Ritu Bharadwaj is senior researcher and Simon Addison is principal researcher in IIED s Climate Change research group
Accurate weather information and good climate governance are essential for local Indian communities to adapt to new weather patterns caused by climate change (Photo: Knut-Erik Helle via Flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0)
Drought in India is triggered not only by deficient rainfall but also by erratic rainfall: more days with higher rainfall, longer dry spells between heavy rainfall events, and delayed monsoons – a pattern that is becoming more frequent with climate change.
Local communities and national agencies need short-term, seasonal and long-term climate forecasts to help them prepare for, cope with and recover from drought. But the way climate information is managed in India presents challenges: people are not receiving the right data in the right way and at the right time to be able to understand, interpret and act on it.
Drought management in India: Hostage to climate information governance
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While communities in India affected by climate change, and the agencies that support them, need access to short and long-term weather forecasts to plan their responses to increasingly erratic rainfall, the current climate information governance system stops this from happening. The system needs reworking.
Drought in India is triggered not only by deficient rainfall but also by erratic rainfall: more days with higher rainfall, longer dry spells between heavy rainfall events, and delayed monsoons a pattern that is becoming more frequent with climate change.
Local communities and national agencies need short-term, seasonal and long-term climate forecasts to help them prepare for, cope with and recover from drought. But the way climate information is managed in India presents challenges: people are not receiving the right data in the right way and at the right time to be able to understand, interpret and
By Dr Soumyadip Chattopadhyay, Dr Arjun Kumar, Sunidhi Agarwal, Nikhil Jacob
The exodus of migrant workers to their home states due to loss of livelihood in the wake of the Covid-19 induced lockdown was unprecedented. It brought unimaginable hardship to these city makers who thrived on the low paid and unstable jobs provided by their foster cities. The pandemic exposed the ill-preparedness of the urban spaces in handling such a crisis. This is corroborated by data which shows that the urban areas were much more affected during the lockdown and had a poor recovery rate post lockdown, in comparison to the rural areas, noted Dr Amit Basole. He was delivering a special lecture on urban employment and social policy in the wake of Covid-19, organized by Impact and Policy Research Institute (IMPRI), New Delhi.