-The Hindu The devastating landslips were caused by the undercutting of fragile hillsides for highways rather than by dams, which actually helped mitigate the floods The natural calamity of June 16 through 19 that devastated the whole of Uttarakhand and large areas of Himachal Pradesh and western Uttar Pradesh - an area of almost 20,000 sq.km. - was one of extremely rare severity among all the hydro-meteorological disasters to have struck India. Intense...

-The Business Standard The Uttarakhand floods have put the spotlight on the competence of the national body which was created with a vision 'to build a safer and disaster-resilient India' When thousands got swept away by floods in Uttarakhand on the night of June 16, little help reached the mountains till at least a day had passed. Though the weather department had issued a warning, the magnitude of the disaster shows that...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: The weather office may have jumped the gun in declaring last week's torrential rainfall in northern India as monsoon showers. Private forecasters say the devastating downpour was a freak pre-monsoon phenomenon that has been followed by dry weather. The India Meteorological Department insists that monsoon rains arrived two weeks early, but private forecaster Skymet says the claim is debatable. It says northern India will get the next...

-The Telegraph A set of numbers, portents of atmospheric changes in the skies over India, had told meteorologist Om Prakash Singh something rare was going to happen over northwest India. It was Thursday, June 13, and a supercomputer that routinely crunches out five-day forecasts had consistently predicted a confluence of two weather systems, likely to take place by the weekend and deliver copious rainfall. As Singh and his colleagues at the India Meteorological...

-PTI At least 34 more deaths were reported from Uttar Pradesh as cold wave conditions continued unabated in North, East and Central parts of the country, even as temperature soared slightly in some places. The national capital witnessed a chilly but sunny morning with the mercury rising a bit during the early hours. There was a shallow fog in the morning hours and the minimum temperature was recorded at 4.4 degree Celsius, three...