``No, no, it was not Pokharan. It was not El Nino. It was not ozone depletion. It was just another normal summer,'' says an exasperated Dr D S Desai, director (weather forecasting) at the IMD.

The IMD's dismissal of this year's summer is intended to register the fact that, like it or not not, India is a hot-bed and blistering summers are here to stay.

Moderate heat wave continued in West Bengal even as the weatherman indicated that a thunder squall, with surface wind reaching 60 km per hour, would hit the state soon. As per the latest radar report, the thunder squall was likely to hit some parts of Calcutta, Burdwan, Howrah, Hooghly, Nadia, north 24-Parganas, south 24-Parganas and Murshidabad districts. The heat wave has so far claimed 10 lives in West Bengal during the past fortnight.

In western Orrisa, with many people dying in theheat wave, the festivities for Sital Sashthi - the popular religious function of the region -- has grown cold. With reports of 78 more deaths pouring in from the districts since yesterday, the total number of casualties in the current spell of heat-wave in Orissa has risen to 361. Reports of 19 more deaths were received from Cuttack district while casualty figures reported from other districts are Kandhamal-15, Sambalpur-14, Anugul-13, Dhenkanal and Bolangir 5 each, Khurda-4 (all in Bhubaneswar city) and Mayurbhanj-3.