerala, the value of marine fish landings based on price at landing centres was Rs. 12,387 crores with an increase of 20.35 per cent over 2018 while it was Rs 17,515 crores in retail level in the state recording nearly 19 per cent increase.
The Fishery Resources Assessment Division of the CMFRI estimated the annual marine fish landings of the country through its online data collection system.

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