-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...

-TheWire.in According to the central government’s statement to the Supreme Court last week, a third of the India’s districts are currently facing a severe drought. This means that at least 33 crore Indians are affected by ongoing the crisis. Expressing their deep concern on the issue and the impact it is having on rural populations of the country, and asking that the government take appropriate relief measures immediately, more than 150 academics...

-Livemint.com Except for Brahmaputra and Mahanadi, all river basins with a population of more than 20 million face water shortage for the major part of the year New Delhi: How much water does it take to cook a cup of rice? Recipe books would say two cups. Now consider this: It takes 2,173 litres of water to produce a kg of husked rice. That is a global average. Out of this,...

-Livemint.com Less than 5% of India’s annual water consumption is on account of domestic usage; agriculture’s share is 90% From the court ordering the shifting of cricket matches out of drought-hit Maharashtra this year to Sheila Dikshit, former chief minister of Delhi, claiming in 2012 that she took a bath in half a bucket of water, urban rationing seems to be the main focus during water crises in India. While the importance...