Natwar Singh on Sonia: Pay no attention to the disgruntled ex-courtier - Firstpost

They may hate the Gandhis, they may love the Gandhis but they cannot do without the Gandhis. While in the good books of the ‘family’ they enjoy the perks that come with it; out of favour they love to trash it, and it pays. How? Ask Natwar Singh, the bureaucrat- cum-politician, who has come out with scathing revelations on the Gandhi family. These promise to jack up the sales figures of his book. Either way it is a win-win situation for people like him.

Once an insider at 10 Janpath Natwar Singh has been an outsider for nearly a decade now. The timing of his book is a statement in itself. He has chosen to strike the beleaguered Gandhi household when it is battling on various fronts. He points to then 34-year-old Rahul Gandhi’s lack of courage in preventing his mother from taking up the prime ministerial assignment against the background of his grandmother and father’s fate. But, why wasn’t Natwar bold enough to take on the Gandhis while the UPA was in power? Just when the Congress was waiting for a report by AK Antony on the causes of the electoral debacle Natwar Singh butted in to make the most of the situation.

Courtesy: ibn live

While it pours out lot of bitterness against Sonia Gandhi, Natwar’s book also reflects a tilt towards the new ascending star of Indian politics. Singh says what Sonia has “achieved” is the reduction of one of the “greatest political parties” of the world into a “rump” of 45 members in the Lok Sabha. And, in the same breath he predicts Narendra Modi will restore India’s image with the commanding majority he enjoys.

The book has expectedly drawn comments from those who know him or those who overestimate the impact of his writing on the family which once meant so much to him. His choice of words like "authoritarian" and "capricious" to "Machiavellian" and "secretive" to describe Sonia Gandhi shows he has not got over the humiliation of being thrown out of the Congress inner circle in the wake of the Volcker controversy.

In many ways Natwar’s writing reminds one of MO Mathai, the former aide of Jawaharlal Nehru who chose to run down his former boss and his family with his perceptions of their personal lives as perceived by him. Writing about Mathai’s revelations in the book, Reminiscences of the Nehru Age, 1978; My Days with Nehru, Khushwant Singh had described Mathai as namak haram, a betrayer.

Even if his one-sided account of events is true to some extent, it stretches credulity when he claims that Sonia Gandhi sent Priyanka in her feminine mufti to request him to drop the Rahul Gandhi chapter. It reflects the propensity of people to draw cheap mileage from the proximity to the family.

Whatever be his relevance in the feudal order of Bharatpur Natwar Singh means little to current students of politics, history or foreign affairs. So, to come out with a book and make it sell using Rahul Gandhi as launching pad can be seen as a good tactic. Journalists in Rajasthan who saw him hop from party to party and change prefixes to his name would hardly trust him for his intellectual honesty or political conviction. Not surprising therefore to see him remaining on the fringes even while enjoying considerable influence on the erstwhile first family of Indian politics.

Coming from the family of courtiers to the Bharatpur royalty Natwar Singh did well for himself to pursue studies under royal scholarship in Scindia School, Gwalior, Mayo College, Ajmer, St Stephen’s in Delhi and later in England before joining the Foreign Service.

Staying close to power came easy to him. He consistently enjoyed political patronage from Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi and even won an election in 1984 during the post-Indira assassination wave from Bharatpur. To be acceptable as a part of the royalty he described himself as Kunwar Natwar Singh. He never won another election and tried to sustain his political relevance by reinventing himself as a Jat leader, as Choudhary Natwar Singh. After his unlamented departure from Gandhi household has by turns sucked up to Maywati’s BSP and to BJP’s Vasundhara Raje. In his 80s now he can only be expected to stay relevant through such tricks.

Sonia Gandhi has expectedly trashed Natwar’s claims. So it his word against hers now. Sonia says she would have to write a book to put the record straight. Till then “One life is not enough”.

