-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...

-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...

-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...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: A United Nations (UN) report has warned India that it is at greater risk by opting for public private partnership (PPP) mode of investment for raising its public infrastructure where the government has less control over its executing private partners and the latter has little interest in long term safety of the projects. A UN study, the Global Assessment Report (GAR) on disaster risk reduction, released...

-The Hindu Could the Uttarakhand tragedy have been avoided, or at least minimised? There is no simple answer. Environmentalists describe the death and damage as a man-made disaster while geologists say the extent of destruction could have been far lesser if stricter regulations had been put in place and the authorities equipped to deal with the situation. Importantly, the events focus attention on the debate on the December 18, 2012 notification of the...