-The Hindu Cyclonic Storms on Tamil Nadu’s 1,076-km coastline are not unusual, and at least once in two years there is some disaster or the other. The common thread running through every such instance is that all claims of preparedness are invariably exposed as either hollow or woefully inadequate. The focus, as well as any claim to administrative efficiency, is solely on rescue and relief operations. What the government is able...
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Price stabilisation fund for pulses can keep consumer budget in check
-Hindustan Times The alleged lynching of a truck driver who was ferrying pulses by a mob recently in UP is a sad commentary about India’s inadequate price management systems. Wholesale prices, which plunged for the 11th straight month in September, could be masking a worrisome rise in food prices, leaving consumers to wonder why — even with declining inflation — their household budgets are spinning out of control. After onion, the prices...
More »India’s drought concerns ease as monsoon beats the odds -Amit Bhattacharya
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: It hasn't washed away the fears of deficit rainfall, but the monsoon's satisfactory performance so far has sharply reduced the possibility of a second consecutive drought in the country this year. In a drought year, average nationwide rainfall is at least 10 per cent below normal. As of now, almost halfway into the rainy season, the monsoon is 2 per cent below average, still within the...
More »Heat & dust raise Delhi’s air toxins to critical levels
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Day temperatures dropped marginally on Thursday but there was hardly any relief for weather-beaten Delhiites as toxins in the air rose alarmingly due to a cloud cover trapping pollutants. The capital's air quality index (AQI) breached the 'severe' level, going from 219 (poor) on Wednesday to 410 in one of the sharpest single-day spikes in recent months. Fine particle pollution (PM2.5) that AQI measures wasn't the...
More »India's shocking farmer suicide epidemic -Baba Umar
-Al Jazeera Falling into a debt-trap and besieged by bad weather, thousands of farmers are taking their own lives each year. Umbrale, India - After days of hushed chanting that "the sky betrayed" him, Datatery Popat Ghadwaje, 42, committed suicide by ingesting insecticides at his grape orchard. Crushed under a $41,000 debt and a series of bank repayment notices, Ghadwaje of Umbrale village in the western state of Maharashtra finally lost hope...
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