Drought management in India: Hostage to climate information governance Format 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 act on it.