New Delhi (AFP) Sept 23, 2009 – India’s monsoon was about 20 percent below strength just over a week before the official end of the rainy reason, putting the country on course for its worst drought since 1972, weather data showed Wednesday. “Until September 21, for the country as a whole, the rain deficiency was […]
Khuria, Bangladesh (AFP) Sept 18, 2009 – At the end of every year, after the monsoon rains, Noor Hossain dismantles his houseboat on the Bangladeshi delta and heads to the mainland. This time he will not be coming back. Hossain is one of about 800,000 river gypsies, known locally as bedey, who for generations have […]
By Staff Writers, New Delhi (AFP) Aug 29, 2009 India faces a “severe” drought but the country’s ample food grain stock will ensure no one goes hungry, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said Saturday. Monsoon rains, the lifeline for farms that support more that half of India’s 1.1 billion population, have been scant and about […]
New Delhi (AFP) Aug 16, 2009 – Crops are shrivelling as India faces the spectre of drought but economists say they are still upbeat about the country’s economic prospects. They are banking that a strong industrial performance will help offset the impact of the worst monsoon in years in Asia’s third largest economy. Analysts have […]
by Rahul Goswami The first reports of drought-related suicides have begun filtering in from the district press. Farmers in the eastern coastal state of Andhra Pradesh are taking their own lives – the toll is said to be 20 farmers over the last 40 days. The state is one amongst many which has so far […]
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Groundwater levels in northern India have fallen about 20 percent more than expected because of excessive pumping, threatening to spark a major food and water crisis, according to a study based on U.S. space agency data. The study, led by Matthew Rodell of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, said […]
Dhaka (AFP) July 21, 2009 – A delay to Bangladesh’s monsoon season is posing a severe risk of drought in the impoverished nation and threatening food supplies, officials warned Tuesday. Monsoon rains normally sweep Bangladesh from June to September and the South Asian country gets more than 75 percent of its annual rainfall during this […]
Dhaka (AFP) July 21, 2009 – A delay to Bangladesh’s monsoon season is posing a severe risk of drought in the impoverished nation and threatening food supplies, officials warned Tuesday. Monsoon rains normally sweep Bangladesh from June to September and the South Asian country gets more than 75 percent of its annual rainfall during this […]
By Himangshu Watts and Mayank Bhardwaj NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India’s monsoon delivered above-average rains last week for the first time this season but the worst dry patch in more than 80 years has already hit rice and sugarcane crops. It has also depleted India’s reservoirs, choking hydropower supply and boosting fuel demand as farms, […]
Update: Better late than never. Heavy rain eases Mumbai’s water woes By Himangshu Watts NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India is scrambling to divert power supplies to the countryside to irrigate rice and oilseed crops and limit damage after the worst start to the vital monsoon season in eight decades has raised fears of a drought. […]
