Often considered to be a rain-abundant region, the North East has been receiving lesser rainfall during the South West monsoon in the recent years as compared to the 1980s and 1990s. This has been revealed in a study entitled Unprecedented drought in North East India compared to Western India done by Bikash Ranjan Parida and Bakimchandra Oinam (see the link below). Appearing in the December issue of prestigious peer-reviewed scientific...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: India's traditionally wet northeastern region has experienced a higher frequency of drought than arid western India over the past 15 years, researchers have said, cautioning that this trend has implications for crop productivity in the region. An analysis of the summer monsoon rainfall since 2000 has shown that the probability of drought was 54 per cent in the northeastern region and 27 per cent in the traditionally arid...

-The Hindu Chennai: If only Chennai’s unique macro, medium and micro drainage systems had been effectively maintained, the people of this expanding metropolis would not be undergoing the misery caused by the historic floods. Professor S. Janakarajan of the Madras Institute of Development Studies, who is an expert on water management and disaster risk reduction, agrees that Chennai’s current woes are the result of a “man-made disaster.” According to him, the construction...

-The Hindu 2015’s El Niño on course to being the strongest ever. The highest daily rainfall in a century. Freak weather conditions on one day. The hottest-ever Indian Ocean. The strongest-ever El Niño. The hottest year on record. The bad news is that a perfect storm of meteorological conditions combined to create Chennai’s worst-ever deluge last week, exacerbated in no small part by civic infrastructure pushed to its limit and systemic dysfunction. The...

-The Times of India CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu rains took centre stage on Sunday with Prime Minister Narendra Modi making a special mention about it on the eve of his departure to Paris for the climate change summit. In his 'Mann ki Baat' address over Akashvani (AIR) that was highlighted by all official media including Doordarshan, Modi spoke of the unprecedented rainfall in Tamil Nadu within a short time span as an example...