IMD issues red alert or very heavy rainfall in Northeast

New Delhi, Aug 17, 2026 : India Meteorological Department (IMD) has issued a red colour warning for very heavy rainfall to extremely heavy rainfall over Gangetic West Bengal and Odisha for today. An orange alert for very heavy rainfall has been issued for Chhattisgarh, East Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand for the day. Heavy rainfall is also expected over Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Konkan, Goa, Madhya Maharashtra, Marathwada, and parts of North East India.

The Met Department predicted thunderstorms accompanied by lightning and gusty winds over Jammu-Kashmir, Bihar, Jharkhand, Karnataka, and Odisha today. Similar weather conditions are expected over Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Karaikal, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Andaman and Nicobar Islands for the day.

Furthermore, the Weather Agency has forecast one or two spells of very light rainfall during afternoon in Delhi.

The National Testing Agency NTA today announced re-test for three papers of the UGC-NET examination, English, Commerce and Sociology following complaints about several errors in these papers. NTA said, the English paper will be held on 9th September from 9 am to 12 noon in Shift 1, while the Commerce paper will be conducted the same day from 3 pm to 6 pm in Shift 2. The Sociology paper will be held on 10th September from 9 am to 12 noon in Shift 1.

The NTA had conducted the UGC-NET June 2026 examination from 22nd to 30th June across 87 subjects for the award of Junior Research Fellowship, eligibility for assistant professor, and admission to PhD programmes.

NTA had formed a committee to enquire into and look into these errors. The Committee recommended that, in the interest of holding a fair and error-free examination, these three papers should be re-conducted.