Politics

When will monsoon reach Bengaluru? Heres what we know

After days of widespread pre-monsoon rain and thunderstorm activity, the southwest monsoon has officially entered Karnataka, bringing relief to several parts of the state.

Monsoon is expected to reach Bengaluru in next 2-3 days. (PTI/Representational)

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Thursday declared the onset of the monsoon over the coastal districts of Dakshina Kannada and Udupi in Karnataka.

When will monsoon reach Bengaluru?

According to an IMD press release issued on June 5, the southwest monsoon is expected to advance into more parts of Karnataka, including Bengaluru, over the next two to three days. If the current weather conditions persist, the monsoon is likely to reach Karnataka’s cital between June 7 and June 9.

Also read | Monsoon arrives in Kerala three days late, IMD predicts steady advance across India

The region has recorded continuous rainfall of over 2-3mm in recent days, with wind speeds of 30-35kmph and persistent cloud cover. If these conditions continue, monsoon is expected to advance into Mysuru, Chamarajanagar, Bengaluru and other parts of SIK within two days, CS Patil, scientist at IMD Bengaluru told Times of India.

The weather agency expects the system to advance into more parts of Karnataka while also covering the entire Goa region and extending into parts of Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. Further progress is also anticipated over sections of the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal, along with parts of northeastern India.

Monsoon arrives in Kerala after delay

The southwest monsoon also reached Kerala on Thursday, arriving three days later than its normal onset date and five days after the date predicted by the IMD in its earlier forecast.

Also read | List of places Monsoon has covered so far and where it is headed next

Typically, the monsoon reaches Kerala around June 1. On May 15, the IMD had forecast that the seasonal rains would arrive over the state by May 26, with a margin of error of four days.

Despite the delayed arrival, forecasters expect the monsoon to spread across most parts of the country by the third week of June.

While the monsoon’s advance is expected to benefit agriculture, concerns persist about the overall volume of rainfall during the season.

The IMD has forecast monsoon rainfall at 90 per cent of the long-period average (LPA) for 2026, placing it in the below-normal category. The weather agency has also indicated a 60 per cent probability of deficient rainfall, defined as precipitation below 90 per cent of the LPA.

Even so, the onset remains significant for India’s farming sector, where nearly 51 per cent of cultivated land depends on rainfall and contributes around 40 per cent of agricultural production.

Monsoon may reach Northwest India by mid-June

Weather experts expect the monsoon to continue advancing steadily across the country over the coming days.

Over Kerala, rainfall will reduce this week. Otherwise, the monsoon is likely to reach many parts including parts of Northwest India by June 15-16, said Mahesh Palawat, vice president, climate and meteorology.

Rainfall is likely to be below normal during the June-September 2026 southwest monsoon season across much of South Asia, with the strongest signal over central regions, according to a seasonal forecast by WMO issued on ril 30. The m issued by WMO showed below normal rain over almost all of India.

Politics

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Politics

Why Mogadishu clashes are deepening Somalias political crisis again

Mogadishu, Somalia – Mustafa, 33, dreads election time in Somalia. He drives a bajaj — a three-wheeled taxi — and says that when tensions rise, as they always do when polls are near, the whole city feels it, and drivers like him are among the first.

On Wednesday, he was passing through the Hawl Wadaag district when heavy gunfire between government and opposition forces erupted all around him.

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I couldn’t even think. Everyone was shouting and running for their lives, and we all fled from the bullets, he told Al Jazeera. We haven’t seen fighting this bad in years.

The shooting that began that afternoon around the homes of former Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire and, later, former President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, came as opposition figures were planning to organise protests against what they describe as an illegal term extension by incumbent President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud.

Khaire and Sharif Sheikh Ahmed were among opposition leaders spreadheading the planned protests amid rising tensions with the federal government.

The government said the planned protests would undermine security in a city still grpling with persistent armed violence.

Hundreds of families fled neighbourhoods near the fighting, and by the next day, many of the cital’s central areas had emptied. The sudden eruption of violence ended a period of improving security in Mogadishu, shattering the perception that the city had begun turning a corner.

The most frustrating thing is that we have nothing to do with it, and it impacts so many of us, Mustafa said. We make our living in this city.

Security forces sealed Maka al-Mukarama Road, one of Mogadishu’s main arteries, while Bakara market, the largest commercial hub in the city, was effectively closed for business.

Maka al-Mukarama Road, Mogadishu’s main thoroughfare, is usually a bustling commercial hub, but recently, it has been largely empty, with the exception of military vehicles [Faisal Ali/Al Jazeera]

Look, it’s midday, and there’s almost no one here, shops are closed, and usually by this time the place is jammed, Ahmed, a street vendor at Bakara market, told Al Jazeera, gesturing at shuttered stalls.

