Healthcare workers and general public could face risks by inhaling various components of crude oil such as benzene, toluene and polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons, all of which may cause cancer, the Natural Resources Defence Council (NRDC) said.

Crude oil also contains mercury and lead, both of which can be dangerous if inhaled or swallowed, the group said in a statement.

Short-term effects include skin and respiratory problems while longer-term risks are uncertain, the NRDC said.

It said some people living along the coast were already reporting headaches, nausea, coughing and throat irritation.

'There are significant health risks associated with this oil spill, and the risks aren't just to wildlife, they are also to humans,' Gina Solomon, a senior scientist with the NRDC, was quoted as saying by Xinhua.

The immediate worry, said Solomon, is what are called volatile organic compounds, which include chemicals like benzene that can be released in vapour form from the oil floating in the water.

'These chemicals can cause acute health effects such as headache, nausea, vomiting, cough, dizziness. The chemicals can also cause longer-term effects, including the potential for miscarriage or low birth weight in pregnant women and risk of cancer over the longer term,' he said.

Since the BP offshore oil-rig explosion April 20, at least 200,000 gallons of oil a day have been pouring into the Gulf of Mexico.

Seema Banerjee, 28, was arrested Friday evening from Matlupur area, police officer D.K. Sharma said in Mau, some 300 km from Lucknow. 'The tortoises were recovered from two air bags she carried.'

She has said she worked for a gang involved in the illegal supply of tortoises and animal skins to clients in Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh and Nepal as well as various states of India.

Police said tortoises that were still alive were handed over to forest officials.

The maximum temperature is likely to hover around 37 degrees Celsius, four notches below the average for this time of the year.

The skies could turn cloudy with the possibility of thunderstorms and rain later in the evening, an India Meteorological Department (IMD) official said.

The minimum temperature would hovering around 23.6 degrees Celsius, one notch below the average.

The city Friday recorded a maximum temperature of 39 degrees Celsius.

The government introduced the bill in the Lok Sabha Friday amid uproar from opposition benches and a walkout by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Left Front members. The bill seeks to provide for civil liability for nuclear damage, the appointment of a claims commissioner and the establishment of a nuclear damage claims commission.

The environment body said the other option could be to send the bill to a joint parliamentary committee which should be empowered to make binding recommendations.

'The bill has various disturbing features other than the compensation amount. The risk should be calculated logically and the amount of money put as compensation should mirror it. The government cannot arbitrarily decide the compensation amount,' a statement issued by Greenpeace said.

It said the bill aims at quantifying life and capping compensation, just for profit of few foreign companies.

'We will have a new approach to find out a solution to the apprehensions of the people as far as impact on health and environmental issues vis-a-vis the proposed uranium mining,' Chief Minister Mukul M. Sangma told journalists here.

'If there are answers to these (health and environmental) concerns, we will also have to see whether the people and the state will really benefit from the proposed uranium mining,' he added.

Asked about the 'new approach', Sangma said it 'includes complete engagement of all cross sections of people to evolve a consensus on the uranium mining'.

Stressing that complete engagement of the people is necessary, he said that the people must discuss the uranium issue on the maximum benefit that the state and the nation as a whole can reap from it.

Sangma returned Thursday after discussing with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh the decade-old proposed open-cast mining in West Khasi Hills district and the proposed exploratory drilling for uranium deposits inside the Balpakram National Park in South Garo Hills district.

The Rs. 1,046-crore open-cast uranium mining and processing plant at Mawthabah area in West Khasi Hills district has been hanging fire since 1992 after several groups cited radiation effect on human health and environmental degradation.

The UCIL plans to produce 375,000 tonnes of uranium ore a year and process 1,500 tonnes of the mineral a day.

In South Garo Hills, the western region of Meghalaya bordering Bangladesh, the atomic energy department has got the clearance from the standing committee of the National Board for Wildlife, headed by the prime minister, to conduct exploratory drilling in the ecologically fragile Rongcheng plateau of the national park.

