-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...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Concerned by the future projections of water availability in India, the government is mulling the legislation route to save the scarce resource from depleting any further. It plans to come out with a new draft National Water Framework Bill - on the lines of the one in effect in Europe - and improvising on the existing draft law of 2013. Since water is a state subject,...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: Nearly 55% of Maharashtra's population lives in its rural belt compared to 45% in its urban areas. Yet its cities and metros get almost five times more drinking water as its villages from the state's dams, notified Rivers and select lakes. The data which reveals the stark rural-urban divide in the allocation of drinking water has been compiled by the state's water resources department. In urban areas,...

-Hindustan Times Heavy rains and deadly flooding in south India, a region that saw a killer heat wave this summer, are weather patterns that appear to fit the scenarios of climate change in India, IMD chief Laxman Singh Rathore has said. “They (emerging weather patterns) fit the larger picture of climate change predicted by Indian scientists as well as global reports,” Rathore told HT. Episodes of excessive rainfall are increasing while 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...