-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Just a week after telling the court that it had framed the National Disaster Plan to handle natural calamities like drought, the Centre on Tuesday did a U-turn and told the Supreme Court that the plan had not so far been formulated. The Centre had on April 19 told a bench of Justices Madan B Lokur and N V Ramana that the government had framed the...

-The Hindu Business Line A CAG audit shows that the Centre and State governments have been criminally remiss over disaster management The unprecedented and continuing rains that have broken a 100-year record and have wreaked havoc in Chennai for over a week, highlight both elaborate rescue and relief efforts as well as gaps in the existing policy on disaster planning. It is true that swift deployment of the armed forces to evacuate...

-The Statesman It's the same story every year. Heavy rains, huge volume of water spilling over the water channels and mismanagement of rivers in spate, leading to heavy floods inundating large parts of India. This year too the story is no different. Even as this article goes to print, Assam, West Bengal, Manipur, Odisha, Gujarat and Rajasthan almost a third of India is either facing floods or coping with a trail...

-The Indian Express Recent announcements on possible changes to the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and restrictions on its coverage are baffling and worrisome. The passing of the MGNREGA and the Right to Information Act heralded a new vision of citizenship and state responsibility. The former created a safety net for the rural poor. The latter gave taxpayers and voters an opportunity to bridge the gap between state...

-Hard News Floods in Kashmir could have been managed better if there was a reliable early warning system The first fortnight of September saw Jammu and Kashmir being ravaged by severe flash floods. But, according to the snatches of news we got, the monsoon was below average in the state until the last week of August. Thereafter, four days of incessant rain in the Valley and in Jammu made almost all the...