Modi's firm stand at WTO is a departure from UPA's decade-long weakness - Firstpost

Narendra Modi government’s continued stand at the WTO that India’s food security is as important as the Western nation’s desperate desire to get the Trade Facilitation Protocol passed is an emphatic departure from the multilateral and bilateral trade policies pursued by the Manmohan Singh government during the last ten years.

The new approach is reciprocal and strong, while the UPA had tended to capitulate under international pressure.

Through this bold decision, in which the the July 31 deadline for the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) has lapsed, India has told the US and the EU that its primary concern is its hungry poor and not their goodwill. Without agreeing to safeguarding their food interests, India cannot agree to a treaty aimed at maximising (mostly) rich countries’ exports.

For the first time in the last ten years, India has also told the world that when it comes to national interests, it doesn’t care for what is considered good manners in the international forums. Indirectly, it has also told the world that it doesn’t stand by the weak position of its predecessor, the UPA, which had agreed for the TFA without negotiating hard for a “single undertaking” - taking decisions on both the issues together.

When the UPA government had agreed for the TFA in Bali during the last round of negotiations, it was in lieu of a proposed agreement on its food security requirements. The US, EU and other developed countries had opposed India’s food subsidy programmes if they exceeded 10 per cent of the total agricultural production, the limit permitted under the WTO (World Trade Organisation) rules.

The WTO Agreement on Agricultural (AoA) subsidies allows only 10 percent (of production) subsidy for most of the developing countries. Rich countries argued that the Food Security Bill exceeds this 10 percent and therefore it would “distort” international trade. Using the AoA, they picked on India’s stock holding of food grains, minimum support prices to farmers and other subsidies while overlooking the fact that they dole out billions of dollars as indirect subsidies in their respective countries.

In hindsight, it’s clear that the UPA government shouldn’t have wilted under pressure at the WTO and should have bargained hard. If there was no agreement for a “single undertaking”, it should have docked the TFA. Instead, it allowed for cherry picking by the US and the EU, which became a source of international pressure and bad international press. It’s clear now that had the UPA taken a firm stand, things could have been favourable to India.

India’s current strong position appears to have led to some softening of stand by the US. On Thursday, American secretary of state John Kerry said that he understood India’s concerns about its food security requirements. He also expressed hope that the Bali package would address them. This is a stated departure from the position of the block of countries led by the US and EU earlier. In all its dealings towards the TF protocol, they had been dismissive of the food security requirements of India.

The US had earlier said that "we are extremely discouraged that a small handful of Members in this organization (WTO) are ready to walk away from their commitments at Bali, to kill the Bali agreement, to kill the power of that good faith and goodwill we all shared, to flip the lights in this building back to dark”.

While countries such as the US cry foul of a “missed deadline” because of India’s firm stand, experts point to the fact that the history of WTO is dotted with a number of deadlines. Chakravarthy Raghavan, editor emeritus of South-North Development Monitor, said that “if the deadline for the TF protocol is missed, it will be one of a long line of ‘missed deadlines' from the inception of the WTO on 1 January 1995: those mandated by Ministerial Conferences and thus ‘Ministerial political commitments', and those missed in terms of legally binding mandated deadlines set by the Marrakech Treaty.”

“Many of these missed deadlines and unfulfilled obligations are central to the demands of developing countries and the fulfilment of the development mandate under the Doha negotiations, and a vast majority of missed deadlines is because of the US and developed countries withholding consensus,” he adds.

India therefore shouldn’t worry about another missed deadline. What’s important is its sovereign right over its domestic policies for the welfare of its people.

UCC can't be sued for Bhopal plant contamination: US court - Deccan Herald

New York, Aug 1, 2014, PTI:

In a major blow to victims of the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy, a US court here has ruled that the Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) cannot be sued for the ongoing contamination from the chemical plant.

Nongovernmental organisation EarthRights International had filed the lawsuit in the Southern District of New York on behalf of residents of Bhopal saying land and water of the citizens are being contaminated by waste from the plant.

EarthRights said that as per the court's ruling, Union Carbide cannot be sued despite evidence that construction of the plant was managed by an employee of the company.

