Word: drought
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...people, disrupted the lives of 63 million and released a disease epidemic. A full two-thirds of Bangladesh is now under water, while 1.2 million homes have been washed away region-wide. Out the right side of the cockpit sprawls another equally devastated landscape, this time a drought that has spawned starvation and suicide by thousands of desperate farmers, and even threatens to stunt India's surging economy. At this moment last Wednesday, Singh has orders to fly to the floods where, skirting the wrecks of two other crashed relief choppers, he drops packets of rice, sugar cane, matches...
...control where or when the rains come, of course. But India has the power to alleviate its water woes, according to Sumita Dasgupta of the independent, New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment. "India has a lot of water," she says. "Even in drought years, we get enough. We just don't manage it." P. Chengala Reddy of the Indian Farmers and Industry Alliance lobby group goes further: "There is absolutely nil long-term planning." What management there is, says Dasgupta, ignores traditional methods of water storage in dry areas-such as the now disused network of channels...
...economist Subir Gokarn at ratings agency Crisil predicts that crop losses will cut the country's growth rate from 8.2% last year to no more than 5.75% this year. But given that three-quarters of India's 1 billion citizens live off the land, the human cost of the drought is nearly incalculable. Vidarbha villager Satish Bhuyar was counting on a bumper crop of soybean and cotton to help pay off loans for his sister's wedding. The monsoon arrived in early June, Bhuyar sowed his fields, but the rains stopped and his saplings died. The rains came again...
...dichotomy of farmers with too much and too little water just hours apart from one another produced a bizarre schizophrenia in India's government last week. As Prime Minister Manmohan Singh toured the floods, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram was asking businessmen to pray for rain and warning that drought might cut economic growth to below 5%. And when Singh arrived in Bihar, the state asked in the same breath for $2.4 billion for flood alleviation and $890 million for drought. "It's crazy," says Bihar air-relief coordinator Gautam Goswami. "Absolutely crazy...
...trouble. But we're not sure what to do about it. The renegade palaeontologists have an idea. It's to get back to what Australia has produced over millions of years, (to rely) on animals and plants that are perfectly attuned to this land, that are used to drought . . . kangaroos need a third as much water as sheep. So Riversleigh has become much more than we ever anticipated. It's not only the treasure chest and window into all things wonderful and ancient; it's (a warning) to change the way we're utilizing Australia to ensure this wonderful, uniquely...