It is very sad to listen and see that honourable Atal Bihari Vajpayee who served as Prime Minister for three terms (first for a term of 13 days in 1996, then for a period of 13 months from 1998 to 1999, and finally, for a full term from 1999 to 2004) is now no more.

A member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), he was the first Indian prime minister who was not a member of the Indian National Congress party to have served a full five-year term in office.

He was a member of the Indian Parliament for over four decades, having been elected to the Lok Sabha, the lower house, ten times, and twice to the Rajya Sabha, the upper house. He served as the Member of Parliament for Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh until 2009 when he retired from active politics due to health concerns. Vajpayee was among the founding members of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS), of which he was the president from 1968 to 1972. The BJS merged with several other parties to form the Janata Dal, which won the 1977 general election. Vajpayee became the Minister of External Affairs in the cabinet of Prime Minister Morarji Desai. He resigned in 1979, and the Janata alliance collapsed soon after. The erstwhile members of the BJS formed the BJP in 1980, with Vajpayee as its first president.

During his tenure as prime minister, India carried out the Pokhran-II nuclear tests in 1998. Vajpayee sought to improve diplomatic relations with Pakistan, travelling to Lahore by bus to meet with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. After the 1999 Kargil War with Pakistan, he sought to restore relations through engaging with President Pervez Musharraf, inviting him to India for a summit at Agra.

He was conferred India’s highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna, by the President of India, Pranab Mukherjee in 2015. The administration of Narendra Modi declared in 2014 that Vajpayee’s birthday, 25 December, would be marked as Good Governance Day. He died on 16 August 2018 due to age-related illness.

Early Access and Education

Vajpayee was born to Krishna Devi and Krishna Bihari Vajpayee on 25 December 1924 in Gwalior. His grandfather, Pandit Shyam Lal Vajpayee, had migrated to Morena, Gwalior from his ancestral village of Bateshwar, Uttar Pradesh. His father, Krishna Bihari Vajpayee, was a school teacher in his hometown. Vajpayee did his schooling at the Saraswati Shishu Mandir in Gwalior. He subsequently attended Gwalior’s Victoria College (now Laxmi Bai College) and graduated with distinction in Hindi, English and Sanskrit. He completed his post-graduation with an M.A. in Political Science from DAV College, Kanpur, and was awarded a first-class degree.

His activism started with Arya Kumar Sabha of Gwalior, the youth wing of the Arya Samaj, of which he became the general secretary in 1944. He also joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) as a swayamsevak, or volunteer, in 1939. Influenced by Babasaheb Apte, he attended the Officers Training Camp of the RSS during 1940–44 and became a pracharak, RSS terminology for a a full-time worker, in 1947. He gave up studying law due to the partition riots. He was sent as a vistarak, a probationary pracharak, to Uttar Pradesh and quickly began working for the newspapers of Deendayal Upadhyaya, Rashtradharma (a Hindi monthly), Panchjanya (a Hindi weekly) and the dailies Swadesh and Veer Arjun.

 

In late July 2018, severe flooding affected Kerala state in India due to unusually high rainfall during the monsoon season. Kerala’s worst floods in nearly a century,^[2] over 350                                                                                                    people died within a fortnight, while at least 8,00,000^[3] were displaced and all 14 districts of the state, were placed on high alert.35 out of the 42 dams within the state were opened for the first time in history and all five overflow gates of the Idukki Dam were opened at the same time after a gap of 26 years.^[6] Heavy rains in Wayanad and Idukki has left the hilly district isolated.

 Causes

Kerala received heavy monsoon rainfall on the mid evening of August 8 resulting in dams filling to capacity; in the first 24 hours of rainfall the state received 310 mm (12 in) of rain. Almost all dams have been opened since the water level has risen close to overflow level due to heavy rainfall, flooding local low-lying areas. For the first time in the state’s history, 35 of its 42 dams have been opened.

Most of the regions affected by this monsoon were classified as ecologically-sensitive zones (ESZs) by the the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel, the Gadgil Committee. Most of the recommendations and directions by the commitee was either neglected or rejected. Chairman of the committee Madhav Gadgil accused the state government and its irresponsible environmental policy for the recent landslides and floods. He called it a “man-made calamity”.

Impact

A state official told AFP that 370 people have died, while the The Economic Times in India has reported that 33,000 people has been rescued. The Kerala State Disaster Management Authority has placed the state in a red alert as a result of the intense flooding. A number of water treatment plants were forced to cease pumping water, resulting in poor access to clean water, especially in northern districts of the region. 4,000 relief camps have been opened at various locations to accommodate the flood victims. about 8,00,00 people has been found their shelter in various relief camps .The flooding has affected hundreds of villages, destroyed an estimated 10,000 km of roads and thousands of homes have been damaged or destroyed. The flood affected the areas like Aluva, Chenganur, Pandanad, Aranmula, Chalakkudy, Paravoor very badly causing many people homeless. The state government operated control rooms 24*7 in different centres to co-ordinate and rescue the affected people, who has been trapped/displaced in different locations.

Rescue

There have been 52 rescue teams of central forces including units of the Indian Army and the Indian Navy assisting the civilian administration in rescue work and restoration. In addition to the 10 teams of the National Disaster Response Force, four additional teams were airlifted from Guntur and Arakkonam to assist the Ernakulam district administration. The Centre reached out to Kerala, offering a helping hand to tackle the situation. Union Minister for Home Affairs Rajnath Singh conducted an aerial survey of Idukki and Ernakulam districts along with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.

Fisherman from Thiruvananthapuram and Kollam districts takes part in the rescue operations with their boats and rescued several who were trapped in their homes amid rising waters at a time. Kerala Government calls the fishermen as “Coastal warriors ” of Kerala and announced financial aid for their support and effort in the rescue mission

Mananthavady and Vythiri in the hilly Wayanad district have been totally cut-off, with roads washed away. The major roads in the affected areas were drowned under water and remain closed causes serious trouble in transporting relief aids.

According to the latest official figures, more than 800,000 people have been lodged in over 4,000 relief camps across 14 districts. On August 19, the state’s Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan vowed “to save even the last person stranded.”

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton