Media reports indicate that at the start of the southwest monsoon season, lightning strikes caused the death of over 70 people in the states of Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh on a single day i.e. 11th July, 2021. Prior to those separate events related to human casualty caused by thunderbolts, eighteen elephants were found dead on a hilltop at Kandali Proposed Reserve Forest situated in Assam's Nagaon district on...

-CaravanMagazine.in India’s birth and death registrations compromised, fake entries corrupt official database for Rs 200 The digital database of the Civil Registration System, or CRS, of India, the most comprehensive records of the Indian population that includes district-wise birth-and death-registration certificates, has been compromised for the last two years at least. A four-month long investigation by The Caravan revealed that the official login IDs of a large number of registrars across India,...

-Down to Earth West Bengal, along with Bangladesh, received two million on-ground lightning bolts The region of West Bengal in India and Bangladesh is among the most vulnerable in South Asia to lethal lightning strikes, according to a recent report. West Bengal received the highest number of lightning strikes per square kilometer in 2020, followed by Jharkhand, according to South Asia lightning Report ,2020 by Earth Networks, a global weather intelligence agency. The company’s...

-The Hindu As children in rural India, with little access to gadgets and networks, are pushed into deeper marginalisation, a look at some initiatives that try to change this Eleven-year-old Chaithanya has not been to school in over a year. On a Sunday morning, she is glued to the television in her house in rural Ravugodlu, Karnataka, watching an English lesson. With schools closed, many children like Chaithanya are making use of...

-The Hindu Konkan coast has seen 29% more rain than normal while central and northeast India have seen a deficit Rainfall amid the monsoon’s revival since the second week of July has seen significant variation across the country. Several parts of the western Konkan coast and the southern peninsula were seeing instances of extreme rainfall. According to the India Meteorological Department data on the regional distribution, the ‘South Peninsula’ has seen 29% more...