Even as the Congress is battling the BJP Government within the State Assembly and outside over the "inadequate' relief package for farmers affected by the frost and extreme cold conditions in Rajasthan, the party is leading a large group of the victims this Thursday to meet Congress president Sonia Gandhi in New Delhi. The party's strategy seemingly is to extract some concrete announcements from the Centre in favour of the farmers in general and the frost-hit in particular.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has termed the Rajasthan Government's relief package for farmers affected by frost and extreme weather conditions as "grossly inadequate'. Even while asking the United Progressive Alliance Government at the Centre to include crop-based catastrophes eligible for compensation under the Calamity Relief Fund, the party has decided to start district-wise protests against the inadequate relief.

The Rajasthan Government has announced a Rs. 126-crore relief package for the State's farmers who have suffered damage to their crops recently due to frost, hailstorm and cold wave conditions. The package, coming after an acrimonious political exchange between the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the Opposition Congress over who should compensate the farmer, earmarks Rs. 101 crore for farm subsidies, Rs. 15 crore for waiving four months electricity bill to small and marginal farmers and Rs. 10 crore for waiving the water cess.

Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje on Tuesday called upon the Centre to include "frost' and "cold wave' in the notified disaster list of the Calamity Relief Fund (CRF) and sought prompt disbursal of financial assistance to the affected farmers in the State. Ms. Raje, who met Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil at his North Block office in New Delhi, pointed out that the cold wave sweeping North India had severely damaged rabi crop in many districts of Rajasthan and affected agricultural economy. Ms.

The recent snowstorms in China have signalled that "freak weather' is becoming increasingly more common, a United Nations body that seeks to mitigate the impact of natural disasters has warned. The unprecedented scale, cost, and human impacts of China's snowstorms, its worst in 50 years, herald a need for the world to get ready for "new kinds of disasters,' said the Geneva-based International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR).

The recent snowstorms in China have signalled that "freak weather' is becoming increasingly more common, a United Nations body that seeks to mitigate the impact of natural disasters has warned. The unprecedented scale, cost, and human impacts of China's snowstorms, its worst in 50 years, herald a need for the world to get ready for "new kinds of disasters,' said the Geneva-based International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR).