Drought is human-made, says New Delhi-based think tank Centre for Science and Environment
It is not about the lack of water or monsoons, but about a lack of planning, policies and foresight
It is not about the lack of water or monsoons, but about a lack of planning, policies and foresight
The problem is not about lack of rainfall, but about lack of planning and foresight, and criminal neglect P Sainath and Yogendra Yadav join Narain at a national meet on drought to give a call for action
44 per cent of India’s districts are facing rain deficit
During my weekly conversation with my sister I told her about the unusual searing heat this June, the problems of power cuts and how we are coping in India. She, in turn, told me that in Washington DC, where she lives, there was a terrible storm that damaged her roof and uprooted trees in her garden. They were fortunate that they still had electricity, because most houses in the city were in the dark. She also said it was unbearably hot because the region was in the grip of an unprecedented heat wave.
It’s drought time again. Nothing new in this announcement. Each year, first we have crippling droughts between December and June, and then devastating floods in the next few months. It’s a cycle of despair, which is more or less predictable. But this is not an inevitable cycle of nature we must live with. These droughts and floods are man-made, caused by deliberate neglect and designed failure of the way we manage water and land. What we must note with concern is that these “natural” disasters are growing in intensity and ferocity.