EarthRights expressed confidence that there is enough evidence against Union Carbide that will lead to a reversal of the "erroneous decision on appeal".

The lawsuit had also added the state of Madhya Pradesh, which owns the site of the former Bhopal plant, as a defendant and had sought that Madhya Pradesh also cooperate in clean-up of the site.

US District Judge John Kennan said in his 45-page ruling on July 30 that, "The only relief plaintiffs seek against Madhya Pradesh is an injunction directing them to cooperate in clean-up of the site ordered by this Court against UCC.

"Because I conclude that there is no basis to hold UCC liable for Plaintiffs' damage, there will be no court-ordered cleanup in this action, and thus, no basis for enjoining Madhya Pradesh. It is therefore appropriate to enter judgment in favor of the state (in) the amended complaint," the judge said in his ruling.

A poisonous gas leak from the Union Carbide plant killed over 5,000 people on the night of December 2-3, 1984 and EarthRights said UCC had "largely abandoned" the site, allowing toxic wastes to seep into the local water supply.

It said UCC was involved in the creation and disposal of toxic wastes at the Bhopal plant, and the manager who oversaw the construction of the plant confirmed that he worked for UCC, not for the Indian subsidiary that officially operated the plant.

Keenan, however, ignored this evidence and ruled that UCC was not sufficiently involved in the acts at the plant and that the project manager actually worked for the subsidiary, EarthRights said in a statement.

"The evidence demonstrates that Union Carbide was intimately involved in every aspect of designing and building the Bhopal plant, including the waste disposal systems that caused the pollution," counsel for the plaintiffs and Legal Director for EarthRights Marco Simons said.

"The court's decision discounted this evidence, and it depends entirely on assuming that the manager who oversaw the construction of the Bhopal plant - who said he worked for Union Carbide – didn't really know who he worked for," he said.

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals, which will hear the plaintiffs' appeal, had previously reversed several prior dismissals of cases against UCC. EarthRights expressed hope that the appeals court will "correct this error".

Co-counsel Rajan Sharma, of the New York law firm Sharma & DeYoung, added, "These families have been living with Union Carbide pollution for decades. We remain committed to seeking the justice that they deserve".

The plaintiffs have also sued Madhya Pradesh to compel its cooperation in the cleanup of the contamination.

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Will WTO standoff take the sheen off John Kerry's meeting with Modi? - Firstpost

New Delhi: US Secretary of State John Kerry meets with India's new Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the first time today, hoping to break the ice with a leader once shunned by Washington.

Kerry, who held talks with senior Indian officials on Thursday, voiced optimism about expanding cooperation between the world's two largest democracies. But a raft of disputes have cast a shadow over hopes for a warmer relationship, with India also blocking a major World Trade Organisation pact on customs procedures.

The United States has little relationship with Modi himself, apart from refusing him a US visa in 2005 over allegations that he turned a blind eye to the 2002 Gujarat riots.

The United States caught up with other Western nations during the election campaign, sending its ambassador to meet Modi who since taking office has shown no visible signs of holding a grudge over his past treatment.

But US officials, who value frank and free-wheeling relationships with foreign leaders, are unsure what to expect from Modi who is known for his austere, solitary lifestyle.

The differences between Kerry and Modi could not be more stark: Reuters

Modi is seen as a very different character than his predecessor Manmohan Singh, a bookish Oxford-educated economist with whom President Barack Obama had found a kinship.

Kerry, the polyglot son of a diplomat, has nurtured personal relationships as he pursues key goals including seeking peace in the Middle East.

The top US diplomat went ahead with the trip to India despite working around the clock to end the bloodshed in the Gaza Strip. Just hours before his scheduled meeting, Kerry called a news conference at 3 am (2130 GMT) to announce a 72-hour ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

Indian ministers voiced understanding as Kerry frequently excused himself from meetings to take phone calls to broker the ceasefire, which was achieved in the early hours after an official dinner, US officials said.

