-Hindustan Times The Chennai floods have thrown up some fundamental flaws in our system of urban planning. Across India, city after city has experienced floods, while some others live with the fear of impending disasters. In Mumbai, flooding was caused by wrong developments at the Bandra estuary and negligence along the Mithi river, and in Uttarakhand the disaster was caused by unplanned regional development and the unholy nexus between the land...

-Business Standard Evidence on increasing risk should be tipping scale for the government New Delhi: At the COP21 talks in Paris, Chennai had been brought up as an unfortunate exhibit of the perfect storm triggered by climate change and indiscriminate urban planning. While India is already driving the conversation about the global effort to climate-proofing, hopefully the impact of this latest flood will also force its leadership to sit up and take...

-Outlook Cuddalore: An agrarian crisis is silently brewing in the hinterland of Cuddalore district of Tamil Nadu after being caught in a swirl of repeated disasters over the years like Tsunami, cyclones and recent rains and floods which have battered the crops, cattle and infrastructure. Across the district, the trail of destruction is striking and the demand is just the same in both urban and rural areas -- need for a robust...

-The Hindu Business Line A CAG audit shows that the Centre and State governments have been criminally remiss over disaster management The unprecedented and continuing rains that have broken a 100-year record and have wreaked havoc in Chennai for over a week, highlight both elaborate rescue and relief efforts as well as gaps in the existing policy on Disaster Planning. It is true that swift deployment of the armed forces to evacuate...

-The Times of India Yet another deluge, coming close on the heels of the wettest November Chennai has seen in over a century, is something the city just could not cope with. Heavy rains on November 16 had exposed the appalling state of the civic infrastructure that was totally unprepared to handle the floods. Clogged and overflowing drains, inundated housing colonies, rotting garbage, electrocutions and roads caving in at many places...