In January 2014, the New York Times published a news item indicating that the particulate air pollution in Delhi was higher than that in Beijing. Till that time Beijing was considered to be the most polluted city in Asia. This created a furore in Delhi and attempts were made to prove that the New York Times report was wrong. (Editorial)

The Indian summer monsoon rainfall (ISMR) has remained remarkably stable during the last 140 years. The ISMR has varied between 70% and 120% of the long-term average of about 85 cm. Monsoon seasons with ISMR of less than 90% of the average are considered to be droughts, whereas those with more than 110% rainfall are considered as excess rainfall seasons. Although the variation is not large (Figure 1), it has a substantive impact on our agriculture and gross domestic product (GDP).

This article compares the land use in solar energy technologies with conventional energy sources. This has been done by introducing two parameters called land transformation and land occupation. It has been shown that the land area transformed by solar energy power generation is small compared to hydroelectric power generation, and is comparable with coal and nuclear energy power generation when life-cycle transformations are considered.

Under the project 'Seasonal Prediction of the Indian Monsoon' (SPIM), the prediction of Indian summer monsoon rainfall by five atmospheric general circulation models (AGCMs) during 1985-2004 was assessed. The project was a collaborative effort of the coordinators and scientists from the different modelling groups across the country.

This is a brief response to Sunita Narain's thought-provoking piece on the role of monsoon in our lives. As scientists actively involved in understanding the Indian monsoon and its prediction, we have attempted to elucidate what we know about this intriguing phenomenon, which is a tantalizing mixture of order and chaos, the problems of predicting it and our expectation of the progress that could be achieved in the near future.