Last year, the Uranium Corporation of India Limited (UCIL) decided to invest Rs.209 crore to start their pre-mining developmental projects in 422 hectares of the uranium-rich areas of West Khasi Hills in southern Meghalaya.

The then government was forced to keep the project in abeyance following violent protests from various groups.

The approval was granted following a meeting Wednesday between Principal Secretary to the prime minister T.K.A. Nayar and Madhya Pradesh Chief Secretary Avani Vaish, in which it was decided that the ban on construction work would be lifted so that the pending work of construction of gates at the project site could be completed.

Another meeting is scheduled next week to seek permission for commencing other pending work at the project site, an official release said.

Vaish assured the officers attending the meeting that no area would be submerged until the process of rehabilitation of the oustees is fully completed.

The Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) had earlier put a ban on the construction work at the project site, citing non-completion of the rehabilitation work.

As a result, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan in his meeting Wednesday with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi urged him to get the project cleared.

Chouhan, according to the official, informed the prime minister that due to non-clearance by the MoEF, generation of 400 MW power in the state is being delayed.

The project was planned to generate 7.2 lakh units per day since November 2010, which will not be possible. The work of providing 36 crore litres of water daily to Dewas and Indore will also be affected. So far, Rs.3,000 crore have been spent on this project, the official informed.

'The entire hill state witnessed moderate rain Friday with the temperatures plummeting five to nine degrees,' Manmohan Singh, director of the meteorological office here, told IANS.

He said Shimla town recorded 18 mm of rain, while Kullu, Bilaspur, Dalhousie, Dharamsala, Kufri, Mandi, Narkanda and Palampur towns respectively saw 18 mm, 24 mm, 18 mm, 20 mm, 22 mm, 12 mm, 28 mm and 16 mm of rain.

Shimla recorded a maximum temperature of 18.1 degrees Celsius Friday, a fall by 6.1 degrees from Thursday's.

Likewise, Sundernagar in Mandi district saw a high of 25 degrees Celsius, while it was 21.6 degrees in Bhuntar in Kullu district and 27.4 degrees in Dharamsala and Una towns.

These towns Thursday saw maximum temperatures of 33.7 degrees Celsius, 30.8 degrees, 32.4 degrees and 36.4 degrees Celsius, respectively.

Also, widespread rain has doused numerous forest fires in the state.

'The dry and hot conditions had caused forest fires in the mid and lower hill areas, particularly the pine forests. All major fires have been quelled,' said Avtar Singh, chief conservator (forest protection and fire control).

He said 5,653 hectares of forests have been destroyed in 499 fire incidents from April 1 to May 6. In 2009-10, 1,906 fire incidents had burnt down 24,849 hectares of forests.

According to him, Bilaspur, Una, Hamirpur, Kangra, Sirmaur, Solan, Mandi and Shimla are the worst affected districts in the state.

The project will reduce soil erosion and protect agricultural land, the World Bank said in a statement.

As part of the Shandong ecological afforestation project, plantation will be carried out in 38,000 hectares of degraded land as well as in the coastal areas.

The loan will cover 50 percent of the project costs. The remaining 50 percent will be financed by government organisations. A monitoring and evaluation system would be set up to measure the outcomes of the project.

While most previous World Bank projects had focused on improving timber output, quality and standards, this project would focus on environmental protection by establishing forest cover in areas prone to soil erosion and coastal areas prone to wind erosion, said Susan Shen, a natural resource management specialist with the bank.

'Most of the casualties took place in incidents related to falling of trees and roofs and walls collapsing,' District Magistrate Gaurav Dayal told IANS over telephone from Jaunpur, around 270 km from Lucknow.

'The injured are being treated at various hospitals. The condition of two-three people is stated to be critical,' he added.

According to officials, the casualties were reported from several areas including Sadar, Badlapur, Kerakat, Sujanganj, Chakwa, and Karanjakala. The maximum five deaths took place in Sadar area.

