NEWS ARCHIVE
The Washington Post reports: The temperature in Mitribah, Kuwait, surged Thursday to a blistering 129.2 degrees (54 Celsius). On Friday in Basra, Iraq, the mercury soared to 129.0 degrees (53.9 Celsius). If confirmed, these incredible measurements would represent the two hottest temperatures ever recorded in the Eastern Hemisphere, according to Weather Underground meteorologist Jeff Masters….
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NEWS ARCHIVE
Dinesh Sharma writes: The National Water Framework Bill is a framework for legislation and executive actions related to water. It talks of “Right to Water for Life”, but the terminology used is vague. So while right to water is being offered, it’s not absolute but will be defined by the government from time to time….
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NEWS ARCHIVE
The Guardian reports: Arctic ice cover in June crashed through previous records to reach an all-time low. The Arctic sea ice extent was a staggering 260,000 sq km below the previous record (2010). That means a vast expanse of ice – an area about twice the size of Texas – has vanished over 30 years….
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NEWS ARCHIVE
Catch News reports: Flash floods brought on by a cloudburst have killed at least 30 people in Uttarakhand, and washed away many homes. At least seven people are missing. Although termed flash floods, they didn’t come out of the blue. The Met department had predicted heavy rainfall, yet, the state appears to have been unprepared….
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NEWS ARCHIVE
Kumar Sambhav Srivastava reports: The Centre has scrapped a rule that prevented the government from allowing industrial plantation in naturally forested areas, a move that will allow private players to enter forest management. The change reflects in the new draft national forest policy 2016, made public last week to replace the one formulated in 1988….
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NEWS ARCHIVE
Common Dreams reports: Record carbon dioxide levels are set to surpass the symbolic threshold of 400 parts per million (PPM) this year and will likely never fall below that line again in our lifetimes, according to a new study published recently in the journal Nature Climate Change by scientists at the UK Met Office ….
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Elephants raiding a banana plantation near Bannerghatta, Karnataka
Nishanth Srinivasaiah
Conflict/Dispossession
The Centre has endorsed various states’ move to list wild animals – elephants in Bengal, monkeys in Uttarakhand, peacocks in Goa and nilgai in Bihar – as ‘vermin’, allowing them to be culled. With human-animal conflict once again in under the lens, we present a selection of articles that examine both sides of the story….
Read More about Debate: Is the ongoing culling of wild animals necessary?
ALTERNATIVES
Post the Paris climate agreement, the world looks to solar energy more than ever to reduce carbon emissions and counter climate change, with multi-billion dollar solar programmes announced by just about every major country. But just how efficient, and environmentally sustainable is the celebrated solar photovoltaic technology? Here’s what some leading voices have to say….
Read More about How viable (and sustainable) are solar PV systems? A debate
NEWS ARCHIVE
Neither the US nor India has committed to a formal ratification of the Paris agreement by the end of 2016 in the much-hyped joint statement on climate change. The political imperatives before US President Barack Obama, domestic legal requirements in India and the procedural complications of the Paris agreement collectively ensured that the two didn’t….
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Construction on the Yamuna floodplains by Art of Living Foundation
Conserve/Resist
This March, the central government set the ball rolling on a new set of rules intended, supposedly, to protect India’s wetlands. In this special feature, we present articles that look at the state of wetlands, and critically examine the new legislation, which many fear is a case of the cure being worse than the disease….
Read More about Spotlight: New legislation threatens India’s already endangered wetlands
NEWS ARCHIVE
Madhavan Nair Rajeevan, secretary of the Union ministry of earth sciences, tells Nitin Sethi in an interview, “We did an analysis of observational data of temperatures in different parts of the country. We found that the frequency of heat waves is increasing in the key April-June season. Duration of the heat waves is also increasing.”…
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ALTERNATIVES
India is reeling under a back-to-back drought, with 10 states declared affected and nearly 2,00,000 villages affected, and shredding the social fabric in affected areas. In this concluding part of our series on combating drought, we present examples where traditional methods for water harvesting have been successfully put to use by communities to drought-proof themselves….
Read More about Series: Combating drought – 3: Traditional methods to the rescue
NEWS ARCHIVE
Rina Chandran reports: India’s worst drought in decades is hurting women and lower caste Dalits disproportionately, with impacts ranging from malnutrition to early marriage to prostitution, activists say. The government estimates the drought has affected more than 330 million people – almost a quarter of India’s population – across 13 of the country’s 29 states….
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ALTERNATIVES
As India reels under a back-to-back drought, with 10 states declared affected and nearly 2,00,000 villages affected, it’s time to ask whether the present situation could’ve been avoided. And yet, here are examples from across India where, armed with little more than determination and imagination, ordinary people have turned things around to create little oases….
Read More about Series: Combating drought – 2: Success stories
NEWS ARCHIVE
Chaitanya Mallapur reports: Forest fires over the first four months of 2016 surged 30% –20,667 fires were reported as on April 21, 2016 compared to 15,937 over 2015– according to data tabled in the Lok Sabha on April 26, 2016. This is 40% more than the 3,185 hectares burnt in Uttarakhand since February 2, 2016….
Read More about NEWS UPDATE #96
Digests/Specials
As India reels under a back-to-back drought, with 10 states declared affected and nearly 2,00,000 villages affected, it’s time to ask whether the present situation could’ve been avoided. As many expert voices presented here point out, it’s not the weather alone that creates a drought, but bad planning and an often corrupt and apathetic administration….
Read More about Series: Combating drought – 1: What the experts say
NEWS ARCHIVE
The Maharashtra government has sent out a resolution that declares drought in 29,000 villages, most of them in Marathwada and Vidarbha, adding that wherever any official reference is made to a “drought-like situation”, it should be treated as “drought”. The government was responding to petitions in the Bombay High Court on the state’s water crisis….
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NEWS ARCHIVE
Naveen Thukral reports: Nearly a decade after a spike in global food prices sent shockwaves around the world, Asia’s top rice producers are suffering from a drought that threatens to cut output of the staple for half the world’s population. World rice production is expected to decline for the first time this year since 2010….
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NEWS ARCHIVE
The fact remains that India has a terrible track record when protecting people from heat wave – a record that’s only been growing worse over the years. Since 1992, there have been 22,562 deaths due to heat waves. In the last 23 years, India has had no fewer than 393 deaths in a single year….
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