At least 76 people have died and several are still missing in Uttarakhand after cloudbursts and landlslides triggered by heavy rains. The region has seen some respite after four days of heavy downpour. The Chief Minister himself took stock of the situation in Haridwar and Almora districts, which have been most affected by the floods. Congress President Sonia Gandhi too visited the nature ravaged state on Tuesday accompanied by Defence Minister...

India’s public health system has become dysfunctional. There is no reason at all why vector-borne and other infectious diseases should recur with predictable regularity after every monsoon season. Government, especially state and local governments, must take primary responsibility for this malaise. Equally, civil society. A combination of governmental negligence and public apathy contributes to the unacceptably high incidence of diseases like dengue, chikungunya, Japanese encephalitis, swine flu, conjunctivitis (eye flu)...

For a village of 400, a lesson learnt in 1965 and acted upon 20 years later has meant that its residents don’t have to worry about Jharkhand’s recurring calamity: drought. For those living in the Gumla village surrounded by hills, parched farmlands are a thing of the past, thanks to the success of a community initiative that led to the construction of a check dam to trap the water of a...

The Ministry of Rural Development is working on on several issues related to its most ambitious programme — the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS). Six sub committees set up by the Central Employment Guarantee Council (CEGC), which was formed under the NREG Act (NREGA – the law enacted to implement the NREGS programme), have raised questions on issues ranging from the utility of work done through NREGS to transparency,...

Climate change and global food shortages could bring unexpected benefits for British farmers in the next two decades, ultimately relieving taxpayers of the burden of subsidising them, Caroline Spelman, environment secretary, has claimed. Ms Spelman said the UK was unlikely to suffer the severe water shortages that scientists predict will afflict other parts of the world, and that British farmers should be able to exploit greater demand for their produce. “Countries that...