AHMEDABAD: Widespread flooding in India’s western industrial state of Gujarat has killed more than 120 people and paralyzed infrastructure, officials said on Friday, with tens of thousands of cotton farmers also suffering heavy damage.
Torrential monsoon rain and flooding in recent weeks have killed at least 300 people in western and eastern states, an official in the National Disaster Management Authority told Reuters in New Delhi.
“Our teams are working in different parts of India with soldiers to ease the situation,” said Deepak Ghai, an emergency room control officer.
More than a million households had been affected and losses to farmlands were being assessed.
The airport in Ahmedabad, the main commercial hub of Gujarat, was partially flooded, forcing airlines to divert flights. More than 150 factories were forced to shut down, said A.R. Raval, a district administrator.
The floods have come at a particularly bad time for cotton farmers in Gujarat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state. Raval said more than 50,000 were struggling to drain water from their land and homes.
Recent downpours have hit cotton and millet in Gujarat and Rajasthan, where farm experts now fear pest infestations.
“Cotton and millet harvests are expected to suffer in about three districts each in Gujarat and Rajasthan, but the biggest worry is that the extra moisture could lead to pest attacks in these areas,” Devinder Sharma, an independent farm expert, said.
Rains have been 4 percent above average since the four-month monsoon season began in June, according to the state-run India Meteorological Department.
Floods kill 120 in India’s Gujarat, with industry, cotton hit
Floods kill 120 in India’s Gujarat, with industry, cotton hit
French police raid home of culture minister in graft probe
- Raid comes as Rachida Dati, who heads the town hall in the seventh district of Paris, is campaigning to be elected mayor of the French capital next year.
- Dati held a seat in the European parliament from 2009 to 2019 on behalf of France’s main right-wing party, and has been repeatedly accused of influence peddling
PARIS: French police on Thursday searched the homes of Culture Minister Rachida Dati, as well as the ministry and the Paris town hall she presides over, as part of a corruption probe, prosecutors said.
The police raid comes as Dati, who heads the town hall in the seventh district of Paris, is campaigning to be elected mayor of the French capital next year.
Dati, 60, has been accused of accepting nearly 300,000 euros ($343,000) in undeclared payments from major energy group GDF Suez while a member of the European parliament between 2010 and 2011. She has denied any wrongdoing.
The national financial prosecutor’s office on Thursday said the raids came after it had opened an investigation on October 14 into Dati over possible corruption, influence peddling and embezzlement of public funds.
Dati held a seat in the European parliament from 2009 to 2019 on behalf of France’s main right-wing party, and has been repeatedly accused of influence peddling.
Accusations that she was lobbying on behalf of GDF Suez first emerged in French media reports in 2013 and the European parliament’s ethics committee questioned her.
French investigative television show “Complement d’Enquete” and the Nouvel Observateur magazine renewed the allegations in June.
Dati wants to become the French capital’s second woman mayor in a row in the March 2026 municipal vote.
She hopes to replace Socialist mayor Anne Hidalgo, 66, who is to step down after two terms in the post.
