Situation alarming: More than one-third population hit by drought   The country is facing severe drought for the second consecutive year. Conservative estimates from official sources show that over a quarter of rural habitations are facing drinking water scarcity. Although both India Meteorological Department and Skymet have predicted a more than normal rainfall during June-September, 2016, the water storage available in 91 major reservoirs of the country has declined from 22 percent...

-Hindustan Times With progressively increasing severity of rising temperatures and rain deficits over two consecutive years – 2014 and 2015, the Great Indian Drought was always coming. The India Meteorological Department, ministry of home affairs, the ministry of water resources, the Ministry of agriculture and farmers welfare office, and the National Disaster Management Authority knew it. The question is, what did we do with this knowledge? Six hundred million of India’s 1.2 billion...

There is a general perception that men are the primary breadwinners and, therefore, they are the ones responsible for fending for their families. However, recently released data from the population Census 2011 shows that around 3.3 crore households in the country are headed by women. In other words, overall there are 13.2 percent female-headed households (See Chart 1). The Census data shows that there are 59.4 lakh single member female-headed...

-The Times of India JAIPUR: A group of activists have written to finance minister Arun Jaitley and rural development minister Chaudhary Birender Singh seeking that they pay heed to the Supreme Court order regarding the proper implementation of MGNREGS (Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme), which could go a long way in easing the plight of the drought-affected. In the letter dated May 23, the activists referred to the SC order of...

-The Hindu Poor in rural areas seem disinclined to seek employment under the scheme; low Wages and delay in payment are cited as reasons Hyderabad: Despite a severe drought in 2015-16, many of the poor in rural areas of Telangana, except in a couple of districts, seemed to be disinclined to seek employment under the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). Low Wages and delay in its payment apart from various other...