-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...

-The Indian Express The river linking project is based on a faulty premise, has not cleared legal challenges and will damage Bundelkhand. The people of Bundelkhand certainly need better water access and management. But the Ken-Betwa Link Project (KBLP), estimated at a cost of Rs 38,000 crore, is not the solution. The project will, on the contrary, lead to huge adverse impacts in the region. The Supreme Court-appointed Central Empowered Committee (CEC), in...

Although social activists and concerned economists demanded at least Rs. 1 lakh crore to be earmarked in favour of the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), the Finance Minister in her budget speech on 1st February allocated only Rs.61,500 crore to it for the financial year 2020-21. As compared to the fund spent on MGNREGA in 2019-20 (i.e. revised estimate of Rs.71,001.81 crore), the amount set aside for the...

-Hindustan Times A gradual shift towards cash crops at the expense of food crops and deficit rainfall over the years are the primary reasons behind the agrarian crisis in Maharashtra’s drought-hit Marathwada region, according to a study conducted by the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay (IIT-B). Published in the Environmental Research Letters in May, the study analyses the role of rainfall deficits and cropping choices in loss of agricultural yield in Marathwada. The...

-Hindustan Times Sync traditional knowledge and science to build resilience A recent report by the Union ministry of earth sciences (MOES), Observed Rainfall Variability and Changes, has found that seven Indian states — Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Himachal Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya and Nagaland — have witnessed significant decreasing trends in annual rainfall in the last 30 years. Alarmingly, many other parts of the country have also seen an increase in...