Ali Wardheere, the deputy central bank governor, estimated the direct cost to businesses and services at $3.8m, though he stressed the figure was a model-based projection, not an official or final tally.

Like most Somalis, Mustafa has never voted for a president or a member of parliament. The country has not held a direct election for national leadership since the late 1960s.

Since the state was re-established in 2012 after its 1991 collse, leaders have been selected through an indirect system negotiated by clan elders and political elites.

As presidential terms near their end, low trust among political actors often leads to intense competition over power — and at times violence — as disputes over the electoral timetable come to a head.

At a press conference in late May, Sharif warned that the political deadlock could turn violent if negotiations failed.

Where do things stand? [We say] Leave, and [you say] I won’t leave. What comes next? Bullets.

The warning echoed events in 2021, when then-President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo remained in office more than a year beyond the end of his term, triggering clashes in Mogadishu before a political agreement was reached.

Higher stakes this election

This time, the political standoff carries higher stakes.

President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud says that constitutional amendments proved by parliament extended his mandate by an additional year from May 15. The opposition rejects that and has begun referring to him as a former president.

Two of Somalia’s most influential federal states also reject the amendments, leaving the country divided over the constitutional framework governing the next election, with no constitutional court to resolve the dispute.

After parliament proved the changes, Mohamud declared that the provisional constitution, and the provisional era, was a sun which set yesterday, signalling that his administration would press ahead despite objections from its opponents.

Tensions had been building for days. Ahead of a protest planned for Thursday, opposition leaders left the heavily fortified green zone near Mogadishu’s airport and returned to their residences across the city.

Some opposition figures said they would deploy their own armed guards at the demonstration, a proposal Mohamud rejected. The dispute heightened fears of a confrontation before fighting eventually broke out.

Both sides blame the other for starting the clashes. Khaire accused Mohamud of directing a sustained and indiscriminate military assault that lasted more than 20 hours, a claim Sharif echoed after fighting reached his own residence.

Ahmed Moalim Fiqi, the defence minister, accused the opposition of militarising the standoff, likening it to Sudan’s Rid Support Forces and alleging that opposition figures had distributed mortars and artillery across the cital.

Force and militias, he said, would no longer be allowed to seize power or block the state.

How it came to this

The roots of the crisis run back to the 2012 provisional constitution, which set up a federal, parliamentary system built on broad consensus and clan-based power-sharing, which every government since has promised to achieve and failed to attain.

This year, after a long review, parliament amended the constitution through a disputed process that split the political class. The government has insisted that the new constitution advances the statebuilding process and that the Somali public should be allowed to directly elect its representatives.

For Ahmed Abdi Koshin, a federal MP who boycotted the draft, the danger is that the whole settlement comes art. The process, he said, clearly doesn’t have buy-in, and the original constitution, for all its faults — an imperfect product of compromise — was the only glue holding Somalia together.

Koshin is not against a direct vote in principle, he said, but does not believe the country is ready for one. We don’t have legislation for a direct vote; censuses and the security situation remains compromised. It really is up to the president to either reach a deal and save Somalia, or watch it fall art, he said.

The opposition, organised as a coalition known as the Somali Future Council and including two serving federal-state presidents, former prime ministers and a former president, has pressed Mohamud to accept that his mandate has ended and negotiate a new electoral framework, as in past transitions.

It alleges that his push for a direct vote is a pretext for extending his term and potentially securing another.

The government rejects that, casting a national one-person, one-vote election — the first since the 1960s — as essential to a drawn-out state-building project. When electoral talks collsed on May 15, the Ministry of Information accused the opposition of bringing demands that ran counter to the citizen’s fundamental right to vote and to be voted for, and vowed to press ahead.

Mohamed Ibrahim Moalimuu, a lower-house MP who backed the amendments, said further delay could not be justified. We’ve waited for more than 12 years, he told Al Jazeera.

If they had arguments against them, they should have taken part in the process and raised their issues. A constitution isn’t a Quran, and they should come back and work through parliament to make their views clear.

A whole generation of Somalis, he noted, have never cast a ballot, and a real election would be a major milestone and would bring some hope.

The old indirect system, he added, was notoriously corrupt, with parliamentary seats changing hands for anywhere from $100,000 to as much as $1.3m. This system is too dirty and keeps people out, said Maliumuu. It needs to be changed.

A deeper problem

A regional official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to talk to the media, described an elite divided strategically over what type of country they want, whether a strong centralised state or a weak decentralised one, and tactically over who the right candidate is to take them there.