The United States has sought to put relations with India on firmer ground after the Modi visa row and a crisis in December when US authorities arrested an Indian diplomat for allegedly mistreating her servant, infuriating New Delhi.

But new disputes have kept arising. On Thursday, the WTO said that the 160-member body had failed to approve a landmark pact that would streamline global customs procedures.

India had stalled the pact as it pushed for the WTO to give the green light on the developing power's stockpiling of subsidised food. India says the policy is vital to help the poor, but rich nations charge that the practice distorts global trade.

The United States voiced "disappointment" and "regret" over India's stance, although Kerry insisted that Washington was sympathetic to concerns about feeding the poor.

India, in turn, said it protested to Kerry over reports from former contractor Edward Snowden that US intelligence had snooped on Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party while it was in opposition.

US officials, however, have signalled that they do not want to create a new rift by renewing past concerns about Modi's track record on minority rights.

Kerry treaded lightly on the issue on Thursday, saying that the two democracies shared the belief that "every citizen, no matter their background, no matter their beliefs, can make their full contribution."

"From women's rights to minority rights, there is room to go further for both of us," Kerry said.

AFP

India's demands block $1 trillion WTO deal on customs rules - Zee News

Pic Courtesy: -

Geneva: The World Trade Organization failed on Thursday to reach a deal to standardise customs rules, which would have been the first global trade reform in two decades but was blocked by India`s demands for concessions on agricultural stockpiling.

"We have not been able to find a solution that would allow us to bridge that gap," WTO Director-General Roberto Azevedo told trade diplomats in Geneva just two hours before the final deadline for a deal.

"Of course it is true that everything remains in play until midnight, but at present there is no workable solution on the table, and I have no indication that one will be forthcoming."

The deadline passed without a breakthrough. WTO ministers had already agreed the global reform of customs procedures known as "trade facilitation" last December, but it needed to be put into the WTO rule book by July 31.

Most diplomats saw that as rubber-stamping a unique success in the WTO`s 19 year history, which according to some estimates would add $1 trillion and 21 million jobs to the world economy, so they were shocked when India unveiled its veto.

Trade experts say Thursday`s failure is likely to end the era of trying to cobble together global trade agreements and to accelerate efforts by smaller groups of like-minded nations to liberalise trade among themselves. India has been vocal in opposing such moves, making its veto even more surprising.

"Today’s developments suggest that there is little hope for truly global trade talks to take place," said Jake Colvin at the National Foreign Trade Council, a leading U.S. business group.

"The vast majority of countries who understand the importance of modernizing trade rules and keeping their promises will have to pick up the pieces and figure out how to move forward."

Some nations have already discussed a plan to exclude India from the agreement and push ahead regardless, and the International Chamber of Commerce urged officials to "make it happen."

“Our message is clear. Get back to the table, save this deal and get the multilateral trade agenda back on the road to completion sooner rather than later,” ICC Secretary General John Danilovich said.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, on a visit to New Delhi, had earlier said he was hopeful that differences between India and much of the rest of the world could be resolved.

But after Azevedo`s speech, U.S. Ambassador to the WTO Michael Punke was downbeat.

"We`re obviously sad and disappointed that a very small handful of countries were unwilling to keep their commitments from the December conference in Bali, and we agree with the Director-General that that action has put this institution on very uncertain new ground," Punke told reporters.

India had insisted that, in exchange for signing the trade facilitation agreement, it must see more progress on a parallel pact giving it more freedom to subsidise and stockpile food grains than is allowed by WTO rules. It got support from Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia.

India`s new nationalist government has insisted that a permanent agreement on its subsidised food stockpiling must be in place at the same time as the trade facilitation deal, well ahead of a 2017 target set last December in Bali.

Kerry, whose visit to India was aimed at revitalising bilateral ties but was overshadowed by the standoff, said the United States understood India`s position that it needs to provide food security for its poor but India would lose out if it refused to maintained its veto.

