Houses Submerged, Locals Stranded, Schools Shut: Death Toll Crosses 37 as Rain Batters North India

  • Over 10,000 people were evacuated from low-lying areas in Delhi as Yamuna river crossed the danger mark. An official said that the water level is expected to rise further as Haryana released 1.43 lakh cusec water.
  • Rains in the northern states claimed at least 38 lives and triggered landslides that left hundreds of people in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh stranded and several areas in Punjab, Haryana and Jammu flooded.
  • Indian Air Force helicopters carried dramatic rescue operations in Jammu and Karnal districts on Monday, and the administration was on alert in parts of Haryana and Punjab. Although the rainfall had subsided across the region on Monday, rivers in several parts of the region were in spate on Monday. 

Twitter, Facebook Ban China Accounts Over “State-Backed Ops” On Hong Kong

  • Twitter and Facebook said Monday that they had taken action against China for using hundreds of fake accounts to sow political discord during the Hong Kong protests, marking the first time the social media giants had identified Beijing directly for spearheading such an operation.
  • Twitter said it was suspending nearly a thousand Chinese accounts and banning advertising from state-owned media companies, citing a “significant state-backed information operation” related to protests in Hong Kong.
  • Meanwhile, Facebook said it was removing five Facebook accounts, seven pages and three groups after being tipped off to the use of “a number of deceptive tactics, including the use of fake accounts.”

Chandrayaan 2 Enters Moon’s Orbit After “Heart-Stopping” ISRO Move

  • India’s moonshot Chandrayaan 2 has been successfully manoeuvred into lunar orbit today, after nearly 30 days of space travel. This was one of the trickiest operations in the mission.
  • A higher-than-expected approach velocity would have bounced off the spacecraft into deep space, while a slow approach would have led to the moon’s gravity to pull Chandrayaan 2 and crash it on the lunar surface.  
  • The approach velocity had to be just right and the altitude over the moon rather precise. Even a small error would have killed the mission.