-The Hindu Agriculture Ministry extends deadline by a month The Agriculture Ministry has extended by a month the deadline for States to utilise funds under the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana (PMKSY) for implementation of micro irrigation projects. Earlier, Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh had said that unutilised funds should be diverted to States that showed better utilisation. About Rs. 1,000 crore had been allocated to States for micro irrigation schemes to be...

-Economic and Political Weekly Chennai floods show the vulnerabilities that arise from the neglect of urban planning. In the second week of November, flood-marooned people in Chennai had an unlikely Good Samaritan. The cab service provider, Ola. As the city struggled to come to terms with its highest rainfall in 10 years, the cab company pressed in boats from an aquatic adventure outfit and secured the services of professional rowers and fishworkers...

-Livemint.com Telangana 9th state to declare drought, adding to the agrarian crisis and posing a threat to the rural economy New Delhi: Telangana has declared a drought in parts of the state, becoming the ninth state this year to do so, highlighting the agrarian crisis that could cause a likely fall in the production of rain-fed crops such as pulses, oilseeds and cotton, and result in a further slowing of the...

As Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh fight the fury of flood caused by annual northeast monsoon, a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) on the natural disaster in Uttarakhand, which took place in June 2013, has been made available in the public domain recently. The CAG report discloses how various development activities in the state flouted guidelines issued by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), Expert Committee on glaciers...

-The Times of India DEHRADUN: A performance audit report prepared by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) on the 2013 Kedarnath flash floods, which was tabled in the Uttarakhand assembly session at Gairsain on Tuesday, squarely blames the state government of the time for being unprepared and failing to learn from previous natural disasters. The report raps the state government for its slow response which it says actually aggravated the disaster...