-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: Rising temperaTures on account of checked climate change would lead longer warm spells, heat extremes by as much as one-fifth of South Asia's land mass, and a higher incidence of excess rainfall. These are no longer distant risks according to the World Bank. By 2040, unprecedented heat could affect more than 5% of South Asia's land mass. And if efforts to counter rising temperaTures are not...

As fatal rains batter parts of the north Indian hill state of Uttarakhand, following a summer that also saw hundreds of deaths from heat waves, a new assessment out on June 19 from the World Bank warns of increasingly difficult effects of climate change on several parts of South Asia in the next 20-30 years. It argues that extreme weather events are likely to get more frequent, as temperaTures rise. The...

-The Times of India We have a PM-led National Disaster Management Board. But the latest CAG report says none of its plans seem to have worked since its inception. The question is not what the CAG report says and who leads the board's policies. To me, at least boards like these should have the experience of the community. Such boards are led by experts who have never experienced any disasters. That...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: An expected 2°C rise in the world's average temperaTures in the next decades will make India's monsoon highly unpredictable and by 2040, the country will witness a sharp reduction in crop yields due to extreme heat, a report commissioned by the World Bank cautioned on Wednesday. It said shifting rain patterns will leave some areas under water and others without enough water for power generation, irrigation or,...

-The Times of India BANGALORE: The pre-natal sex-determination racket has gone mobile in Karnataka. A three-member team from the National Inspection and Monitoring Committee was in for a shock last week after it caught a radiologist red-handed with his mobile ultrasound machine at a bus-stop in Doddaballapur, 43km from Bangalore. The modus operandi was simple: The radiologist would come twice a week to the bus-stop where his agents would Turn up with...