An inter-ministerial team, led by central agriculture joint secretary Pankaj Kumar, is currently touring Mizoram's countryside to study the ground reality of the bamboo flowering-caused famine.

A child clings to its mother's beads in this file picture of a famine-hit Ethiopian village.

Bamboo clusters in Khagrachhari are flowering and fruiting in a massive scale, giving an ominous sign of food crisis in the hills.

Over one lakh families in Mizoram have been affected by the ongoing shortage of food due to the gregarious bamboo flowering which has triggered a famine like situation in the State. According to official records submitted by Deputy Commissioners of all the eight districts, rural people depending on cultivation have been facing immense hardship due to Mautam while those in urban areas were not spared either, though their sufferings are nominal. Armies of rodents ravaged annual crops like paddy, maize, chili worth Rs 41,138.57 lakh, the report said, adding perennial crops

IMPHAL, Feb 17

After a four-day-long summit of the 14-nation South African Development Community (sadc) in Lusaka, Zambia, the region's leaders have said: "We feel the problem in Zimbabwe has been exaggerated;