-Livemint.com Revision of drought management manual among slew of directions made by Supreme Court New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday hit the reset button on drought management, directing the government to abandon the existing system and evolve a transparent, rules-based framework. The new policy will prescribe a standard methodology and time-frame for declaring drought. The court also directed the Union government to set up a National Disaster Mitigation Fund within three...

-Livemint.com Compensation for crop loss due six months ago is yet to reach farmers, says Swaraj Abhiyan Villages across drought-hit Bundelkhand, a hilly region divided between the states of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, are reporting an abnormally high number of cattle deaths due to acute shortage of fodder and water, said a survey released on Monday. “For cattle the famine has arrived,” the survey by non-profit organization Swaraj Abhiyan said, adding,...

-FirstPost.com “Should break their legs,” rages 66-year-old Cheruvayal Raman (fondly called Ramettan). He had bought some sardines from the market. The minute they were immersed in water to wash, all of them dissolved. “It seems they were called Oman sardines. They were full of chemicals and preservatives,” he says. Ramettan indeed has the right to be angry because he has been toiling for the last 56 years to preserve traditional methods of...

-Livemint.com With food and water in short supply, farmers in Bundelkhand are leaving cattle to fend for themselves Mahoba (Uttar Pradesh)/New Delhi: Some time in March, Dhan Prasad Anuragi led his pregnant cow Kajal a couple of miles outside his village and abandoned her. The 55-year-old farmer, who lives in Balchaur village of Mahoba district in Uttar Pradesh, says he had no choice. He couldn’t afford to feed the cow and his only hope...

-The Indian Express The suffering of millions does not create public outrage, much less government accountability. The people of India’s villages carry collective memories of centuries of calamitous losses of sometimes millions of lives in famines. Famines have been pushed into history, unarguably one of free India’s greatest accomplishments. But the same can’t be said about droughts, which continue to extract an enormous toll on human suffering. At least a third of the...