Lightning strikes in India kill 38 people in 24 hours

Lightning has killed at least 38 people across two Indian states over the past 24 hours, officials said Monday.

A majority of the deaths occurred in the western state of Rajasthan, where 11 people died after being struck by lightning near a watchtower at the 12th century Amber Fort, police said.

Senior police officer Anand Srivastava said some of the victims were taking selfies near the watchtower when lightning struck late Sunday. Srivastava said at least nine more people were killed and nearly 20 others were injured in separate lightning strikes when the state was lashed with thunderstorms and monsoon rains.

In Uttar Pradesh, 18 people were killed by lightning on Sunday, said Manoj Dixit, a government official. Most of those killed were farm laborers working in fields.

7 decades into Indian democracy, a royal palace thrives

In the summer of 1944, hundreds of royals gathered for the opening of Umaid Bhawan Palace, a magnificent sandstone edifice that dominates the skyline in India’s northwestern city of Jodhpur. It was the last of its kind.

Three years later, India was free from British colonial rule, and more than 500 princely states — the semi-sovereign principalities ruled by royal clans — faced an uncertain future. Most have faded into obscurity, but the family that built this palace continues to thrive — in part by converting a section of it into a hotel.

48 dead as heavy monsoon rains lash western India

At least 48 people have been killed as large swaths of western India have been lashed by heavy monsoon rains and flooding over the last week, officials said Wednesday.

In Rajasthan, home to a number of popular tourist destinations, the streets of at least four districts have been turned into virtual rivers, trapping tens of thousands of people on the upper floors of residential buildings. Rescue workers were scrambling to rescue thousands of others whose homes have been flooded or destroyed.

By Wednesday, the death toll in the state stood at 19.

Indian police: Mob kills Muslim man who was transporting cow

A Muslim man beaten by a mob that accused him of transporting cows for slaughter has died in western India, police said Wednesday, in the latest violence by Hindu vigilante groups enraged over treatment of the animal they consider sacred.

Pehlu Khan died late Tuesday of injuries sustained when he and 14 other men were brutally beaten three days earlier in Rajasthan state, police said.

Hindus, who form 80 percent of India's 1.3 billion population, consider cows to be sacred and for many eating beef is taboo. In many Indian states, the slaughtering of cows and selling of beef is either restricted or banned.

India records its hottest temperature ever amid heat wave

A city in western India has suffered through the country's highest recorded temperature — a scorching 51 degrees Celsius (123.8 degrees Fahrenheit).

The record was set Thursday in the city of Phalodi, in the western state of Rajasthan. India's meteorological department said the previous high was 50.6 C (123 F), reached in 1956 in the city of Alwar, also in Rajasthan.

India records its hottest temperature ever amid heat wave

A city in western India has set a new heat record for the country — a scorching 51 degrees Celsius (123.8 Fahrenheit).

The record set Thursday in the city of Phalodi, in the western state of Rajasthan, comes amid a heat wave in India.

India's meteorological department said the previous high was 50.6 Celsius (123 F), reached in 1956 in the city of Alwar, also in Rajasthan.