-The Times of India Dehradun: A technical committee formed by the State Disaster Management Department has raised serious questions over the reconstruction work undertaken at Kedarnath, which was devastated by flash floods in 2013. The committee, comprising scientists and civil engineers from agencies, such as Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, Geological Survey of India, and National Institute of Hydrology, has claimed that the newly built ghat on the confluence of rivers...

Situation alarming: More than one-third population hit by drought   The country is facing severe drought for the second consecutive year. Conservative estimates from official sources show that over a quarter of rural habitations are facing drinking water scarcity. Although both India Meteorological Department and Skymet have predicted a more than normal rainfall during June-September, 2016, the water storage available in 91 major reservoirs of the country has declined from 22 percent...

-Hindustan Times With progressively increasing severity of rising temperatures and rain deficits over two consecutive years – 2014 and 2015, the Great Indian Drought was always coming. The India Meteorological Department, ministry of home affairs, the ministry of water resources, the Ministry of agriculture and farmers welfare office, and the National Disaster Management Authority knew it. The question is, what did we do with this knowledge? Six hundred million of India’s 1.2 billion...

-Livemint.com The 69th meet of the World Health Assembly began with a call to address unprecedented challenges facing the global health sector Geneva: Despite carrying the highest disease burden in the world, the Narendra Modi government chose to send a small delegation to the World Health Assembly (WHA) that began on Monday, giving the country little say in the way the global health agenda is being set and inadequately reflecting its priorities,...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: In its over-zealousness to protect the lives of citizens reeling under severe drought in several states, the Supreme Court has erred in directing the Centre to set up a National Disaster Mitigation Fund (NDMF) under a non-operational statutory provision, which had riled the government. Led by finance minister Arun Jaitley, the government had accused the judiciary of wanton interference in the executive's exclusive domain of earmarking...