In June this year, many parts of Chennai witnessed acts of violence. Neighbours turned against each other, there were reports of physical assault and even offices and schools were shut…
Increasingly images of torrential rains triggering devastating floods and killing humans and animals are slowly replacing recollections of romance associated with Indian summer monsoons. While extreme weather events are not…
From the time settled agriculture started on the Indian subcontinent millennia ago, there was a dependence on the calendrical reliability of the rains as they sustained the crops. Every year…
In July, when many parts of India were bracing for yet another year of drought, the situation changed dramatically with episodes of extreme rainfall in the latter part of the…
Acknowledging that restoration of land affected by desertification, degradation, drought and floods can have long-term benefits for the health and development of society, especially for the livelihoods of the rural…
An aircraft poised to enter dark clouds – and spray chemicals to produce rain. Sounds magical -- that’s the image often associated with cloud seeding. In reality, it is much…
When I was a schoolboy in Kerala, there was an annual calendar event that we hated. It was the date June 1. That was the day on which the schools…
This week’s environment and conservation news stories rolled into one. To receive a weekly email with a roundup of our stories, please sign-up to our newsletter. Chennai water crisis once again…
Two months ago, when the rest of the country was preparing for the Lok Sabha elections, 22-year-old Kanchan Kalyan Dongre’s life was about to take a turn for the worse.…
Nature does not discriminate. In the drought-hit Kutch, all living beings — man, animal, plants — are struggling to cope with its merciless onslaught. A large population of this semi-arid…
A global team of scientists, including from India, has unlocked the genetic diversity of chickpea (Cicer arietinum), world’s second most widely grown legume, pinpointing crucial genes for heat and drought…
It is just the beginning of summer. The mercury in Lalitpur — one of the drought-prone districts of Bundelkhand, a region divided between the two states of Uttar Pradesh (UP)…
It is an era of rapid urban expansion that ignores sustainable urban planning principles until disaster strikes. The city of Chennai in Tamil Nadu is no exception to this rule.…
Every few years, the recurring drought in Marathwada region of Maharashtra is attributed to poor rains. Stop-gap arrangements for tanker water, fodder camps or jobs under the Employment Guarantee Scheme…
The irony is unmistakable. In the Marathwada region of Maharashtra, which is in the grip of arguably the worst drought since 1972, what stands out is hectic road construction. En…
The Andaman & Nicobar islands, one of the Union Territories of India, are a group of islands between the Andaman Sea and Bay of Bengal. The islands receive over 3000…
In the middle of August 2018, Kerala went through severe floods, the likes of which was experienced earlier nearly hundred years ago in 1924. Two years earlier in 2016, both…
About 10 percent of the world’s land surface experienced drought in 2005. The number is set to skyrocket over the twenty-first century to about 40 percent, as the globe warms…
The frequency of extreme weather events is going up around the world, and droughts and heatwaves are no exception. When the globe warms by 3-4 degrees - a possibility during…
Attribution analyses not only help in better understanding of the processes leading up to an extreme event and how such processes have changed or will change in future, attribution information…