Dry and Long - Huge Rainfall Shortage in India

Northern India in general is going through a long dry spell. The report of the Indian Meteorological Department has shown that there has been a huge deficit in this year's rain fall. Whereas the usual North-Eastern monsoon period for western, eastern, north and north-eastern states of India stretches from 1 June to 15 October each year, the South Western monsoon starting from 1 October to December facilitates rainfall in the east coast of India. Looking into the available data and maps, the early rainfall in June was excess in many states, and normal in July. But, after that there has been a huge drop in rainfall. Though the cumulative rainfall for the period looks normal in most counts, in actual terms there has been very little rainfall since August in most states, and huge deficit in north-eastern states. 

The data available till date for the October to 7 December 2011 period shows further deviations, as the state of Andhrapradesh in south, several northern, north eastern, eastern and western states are under severe shortage of rainfall. The Gangetic belt is showing signs of stress as the average rainfall shortage for this period is above 80% in most cases. Although not much of rain is expected during this period, it is important in terms of agriculture, arrival of winter and warding of pests! The lack of rainfall has the potential to push up input costs on agriculture for small farmers who hold less than one acre of land, and increase debts for medium farmers who often take big loans. This could also hit production of vegetables, cereals and pulses of the winter crops and summer crops. On the one side the winter has set in very late. On the other side, the Indian agricultural industry is looking at deep drops in the coming summer.

Finding Friends...

The visit to home was coming to an end. There was the baptism of my nephew Kutty's child. Then I went on a day's visit to Fr. Sarto's home town. Since he has been greatly encouraging me on various counts, and that he was at the same time at home, and that he extended this invitation warmly, I accepted. And I visited his parents, sister, brother, and their children... It is time to return back to Bengal. On the way back I stopped for three more days in Chennai to be with another nephew who is a computer engineer, and has kindly consented to help me with the database that we are building for the Disaster Preparedness project. Although I had booked my return ticket from Chennai to Kolkata in advance by the middle of April itself, my ticket did not get confirmed due to heavy rush of travelers. And so, I had to take a flight. On arrival at the airport I saw two "whites" were wandering around. Looking at them I understood that they are in need of help! I went to them, introduced myself, and they even agreed to come with me and stay at Seva Kendra in Kolkata, where I normally stay. They stayed with us for a day and then they left for Darjeeling. These were two students : Christopher from England and Jane from Wales. As were chatting for sometime on the next day, there were really surprised to know about the knowledge I had of some great British writers. They were really amiable and willing to take hardship. I liked it in them. Wherever you are, Christo and Jane, have safe time!

Amazing Temple Town

I have traveled upteen number of times to Madurai, the second largest city in the state of Tamilnadu, south of India. Each time this city seem to unravel new opportunities to people who come in, open up new charm in the way traffic is managed, and the way municipalities and corporations function. With very poor local administrative systems in West Bengal, it is really nice to see relatively clean roads, people with habits to dispose of waste more hygienically, and traffic moving at a much better speed with commuters and drivers apparently respecting each other, with just one or two policemen to control traffic even on busiest junctions (as everyone seems to obey the traffic signal), and the number of bye-pass roads that take you quickly out of the town to put you on the highways. Still the area surrounding the famous Meenakshi temple is crowded, but you do not get to see too many shops and stalls that clog the pavements in Kolkata or other towns in Bengal. I am also told that in this state no one would die of hunger in spite of the fact that there is very little food production in relation to the States that live on Gangetic plains. The reason : the government provides 20 kilos of rice to every family (irrespective of whether they are below poverty line or not) at a cost of just one rupee per kilo! Many people told me that the quality of rice is good, and still not many people buy it from the regulated shops, because people have enough! And still more, some of them buy it and give it to the poorest families absolutely free so that the poorest can have enough to eat throughout the month; or they just do not lift the rice simply because it is availble on the reason that, if they take what they do not need, that only adds to the burden of the government that subsidises the food grains for the poor. My own sister's family bargains on that, as they cultivate two crops of rice each year.  You can also see local buses taking passengers in the middle of the night all over the city. I have seen it almost all over Tamilnadu, making travel safer, faster and need-based. One final touch... the government gives houses to the poor, worth rupees 100,000 rupees absolutely free, provided you have some means to advance part of it to begin construction. A footnote : people had one complaint -- inspite of the fact that the Central government has made many rules governing the banks asking them to provide credit, the banks are not giving, and thus creating artificial credit crunch. Will the governments look at the problems of the people?