DEAL WITHOUT INDIA?

Diplomats say India could technically attract a trade dispute if it caused the deal to collapse, although nobody wanted to threaten legal action at this stage. The summer break will give diplomats time to mull options, including moving ahead without India.

Technical details would still have to be ironed out, but there was a "credible core group" that would be ready to start talking about a such a deal in September, a source involved in the discussions said.

"What began as a murmur has become a much more active discussion in Geneva and I think that there are a lot of members in town right now that have reached the reluctant conclusion that that may be the only way to go," he said.

An Australian trade official with knowledge of the talks said a group of countries including the United States, European Union, Australia, Japan, Canada and Norway began discussing the possibility in Geneva on Wednesday afternoon.

New Delhi cannot be deliberately excluded, since that would mean other countries slowing down containers destined for India, but if it becomes a "free-rider" it will add another nail in the coffin of attempts to hammer out global trade reform.

Trade diplomats had previously said they were reluctant to consider the idea of the all-but-India option, but momentum behind the trade facilitation pace means it may be hard to stop.

Many countries, including China and Brazil, have already notified the WTO of steps they plan to take to implement the customs accord immediately.

Other nations have begun bringing the rules into domestic law, and the WTO has set up a funding mechanism to assist. But WTO head Azevedo said he feared that while major economies had options open to them, the poorest would be left behind.

"If the system fails to function properly then the smallest nations will be the biggest losers," he said. "It would be a tragic outcome for those economies — and therefore a tragic outcome for us all."

AFP

First Published: Friday, August 01, 2014, 04:21

Sonia was no deity of sacrifice: Did Priyanka endorse Natwar's claim? - Firstpost

'Amazing Grace,' announced a leading newspaper’s banner headline on 19 May, 2004, words that went on to become a sort of catchphrase to describe the "sacrifice" made by Sonia Gandhi who had heeded the call of her “inner voice”. Whatever propelled her decision to not become prime minister, in one single stroke, she had become a deity of renunciation, personifying the biggest human trait that Indians value.

Natwar Singh. Image courtesy PIB

There were live images of wailing senior Congressmen in the Central Hall of Parliament as Sonia told the Congress Parliamentary Party, "Today my inner voice is telling me that I should politely refuse to accept the post of Prime Minister.” The drama that followed outside her residence and at the Congress headquarters made many in the country, regardless of whether they had voted for the Congress, review their opinion of her. Even her most bitter critics accepted that the move was most graceful, dictated by circumstances or otherwise.

The emotional outpouring and Sonia’s handling of affairs with a certain coolness, steadfastly supporting Manmohan Singh, was a powerful image. All other stories, why she refused to become Prime Minister, her citizenship issue, her family's fears that if she became prime minister she could meet the same fate as her mother-in-law and husband, all these were discredited.

Now, what Natwar Singh, her one time confidante, has done is to torpedo that image, partially demolish her claim to renunciation and sacrifice, and also portray her son and heir Rahul Gandhi as a timid young man who forced his mother not to accept the challenge of shaping the fate of the nation only because of his own panic. He may have become the Congress’s vice-president only eight years later, but he took decisions on her behalf even when he was hardly in active politics.

Sonia Gandhi has now promised that she will write her own book and 'reveal the truth'. Expectedly, for Congress party leaders, it’s a free for all situation, whereby one could choose strong words and phrases to berate Natwar Singh. There are no clues yet on just when Sonia will write her book. Was it a light-hearted comment to politely get away from the inquisitive media without responding to substantive questions or did she really mean it? Will she write a book while still serving as Congress president or do it post retirement?

Nobody knows. But first, it would be interesting to take a look at Barkha Dutt’s interview with Priyanka Gandhi for NDTV in April 2009 when she was campaigning in her mother's parliamentary constituency, Rae Bareli. Priyanka could be seen to be virtually endorsing what Natwar Singh said, that Rahul did not want Sonia to become PM because he feared that she could die if she accepted the post. And it was Priyanka who conveyed Rahul’s message, with a deadline of 24 hours.

