-Down to Earth Telangana Chief Minister said cloudbursts may be a 'foreign conspiracy' during his visit to flood-hid Bhadrachalam India, especially its Himalayan states Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, are devastated by cloudbursts several times moslty during the monsoon season. Flash floods caused by a cloudburst in Uttarakhand in 2013, killing thousands of people, is one of the worst natural disasters the country recorded since the 2004 tsunami.  Climate change has been making these...

-The Telegraph The Telegraph reports on a Riverine community’s determination to save its environs Once upon a time, when my forefathers were looking for land to settle down, they found this barren sandbar and decided to make it a habitable place,” says Nani Roy, 42, a resident of Manachar. Char is the Bengali word for sandbar. Manachar is the sandbar that extends from Durgapur Barrage to Panagarh in Burdwan district. About three...

-TheWire.in More than a month after this incident, Assam’s chief minister called the flooding in Silchar a “man-made” disaster. Several media outlets then added an anti-Muslim spin. While reporting on the Assam floods in June, the Indian Express stated that Silchar – southern Assam’s biggest town and the gateway to the three districts on the bank of the Barak River – had submerged in water unlike “ever before in its history.” By...

-Newsclick.in As landslides plague Garhwal Himalayas, geologist YP Sundriyal says it confirms scientists’ fear that geologically weak areas will destabilise during monsoons. Leading geologist Prof YP Sundriyal teaches the subject at the Hemavati Bahuguna Garhwal University. In this interview with NewsClick, Sundriyal, who specialises in the Garhwal region of the Himalayan range, expresses concern about the rising frequency of landslides. He believes the government must set up a special fund to maintain...

-Scroll.in Days after the town was submerged, social media accounts started posting about ‘flood jihad’. Last month’s deluge in Silchar, in Assam’s Cachar district, was followed by a dangerous rumour. This was no natural flood, the rumour claimed – it was deliberately caused. Several social media accounts suggested it was “flood jihad”, in a not-so-veiled reference to the Muslim community. Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma himself repeatedly suggested the flood was no...