-Governance Now A CAG report dated March 15, 2013 had found Uttarakhand sitting on a time bomb, with nearly zero disaster preparedness back in Sept 2012 when the nationwide performance audit was done. Will other states, marked equally poorly in the audit, sit up and smell the coffee? The massive disaster in Uttarakhand has brought to the fore not only the old debate of ecology versus development but also thrown up...
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Uttarakhand: Death toll uncertain, minister says 10,000 just an 'estimate'
-IANS DEHRADUN/ HARIDWAR: There was still no clarity over the number of deaths in the flood-ravaged Uttarakhand, with a state minister on Sunday not ruling out an "estimate" of 10,000-plus and chief minister Vijay Bahuguna putting the number of missing people at 3,000. Uttarakhand health minister Surinder Singh Negi did not discount assembly speaker Govind Singh Kunjwal's claim on Saturday of the toll in the tragedy having crossed 10,000. "He (Kunjwal) has given...
More »Weeks before floods, Uttarakhand CM opposed green norms
-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: It's clear that the devastation caused by the Flash Floods and landslides in Uttarakhand was at least in part due to environmental degradation of fragile mountain slopes and reckless commercialization. Yet, weeks before the calamity state CM Vijay Bahuguna had railed against "environmentalists" and "Green Statutes" for hampering development work during a May 23 meeting in Delhi with Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Plan deputy chair, to finalize...
More »How Tehri held raging Ganga & saved lives -Pradeep Thakur
-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: The water levels in the Tehri dam were low at the start of the monsoon. This proved a critical factor in the dam retaining waters of an engorged Bhagirathi and preventing a 10-12 feet rise in the Ganga at Rishikesh that could have been ruinous for the town and its ashrams. A report said the fury of nature in Uttarakhand was such that waters rose as high...
More »The untold story from Uttarakhand-Ravi Chopra
-The Hindu While the focus is on pilgrims, nobody is talking about the fate of boys and men who came from their villages in the Mandakini valley to earn during the yatri season It is one week since Uttarakhand's worst disaster in living memory. Flash Floods resulting from extremely intense rainfall swept away mountainsides, villages and towns, thousands of people, animals, agricultural fields, irrigation canals, domestic water sources, dams, roads, bridges, and...
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