-The Business Standard The Uttarakhand floods have put the spotlight on the competence of the national body which was created with a vision 'to build a safer and disaster-resilient India' When thousands got swept away by floods in Uttarakhand on the night of June 16, little help reached the mountains till at least a day had passed. Though the weather department had issued a warning, the magnitude of the disaster shows that...

-The Times of India PURNIA: With 11 more people drowning, nine in Katihar's extremely flood-prone Barsoi sub-division and two in Baisi sub-division in Purnia, the death toll in the current floods has gone up to 38 in Purnia and Kosi divisions of north-east Bihar. In Katihar division, four people drowned at Shivanandnagar, Bansgaon, Abadpur and Bitwapur under Barsoi block, two more casualties took place at Kumaripur, one at Chunwa under Kadwa block...

-The Hindustan Times Chandigarh: Ecological issues have delayed the start of river-bed mining, an idea propagated by Punjab deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal with the aim of extracting enough sand not only to meet the growing demand but also to control its skyrocketing rates in the market. The plan may not be implemented immediately as the proposed quarries would require clearance from the state environment impact assessment authority. Also, environmentalists fear...

-PTI KOLKATA: Black carbon generated from forest fires could be leading to faster melting of Himalayan glaciers and affect flow of snow-fed Rivers, warns a new study. "The mass balance of numerous glaciers located in the lower ranges of the Himalayas, such as Pir Panjal and Greater Himalayas, could be significantly affected due to deposition of black carbon on the accumulation area in addition to changes in temperature and precipitation," says a...

-The Hindu Uttarakhand reiterates that our rulers have contemptuous disregard for the advice of the best scientists and would rather listen to contractors and builders to whom they are beholden for funds In the early 1980s, while doing research on the environmental history of Uttarakhand, I sometimes visited the library of the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology in Dehradun. Most of the journals in the library dealt with geology and earth sciences,...