Rain gods have always influenced the destiny of the Indian economy

GLACIAL meltdown, global warming, devastating floods, soil erosion, rise in the sea level, salinity, waterlogging, famine, and heavy rainfall are the direct catastrophic consequences of deforestation. It is estimated that Himalayan glaciers are receding by 30 to 50 metres a year and in another 50 years they could be gone altogether.

Deputy Commissioner N Prabhakar has said that in the first week of this month, in a few taluks in the district due to rain and storm the farmers have suffered nearly Rs 98.40 lakh crops loss and Rs 2.70 lakh loss to property.

The district administration had conducted a survey in this regard.

Facing flak from all corners over the existing water crisis, the severest one in the recent past, Indore Mayor Dr Umashashi Sharma here today tried to shift the blame for the crisis to scarce rainfall saying that the city in the last monsoon received only 517 mm of rainfall which is almost half of the average rainfall, the lowest in the past 38 years.

Chikkaballapur, DH News Service:
Aruru, Chikkapailagurki, Pillagundahalli, Shettigere and surrounding villages are the worst hit as grapes, paddy, vegetables and other crops were damaged due to heavy rain and hailstorm.

A sudden hailstorm and thundershowers on Sundaynight wrecked havoc in many villages in Chikkaballapur taluk, causing damage to the assets worth lakhs of rupees.

Six mountain climbers were killed in an avalanche near the ski resort of Soelden in the Austrian Alps at the weekend, regional police said Sunday.

Witnesses spotted the snowslide in glacier-dotted highlands Saturday and alerted alpine rescuers but they could not reach the scene by helicopter until Sunday due to poor weather, police in the Tirol provincial capital Innsbruck said.

TUMKUR: Rain has destroyed standing paddy crop in 10 villages in Tumkur district. Siddapura and surrounding villages in Kasaba hobli of Madhugiri taluk in the district received heavy rain combined with wind and hailstones on Saturday evening. The crop, which had turned a golden yellow and was due to be harvested, fell flat on the ground. The fields were inundated by rainwater.

The Regional Meteorology Centre (RMC) here forecast probability of rain or thundershower at many places over Assam, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh and at a few places over Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram during the next 24 hours since today noon.

Rainstorm on Friday afternoon wrecked havoc in Arahalli village at Kolar taluk, causing damage of property to the tune of Rs 15 lakh.

Several houses, sericulture sheds and trees were damaged following heavy rains with storm that lashed the village for nearly three hours.