In response to Barkha’s question, “You have seen what happened to your father and you have seen what happened to your grandmother, do you feel scared for your brother, your mother, yourself,” Priyanka says: "No, I don’t. I don’t feel scared for them at all... But I did have this one moment of terror in 2004 when I peeped into her office and I saw this bunch of, you know, Lalu ji and everybody surrounding her and saying that you have to be Prime Minister, I had this one moment of complete terror. And I burst out crying. I didn’t realise that I was afraid. I burst into my brother, I was like is she going to die..you think you are not scared but you are scared of losing someone else you love..”

Taken in the context of what Natwar Singh has written in his book and said in his pre-release interview to Headlines Today, Priyanka’s response becomes very revealing.

That 'renunciation’ formula helped Sonia again in March 2006 when the “office of profit” issue threatened to culminate in her disqualification as an MP. In a surprise move, she resigned from Lok Sabha, only to be re-elected from Rae Bareli before Parliament could open for the next session. The UPA government would later make relevant amendments in the office of profit statutes.

Natwar Singh obviously has chosen his timing well. For the last nine years he has been persona non grata, going from the second most powerful person in the UPA government in its first year, from somebody who could call Sonia by her first name to a humiliated, haunted man thrown out of the Congress after his name figured in the Volcker report. But for the past few days, he is making headlines, the difference being that this time around, he is having the last laugh, at least for now, having put Sonia and Rahul in the dock.

At the age of 83, with the Modi government firmly at the centre and son Jagat Singh now a BJP MLA from Rajasthan, he has nothing to lose now. He knows that the Congress is down. Sonia’s Mother India frame has already been left tattered in these elections. The country may have rewarded her for that renunciation in 2009, but no longer reposes faith in her.

Natwar has said he wrote his book, One Life Is Not Enough, because he did not want to take his “bitterness to the funeral pyre” but he has virtually bombed the dynasty’s aura. He has used a range of adjectives to describe Sonia, from “authoritarian” and “capricious” to “Machiavellian” and “secretive.”

The first controversy on why Sonia refused to become PM -- that president Kalam raising citizenship issue thus making her nominate Manmohan Singh – was debunked by Kalam but continued to be a talking point because there were other versions also. Interestingly, a senior BJP leader, now an important minister, had met President Kalam same day, May 17, 2004, when Sonia had met him to stake claim to form government.

Kalam had spoken to that BJP leader about the various petitions including that of Subramanian Swamy he had received and said he was looking into the matter. Swamy in his petition to President Kalam had said the Citizenship Act did not allow Sonia to become PM. “In particular Ms Gandhi is subject to proviso under Section 5 of Citizenship Act, a reciprocal disqualification to be Prime Minister of this country since she is Italian,” Swamy said in his petition dated May 15, 2004 to Kalam adding that the President’s power to invite anyone who enjoys support of majority of elected members is not “unfettered”.

On this subject, Kalam wrote in his book later: “While this communication was in progress, I had a number of e-mails and letters coming from individuals, organizations and parties that I should not allow Mrs Sonia Gandhi to become the prime minister of our country. I had passed on these mails and letters to various agencies in the government for their information without making any remarks. During this time there were many political leaders who came to meet me to request me not to succumb to any pressure and appoint Mrs Gandhi as the prime minister.” He added, “If she had made any claim for herself I would have had no option but to appoint her.”

Natwar Singh's narration of events of 17-18 May 2004 is an insider’s account. Given the current political mood, it would be easily acceptable to most, until Rahul or Sonia come out with a more substantive counter. It is, after all, not an ordinary event that Sonia and Priyanka went to his doorstep with a very personal request, a full nine years after he was shown the door from the government, from the Congress party and from key positions that he held in the first family foundations.

