New Delhi, April 16: India is set to get a normal monsoon this year, with average rainfall likely to be 97 per cent, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) announced on Monday.
The prediction stands at a moderate error estimated of plus-minus 5 per cent of the Long Period Average (LPA).
A figure between 96 to 104 percent is considered normal monsson.
Earlier, on April 4, private weather forecasting agency Skymet also predicted normal monsoon keeping it at 100 percent, with an error estimate of plus-minus 5 per cent.
However, a clearer picture of the season, which normally extends from June 1 to September 30, would only be available in June, IMD said.
"India will receive normal monsoon this year. The forecast suggests that the monsoon rainfall during the 2018 season averaged over the country as a whole is likely to be 97 per cent," IMD Director General K.J. Ramesh said at press conference here.
Hoping that the monsoon will be constant and not sporadic, IMD said that region based forecast will be available only during the second assessment in June and the date of the monsoon's onset into Kerala will be announced in mid May.
In 2017, while IMD predicted 96 percent average rainfall in its first forecast in April, the monsoon season over the country as a whole was 97 per cent of its Long Period Average (LPA).
In 2017, the average seasonal rainfall over northwest India was 95 per cent, in central India 106 per cent, in southern peninsula 92 per cent and in northeast India 89 per cent.
IMD in October 2017 said that while 72 per cent of the total area of the country received normal rainfall, 13 per cent area got excess rainfall and 15 per cent deficient seasonal rainfall.
According to the weatherman, below 90 per cent rainfall is considered deficient and at 95 per cent it is considered below normal.
A figure between 96 and 104 per cent of rainfall indicates a normal monsoon and between 105 and 110 per cent above normal.
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It's treason: Rahul Gandhi on Mohan Bhagwat's 'true independence' remark
New Delhi (PTI): Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday hit out at RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat saying that his remark that India got "true independence" after the Ram temple consecration amounts to treason and is an insult to every Indian.
Speaking at the inauguration of the new Congress headquarters here, Gandhi said every party worker is fighting this battle of ideologies under difficult circumstances where institutions have been captured by the BJP and the RSS and investigative agencies are being used against opposition leaders.
The leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha also hit out at the Election Commission and alleged that there is a "serious problem" with the country's election system.
"Mohan Bhagwat has the audacity to say to the country what he thinks about the independence movement and the Constitution. What he said yesterday is treason... Because he is stating that the Constitution is invalid and the fight against the British was invalid.
"He has the audacity to say this publicly. In any other country, he would be arrested and tried. That is a fact," Gandhi said at the inauguration of the Indira Gandhi Bhawan.
"To say that India did not get independence in 1947 is an insult to every Indian. And it is time to stop listening to this nonsense that these people think they can keep parroting out and shouting," he said.
The former Congress president said the party has worked with the Indian people and it has built the success of this country on the foundations of the Constitution and that is what this building symbolises.
"It is important that we take ideas from this building and spread these ideas in the rest of the country," he said.
Gandhi said "we are fighting a civilisational war with these people, they are attacking every day the ideas that we believe in" and asserted that only the Congress can fight them.
Hitting out at the Election Commission, he said, the EC has refused to give us information about the increase in the number of voters in Maharashtra from Lok Sabha elections to assembly elections.
"What purpose does it serve? Why will it damage the EC? Why are they not giving us the list?
"It is the duty of the EC to ensure transparency in elections. If there is an increase of one crore in (the number of) voters in Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha in Maharashtra, it is the duty and sacred responsibility of the EC to show us exactly why this has happened. There is a serious problem with our election system," Gandhi said.
