Rainfall and other forms of Precipitation

A majority of states fail to stop overexploitation of groundwater

Kerala hit by worst drought in 115 years

Chennai’s disastrous December run continues for the second year in a row. While the devastating flood of December 2015 remains etched in the city’s collective memory, cyclone Vardah was no less scary and did not lag behind in its severity.

Ganga clean-up fails, thanks to multiple authorities and no monitoring

Glacial lakes pose flood risk to 441 hydel projects in Himalayan region

“Agriculture is a highly risky venture,” says Nagi Reddy, a farmer in Anantapur. Reddy is a small farmer affected by uncertainty in crop production stemming from unpredictable weather events and pest attacks, especially in his cotton crop. He works on his 2.5-acre farm and the rest of the time, he clocks in as a tenant farmer at an adjacent farm.

The past few months saw Karnataka and Tamil Nadu bickering over the sharing of the Cauvery water. It was the failure of the south-west monsoon that had put crops in Karnataka at risk, forcing the government to stop water supplies to Tamil Nadu. The arrival of the north-east monsoon in Tamil Nadu, however, has eased this tension.

Muthirapalayam has figured prominently in Pondicherry’s water supply map for a couple of centuries, dominating especially during the French regime. Though the burgeoning population has necessitated the commissioning of alternate supply routes and source wells, the story of Muthirapalayam is like no other.

“The gravity of the Kedarnath disaster in June 2013, which killed thousands of people, shocked the public almost to the point of numbness”... begins the forward by Bill Aitken in Hridayesh Joshi’s account of the disaster Rage of the river: The untold story of the Kedarnath disaster. It’s a sentence which will whirl in your mind while you read Joshi’s book.

It is that time of the year when the empty granaries wait for the maturing paddy to fill them. Kati Bihu or Kongali Bihu (Kongal means poor while Kati is the Assamese seventh month where farmers await their harvest) is the most placid of the three Bihus (Assamese agriculture festival) celebrated without much pomp or splendour.