-The Hindu Kerala needs to adopt watershed-based master planning and review building byelaws The unique geography of Kerala, with its steep climbdown from 900m high elevations of the Western Ghats to the coast of Malabar, has resulted in a land with a vast riverine network. There are no less than 44 fast flowing rivers that drain the rainwater Kerala is blessed with into the Arabian Sea. It is a lifeline that supports...

-The Times of India Manisha Verma, principal secretary, tribal development department, Maharashtra talks to Sugandha Indulkar about The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 and related issues, with today being World Tribal Day. * What’s the precise positioning of the tribal welfare departments at the Centre and states on FRA? This is a seminal legislation. The preamble to the Act itself states that it aims...

-Business Standard Food supply chains will get disrupted globally, the study warns. Report to be officially released in August “The rate and geographic extent of global land and freshwater resources over recent decades is unprecedented in human history,” a report authored by UN’s panel of scientists from across the world on climate change is set to inform. Business Standard reviewed a leaked copy of the draft report sent to the governments of...

-The Indian Express The FM has rightly spoken of a “focus on integrated demand and supply side management of water at the local level, including source sustainability and management of household wastewater for reuse in agriculture”. India is not a water-short country. We have merely managed our plentiful water very poorly. What we need, therefore, is a paradigm shift in policy. Could the finance minister (FM) be said to have risen to...

-Scroll.in/ The Third Pole Flash-flood warnings routed through NGOs are giving border villages precious lead-time to escape the wrath of suddenly rising rivers. In the last few weeks of June, a series of WhatsApp messages were sent from Bhutan to India to warn cross-border friends downstream of the Aai, Saralbhanga and Manas rivers about cloud-bursts, swollen rivers and possible flash floods affecting people in the Indian state of Assam. Although originating from officials,...