-The Hindu In Madhya Pradesh, COVID-19 health priorities lead to 18.6% drop in institutional deliveries in April. Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh recorded a fall of 18.6% in institutional deliveries in April, the first month of the COVID-19 lockdown, casting a shadow on an improving trend, National Health Mission (NHM) data show. Private and government-run health centres recorded 97,881 births in April 2019, around 18.1% more than the previous year. However, the count dipped to...

-India Water Portal The time for quick fixes is over; a comprehensive policy overhaul is urgently needed to impede the juggernaut of Punjab's groundwater depletion. Punjab, a small state in northwest India, derives its name from the Persian words panj (five) and āb (water), meaning the "land of five rivers". Ironically, this state is now regularly in the news for its rapidly depleting groundwater levels. The most recent government report on Punjab's...

-The Hindu The rush to deliver essential supplies reveals unusual vignettes from isolated yet unforgotten islands of the archipelago Kumirmari (Sunderbans): Nearly a month after cyclone Amphan battered the Sunderbans, the archipelago appeared to be healing — its clay embankments were being repaired and connectivity had been restored. But a visit to one of its most isolated areas, which has braved the cyclone and lockdown, threw up interesting sights. Please click here to...

-The Hindu Forecasting model from IITM, Pune, says heat waves likely to be three or four times higher India’s first ever national forecast on the impact of global warming on the subcontinent in the coming century, expects annual rainfall to increase, along with more severe cyclones and — paradoxically — more droughts. These projections, based on a climate forecasting model developed at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune, will be part...

-Down to Earth Land use degradation creates ground for zoonotic disease like COVID-19 as the interaction and physical distance between animals and humans gets closer Land use change, which prepares the ground for zoonoses like the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), should be reversed urgently, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) has said. Over 70 per cent of all natural, ice-free land in the world is affected by human use, according to...