Physiography

Anand Sharma is probably the most famous weatherman of India today. As the director of the Dehradun centre of the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) in 2013, he had predicted the Uttarakhand disaster two days before the actual deluge. Had the state government heeded his warnings, the heavy damage to life and property could have been averted.

The National Insititute of Hydrology (NIH), Roorkee invites applications for:

• Research Associate and Junior/Senior Research Fellow for the Neeranchal National Watershed Project

Eligibility:

Last year, a crocodile walked seven kilometres to reach Jamwa Ramgarh village near Jaipur looking for food. It had ventured out from Jamwa Ramgarh dam, which used to have around 100 of its species at one time. Since 2006, however, the dam is dry, leaving little fish or other prey for the aquatic reptiles. 

“Can you see the alternating bands of light and shadow in the sky?” Chattar Singh asks me. When I nod in affirmation, he continues, “This is Mogh. There are clouds where the sun is setting right now. If we get a favourable wind, these clouds will reach here and we may get rain by night. In desert, people live by such clues from nature.”  

A majority of states fail to stop overexploitation of groundwater

Jaman Ram, a resident of Bhikia Sain, a tehsil in Uttarakhand, remembers fishing with his father in the Ramganga. “We could catch 80-100 kilograms of fish a day. That is no longer possible,” he says. Shafiq of Haldwani shares an unsettling memory of the Ramganga. As a young man on a holiday, he was paddling in the river near Marchula when the rock he was standing on shifted.

A scarcity of something makes it special. That’s the reason why Rajasthan has always sanctified water much more than any other place in India. Low rainfall and saline groundwater turned people into great conservers who not only built beautiful and durable structures but also developed sustainable practices around them.

Most of Hyderabad water bodies reduced to cesspools

Renuka can be forgiven if she were to feel a bit crazy at times. Like many other women, she could be finding it hard to balance her pious and wild sides.

Cyclone Vardah makes landfall in TN, causes massive damage