Rajnath promises all help for Kerala, MPs want foreign aid
New Delhi, Aug 30 : Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday assured a delegation of Kerala MPs that the Centre will provide all possible help after the delegation said foreign assistance should be allowed to reach the flood-ravaged state.
The worst floods to devastate Kerala in nearly a century have left 483 people dead, displaced thousands and destroyed property on a massive scale.
The Minister's assurance came after 11 Kerala MPs belonging to the Congress, CPI-M, RSP, Kerala Congress (Mani) and an independent apprised him about the situation in the state and demanded more support from the Modi government.
The MPs urged Rajnath Singh to allow foreign assistance to the state as the Centre, citing a 2004 government decision, had turned down a reported offer of Rs 700 crore from the United Arab Emirates.
The delegation included A.K. Antony, K.V. Thomas, K.C. Venugopal, K. Suresh, Anto Antony, M. K. Raghavan (all Congress), P. Karunakaran and P.K. Biju (CPI-M), N.K. Premachandran (RSP), Jose K. Mani (Kerala Congress Mani) and Joice George (CPI-M-backed Independent).
"A delegation of MPs from Kerala met me in New Delhi on the flood situation in the state. I assured them that the Centre was providing all possible help to Kerala," Rajnath Singh tweeted.
After the meeting, Antony said all parties are united on rebuilding Kerala.
"We have demanded more funds for the state. We also urged him to waive the restriction on foreign assistance. The Home Minister has assured us that he will speak to External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj over the issue," Antony told reporters.
The Centre has so far allotted Rs 600 crore to Kerala for flood relief.
A Union Home Ministry official said a central team was expected to visit Kerala soon to assess the damage caused and a decision on Central assistance would be taken after it submitted its report.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
