-The Hindu Pampa, Manimala, Achencoil still above danger level Amid havoc caused by torrential rains over the past week leading to floods and landslips, the Kerala Government has constituted an expert committee to regulate the release of water from 81 dams across swollen rivers. The hydroelectric, irrigation and drinking water dams in the State are several decades old and designed in a pre-climate-change era. Climatologists, structural engineers, and hydrologists are on the committee...

-Hindustan Times On Saturday, two landslides claimed 18 lives in Idukki and Kottayam districts. Residents of Kootickal and Kokkayar, the two worst-hit hamlets, witnessed a tragedy of such magnitude for the first time Thiruvananthapuram: The death of 24 people in flash floods and landslides caused by heavy rains in the hilly areas of Idukki and Kottayam districts in central Kerala has once again highlighted the recurring natural disasters in the state. Kerala has...

-IndiaToday.in Six people have died after heavy rain triggered landslides in parts of Kerala. The IMD, meanwhile, had sounded a 'Red Alert' for at least five districts in light of the situation. Six people have died and dozens are feared missing after heavy rain triggered landslides in south and central Kerala on Saturday. The deaths were reported from Thodupuzha and Kokkayar in Idduki and Koottikkal in the Kottayam district. In addition to floods...

-The Hindu Mamata Banerjee’s assumption that Bengali nationalism could block anti-incumbency and Hindutva may be optimistic The Trinamool Congress (TMC) government in West Bengal is a unique specimen in understanding anti-incumbency. Welfare schemes that usually make incumbents popular have added to the anti-incumbency woes of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, as the workers of her party made those the easy and only option for rent-seeking. ‘Cut money’, or the cut for TMC local...

-TheNewsMinute.com Experts say that the narrative that a country must choose between environment and development itself is wrong. Merely days after the fatal landslide in Kerala’s Pettimudi in Idukki district in August last year, the spotlight was back on the Gadgil report on the Western Ghats. The report, submitted to the government of India in 2011, had designated the Pettimudi region among the most sensitive ecological zones in the Western Ghats and...