Mohamud, the official said, had moved from a decentralised vision for Somalia that embraces federalism towards a stronger executive, and his early, promising relationships with the federal-state leaders had since soured.

Those fractures have opened on several fronts at once.

Somaliland, which declared independence in 1991 and has stayed out of the constitutional review entirely, was recognised by Israel late last year after earlier courting Ethiopia.

Puntland and Jubaland, two of Somalia’s six federal states, have withdrawn from the federal system over the new constitution, while more than 100 MPs and senators from both boycotted the final vote.

Broader regional crises, from Sudan’s civil war to disease outbreaks elsewhere on the continent, have pushed Somalia further down the list of international priorities, leaving international engagement more fragmented and inconsistent.

The country is also grpling with a deepening humanitarian crisis and aid cuts, prompting famine monitors to warn of a heightened risk of hunger in parts of Somalia.

Yusuf Aynte, a veteran religious leader and former MP, said Somalia’s leaders needed to build consensus rather than push through changes that risk deepening divisions.

The president says what he is doing is good, and that may be so, he told Al Jazeera. But the most important thing is what everyone can agree on.

At the moment, Somalia has too many problems, and can’t afford to be distracted like this.

Jamal Shiil, a youth activist, told Al Jazeera that Somalia’s large youth population would ultimately bear the cost of the persistent instability.

Young people want to make a living here, for Somalia to be peaceful and not to have to leave because of the problems, he said. But if things don’t change it won’t leave them much of a choice.

Politics

Making lot of money with India: Trump says trade deal with good friend PM Modi coming

Donald Trump is confident that Washington and New Delhi will reach a trade agreement soon. Calling Prime Minister Narendra Modi a ‘good friend’, the US President spotlighted what he described as a reversal in the trade dynamics between the two countries.

Donald Trump is confident of India-US trade deal. ()

For years, India took advantage of the United States, Trump said on Thursday. They charged us tremendous tariffs and paid nothing. Now it is the exact reverse and we are making a lot of money with India.

But we will get to a deal because I like your Prime Minister [Narendra Modi] a lot. He is a good friend of mine, and we get along well. We have a good relationship, Trump said.

ALSO READ | India, US reaffirm commitment to reach trade agreement as talks conclude

His remarks came as India and the US renewed efforts to finalise a bilateral trade deal after fresh talks in New Delhi. A four-day visit by United States Trade Representative (USTR) officials from June 1-4 helped push the trade discussions ahead, according to a government statement.

Officials from both sides held talks on a range of issues, including market access, non-tariff barriers, customs procedures, trade facilitation measures and economic security cooperation.

The US this week flagged 60 economies, including India, for failing to effectively curb imports made with forced labour. This could lead to trade action.

India is among 54 economies named by Washington, alongside countries such as Australia, China, Jan, Saudi Arabia, Singore, the UK and the UAE.

“The failure of our most important trading partners to address the importation of goods made with forced labor is unacceptable. This creates a dynamic where American workers are forced to compete globally on an unlevel playing field,” US trade representative ambassador Jamieson Greer said.

ALSO READ | ‘India will resist such efforts’: Putin backs New Delhi amid ‘US pressure’ over Russian oil

Russian oil waiver under review

The India-US trade talks are taking place as Washington reviews a waiver that allows countries, including India, to buy Russian oil. US’ state secretary Marco Rubio told Congress that the exemption was meant to be temporary.

“We would like to end it as soon as we possibly can because the underlying policy of this country has been to sanction their oil. These are time-limited waivers for the purpose of opening up more global supply,” Rubio said Wednesday.

Introduced in March and extended twice, the waiver is set to expire on June 17. Rubio said any decision on extending it further would be taken by the US treasury department.

The waiver was granted to ease disruptions in global energy supplies caused by the US-Israeli war in West Asia and restrictions around the Strait of Hormuz. India resumed buying Russian oil under the exemption after energy supplies from the Gulf region were affected.

ALSO READ | US proposes tariffs on India, 59 others over forced labour import curbs

India’s oil imports and tariff dispute

Russian oil purchases have also featured in trade discussions between New Delhi and Washington.

Earlier, Trump imposed an additional 25% tariff on Indian imports, accusing India of helping finance Russia’s war in Ukraine through its oil purchases. The tariff was later removed after India committed to stopping imports of Russian oil, according to a White House fact sheet.

President Trump agreed to remove the additional 25% tariff on imports from India in recognition of India’s commitment to stop purchasing Russian Federation oil. Accordingly, the President signed an Executive Order last Friday removing that additional 25% tariff, the White House document said.

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