News18 Daybreak | Cyclone Fani to Make Landfall in Odisha's Puri Today and Other Stories You Need to Watch Out For

1. Ganjam: Over 10 lakh people have been evacuated to temporary shelters in Odisha as Cyclone Fani, the most severe cyclonic storm since the super cyclone of 1999, is set to make a landfall today close to the temple town of Puri.

The Met Department warned of very heavy rainfall and “phenomenal sea conditions”. The wind speed is expected to be between 170 and 180 km an hour, which can even reach up to 200 km at the time of landfall. The process of landfall is expected to take around five hours.

Around 10,000 villages and more than 50 towns lie on its path. All flights from Bhubaneswar have been cancelled from midnight and Kolkata airport will be shut between 9.30pm on Friday to till 6pm on Saturday.

The Railways has cancelled more than 200 trains along the coast. On Saturday, the cyclone is likely to move along the Bengal coast towards Bangladesh.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday chaired a high committee meeting review the preparedness to tackle the situation after landfall.

The Navy, Air Force and National Disaster Response Force and the Coast Guard are on standby. The NDRF has deployed 28 teams in Odisha, 12 in Andhra Pradesh and six teams in West Bengal. Two ships and two Chetak helicopters are also ready for service.

2. CBI court drops charges against accused cops in Ishrat Jahan 'fake encounter case

A special CBI court on Thursday discharged former police officers D G Vanzara and N K Amin from the Ishrat Jahan alleged fake encounter case. The court allowed the discharge applications after the Gujarat government refused to grant sanction to the CBI to prosecute them. Ishrat, a 19-year-old from Mumbra near Mumbai, Javed Shaikh, Amjadali Akbarali Rana and Zeeshan Johar were killed by the Gujarat Police in an encounter on the outskirts of Ahmedabad in 2004.

3. The Election Commission on Thursday gave a clean chit to PM Modi, for a third time over his remarks from a rally in Rajasthan’s Barmer town where he invoked the armed forces and said that India's nuclear button was not kept to be used for Diwali.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi also didn’t face the poll panel’s flak for calling BJP president Amit Shah a murder accused during a rally in Madhya Pradesh.

AICC general secretary Priyanka Gandhi wasn’t as lucky, however, as she was served a notice by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights for being seen with children as they used pejorative language against PM Modi.

Priyanka also sparked a “row” with Samajwadi Party’s Akhilesh Yadav and Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati over her Wednesday remark in which she had said that her party had fielded candidates to prevent a division of anti- BJP votes.

While Mayawati hit out saying that the Congress and the BJP are clearly colluding, Akhilesh Yadav called Priyanka's bluff. This is what the Congress leader said in response while hinting at a tacit understanding between the parties.

The Election Commission today issued a show cause notice to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath for his "Babur ki aulad" remark.

The poll body said while addressing a rally in Sambhal in Uttar Pradesh on April 19, Yogi Adityanath had said: "Would you hand over the reins of the country to terrorists, to those who call themselves children of Babur (Babur ki aulad)...to those who oppose Bajrangbali.

4. The Congress on Thursday came out with a list of six anti-terror surgical strikes carried out during the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) rule, asserting that it never tried to take political advantage from military operations.

The Congress released the list at a press conference after BJP leader Arun Jaitley took a jibe at the opposition party, saying its surgical strikes were "invisible and unknown".

The UPA government carried out six surgical strikes - Bhattal sector in Poonch (June 19, 2008); Sharda sector, across Neelam River Valley, in Kel (August 30-September 1, 2011); Sawan Patra checkpost (January 6, 2013); Nazapir sector (July 27-28, 2013); Neelam Valley (August 6, 2013); and one on December 23, 2013, Congress spokesperson Rajeev Shukla said.

He also listed two surgical strikes carried out under the previous BJP-led NDA government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee. These were Nadala Enclave, across the Neelam River (January 21, 2000) and Baroh sector in Poonch (September 18, 2003), Mr Shukla said.

The exchange between the two parties was triggered after former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, in an interview to Hindustan Times newspaper, said multiple surgical strikes took place during UPA rule.

Attacking the Congress, Mr Jaitley said the Manmohan Singh government did not act against terrorists after the Mumbai terror attack in 2008 even as security forces were ready to target them.