-Down to Earth Till 2020, 7.86% of India’s land was under drought-like conditions   Over a fifth of India’s land area (21.06 per cent) is facing drought-like conditions, according to recent data released by Drought Early Warning System (DEWS), a real-time drought-monitoring platform.  This is 62 per cent more than the area under drought during the same period last year, which was 7.86 per cent.  The 21.06 per cent area is under different degrees...

-Down to Earth Amid a derailing COVID-19 pandemic, after Cyclone Tauktae devastation, comes a deep deficit in rainfall Farmers in Gujarat are staring a possible drought after the failure of the southwest monsoon in the state this year. This, even as people in the state have already suffered nearly two years of economic difficulties due to the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic and it has been three months since Cyclone Tauktae.  Please click...

The recently released quarterly Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) data broadly confirms the dip in employment and jobs during the countrywide lockdown period, followed by a certain degree of recovery in the post-lockdown months last year as have been indicated by various survey-based studies and research papers. The quarterly bulletin on PLFS provides data on key employment and unemployment indicators i.e. Unemployment Rate (UR), Worker Population Ratio (WPR) and Labour...

-United Nations News Climate change is widespread, rapid, and intensifying, and some trends are now irreversible, at least during the present time frame, according to the latest much-anticipated Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, released on Monday. Human-induced climate change is already affecting many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe. Scientists are also observing changes across the whole of Earth’s climate system; in the atmosphere, in the...

-Down to Earth  Before the end of the century, there will be at least one large volcanic eruption, the scientists predict Amid the grim predictions emerging from the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, there is a ray of hope: A major volcanic eruption can counteract anthropogenic global warming to a small extent.  All statements about global warming breaching the 1.5 degree Celsius rise over pre-industrial levels assume that no...