Dayal said rescue operations are being carried out in all these areas.

'Sub-divisional magistrates (SDMs) have been instructed to supervise relief operations.'

According to the Met office here, upper-air cyclonic pressure over central Uttar Pradesh was responsible for the squall.

Till the time the monsoon descends, some Bangalore residents are being forced to shell out huge sums of money on inverters or generators. They have to pay Rs.500 or more for 1,000 kl of water supplied by private operators.

Slum dwellers here are buying potable water by paying a minimum of Rs.5 per pot which gives them between 30 and 40 litres.

The central business district of the nation's tech hub has been going without electricity for two to three hours a day for the past week and many residential areas have been facing blackouts for four hours or more.

Officials blame the huge gap in the demand and the supply of water and power in the city for the hardships being faced by residents ahead of monsoon. The water demand in Bangalore is about 1,300 MLD (million litres per day) but the supply is around 900 MLD.

The main sources for Bangalore are the Cauvery river water, 885 MLD, and the Thippagondanahalli (TG Halli) reservoir on the city's outskirts, 60 MLD. The rest of the demand is met through around 7,000 borewells dug up across the city by the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewage Board.

Thousands of houses in the city have personal borewells, often used to supplement the BWSSB water supply. Officials estimate that the city has over 100,000 bore wells with new ones being added every summer.

The increasing number of borewells has led to the groundwater level depleting fast. In many parts of the city water is found only at a depth of around 1,000 feet.

Supply from the reservoir has come down to around 30 MLD from the third week of April as its water level is depleting fast. As against a full capacity water level of 74 feet, the water level has come down to 16 feet. If it drops to 12 feet, the drawing of water from it will have to be stopped, BWSSB officials said.

The state heavily depends on rains for its hydro-power generation that forms the bulk of the installed power generation capacity. Of a total of 5,700 MW installed power generation capacity, hydro-power's share is over 3,600 MW.

In April and May, the state needs around 140 million units of electricity daily. The supply hovers around 115 million units, forcing power shutdowns, say officials.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, which completes two years later this month, blames the central government for the poor power situation in the state.

Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa asserts that the central government is supplying only about 1,200 MW power daily against the state's share of 1,534 MW from the central pool.

'The state's daily allocation from Central Generating Stations (CGS) is 1,534 MW. In terms of size, population and demand, this compares rather unfavourably with that of our neighbours,' he says.

'We have repeatedly stressed that Karnataka's share from CGS has to be increased and brought on a par with other comparable states,' Yeddyurappa has been telling reporters since the onset of summer in April.

The party's Lok Sabha member from Bangalore South, H.N. Ananth Kumar, says the state needs 7,200 MW of power daily, but the supply stands at 6,000 MW. Of the 7,200 MW, Bangalore alone requires 4,000 MW, he says.

State Congress president R.V. Deshpande and working president D.J. Shivakumar and former chief minister and Janata Dal-Secular leader H.D. Kumaraswamy disagree.

They say there is no point in the chief minister blaming the central government for all the ills. They also accuse him of not adding even one mega watt to the state's power generation capacity after coming to power in May 2008.

The BJP leaders counter these charges by reeling out statistics on power generation planned over the next five years.

'Every government on coming to power holds out a rosy picture on the future for Bangaloreans in the next five years. But at the end of their five years, residents are left with less water and more power cuts,' says S.K. Chandrashekar, a 70-year-old Bangalore-based retired state government employee.

Chandrashekar, who was born and brought up here, recalls the good old days of city life till it became the fastest growing metropolis of Asia in the late 1980s, spurred by the boom in information technology, which in turn led to massive expansion of the realty sector.

Being home to IT majors Infosys and Wipro, with offices of major MNCs like IBM, Accenture, Honeywell, and marketed as a hot destination for health tourism, Bangalore continues to attract people and businesses, notwithstanding its power and water problems.

(V.S. Karnic can be contacted at vs.karnic@ians.in)