Pune landslide: Unscientific farming seen as trigger - Livemint

Rescue workers and volunteers clear the debris from the site of a landslide at Malin village. Photo: Reuters

Mumbai/Malin (Pune):Environmental campaigners said Wednesday’s landslide in Malin village of Pune district that has killed 41 people so far and buried around 125 more was caused by unscientific paddy farming encouraged by the local agricultural department.

Ambegaon-based non-governmental organization Nisarg Sahas Sanstha (NSS), which works in the field of environment protection, has lodged a complaint with Pune Rural Police demanding that an offence of culpable homicide be registered against local officials of the agricultural department.

It said these officials encouraged tribal farmers of Malin village to undertake paddy cultivation in an unscientific manner.

Dhananjay Konkane, president of NSS, said: “Villagers who mostly belong to the Scheduled Tribe community called Mahdeo Koli were encouraged by the agriculture department to flatten large tracts of hills in the village and also uproot the trees on the hill to promote paddy cultivation among these tribals, so that they have a permanent source of livelihood under the government scheme called Padkai.”

However, before encouraging villagers to undertake paddy cultivation on the hills, no survey on the geographical features of the village and its surroundings were carried out by the officials, he claimed.

Union home minister Rajnath Singh , who visited Malin village on Thursday, announced an ex-gratia payment of Rs.2 lakh each for close relatives of those who died in the landslide.

Singh said: “One must strike a balance between development and environment. Eco-friendly development is a must to ensure that balance of nature is not disturbed.”

However, he added, it would be premature to comment on the reasons for the landslide before authorities had received the report of the Geological Survey of India.

The confirmed death toll was 41 from Wednesday’s landslide, said H.H. Chauhan , deputy director of health services in the district where the village is located.

More than 24 hours after the Wednesday morning landslide, authorities said the chances of survival were slim for anyone still trapped under the mud in Malin village in Ambegaon near Pune district of Maharashtra. Suresh Jadhav , a district official, said around 40 homes were wiped out.

Two days of torrential rains triggered the landslide, which continued to pound the area as rescuers brought bodies covered in soaked white sheets to waiting ambulances while relatives stood by, weeping. Bad communications, dangerous roads and debris delayed national rescue personnel from the stricken area for several hours Wednesday.

The disaster only came to light when a bus driver passed by and saw that the village had disappeared under masses of mud and earth. “The driver returned to a nearby city and alerted authorities,” Jadhav said. “Everything on the mountain came down.” Thirty bodies had been recovered and eight people pulled out alive, said rescue official Sachin Tamboli .

Suresh Dhonde , who was working in another town when the landslide ripped through his village, said only two people managed to get out of his home alive.

“The other six are buried under the mud,” he said.

Crowds of people from nearby areas were helping rescuers, using their bare hands to move fallen trees and rocks. About 250 disaster response workers and at least 100 ambulances were involved in the rescue effort, officials said.

Overnight, emergency workers used flood lights mounted on jeeps to illuminate the disaster area, where the tangled roofs of homes poked up through thick mud.

Rescuers expected the death toll to rise in the village at the foothills of the Sahyadri Mountains. Sandeep Rai Rathore , a top official of the National Disaster Response Force, estimated that around 100 people were missing and feared dead.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi mourned the loss of lives and said all possible efforts must be made to help the victims, according to a statement from his office. He sent home minister Rajnath Singh to the disaster area.

Landslides are common in the area during the monsoon season, which runs from June through September. The area around the village has been deforested extensively, increasing its vulnerability to landslides. Similar deforestation and environmental damage have caused floods and landslides in other parts of India.

Pune district is about 150km (95 miles) southeast of Mumbai, India’s commercial capital.

On Thursday, heavy rains hit a remote mountainous village in northern India and six members of a family were feared dead, said police officer Pravin Tamta. Police have recovered two bodies and were searching for four others in Tehri district in the hilly Uttarakhand state, Tamta said. The village is 300 kilometers (200 miles) north of New Delhi.

Last year, more than 6,000 people were killed as floods and landslides swept through Uttarakhand state during the monsoon season.

Reuters contributed to this story.