Climate and Weather

Mahananda, a major River of north Bihar rises in the Darjeeling district of West Bengal. It meets the Ganga after a journey of 376 km through the flat lands of Bihar, West Bengal and Bangladesh. It would spill its banks because of the flat slopes, causing deluge and waterlogging in the Katihar district of Bihar.

The agriculture sector has been playing a significant role in shaping India’s overall growth trajectory. What promising initiatives should the Budget 2015-16 come up with? Should it extend timely credit facilities to farmers belonging to all the farming categories? Should it extend crop insurance facilities to all farmers and for all crops? 

India’s 7500 km coastal line supports nearly 4, 87,100 hectares of mangroves. These unique ecosystems harbour nearly 3985 species of flora and fauna. Due to the increasing effects of climate change, mangrove forests in the country are under serious threat.

What are mangroves?

The Himalayas, an important part of the geography of India, extend along the entire Northern and North-Eastern boundary of the country. It spans six Indian States namely, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttaranchal, West Bengal, Sikkim and a major part of Arunachal Pradesh from west to east.

Mazhapolima is an open well recharge programme based on rainwater harvesting in Kerala.

As the race to bridge the gap between limited water availability and increasing demand for water narrows in India, rain water harvesting has been increasingly recommended in urban areas to harness the available water, rather than relying on expensive and unsustainable means of procuring water.  

Should the next Union Budget go all-in on climate change? Should clean energy, state incentives, mitigation and adaptation all emerge as priorities? How will the administration deal with extreme weather events that become more common with climate change?

Call for papers

The workshop is an opportunity for academics, students, practitioners and activists to come together, exchange ideas, and discuss emerging issues relating to implications of climate change on groundwater in India and the legal responses. The workshop will combine sessions with invited speakers and presentations and discussions of research papers.

Recent years have shown a growing awareness on the relevance of climate change for India within the government as well as civil society, business and media. India has prepared its National Action Plan on Climate Change amidst growing international pressure to devise domestic climate adaptation strategies.

"The Kelo river has never been like this but in the last two decades, the economic growth in the region has spoiled the purity of the river", says eminent journalist  Shiv Rajpoot from Raigarh, who is also known as "Kelo man". He has twice traveled by foot, the 90 km stretch of the Kelo from its origin to its end.

The objectives of his two visits were to study and document: