Natural Disasters and the Role of Local Communities
Natural Disasters and the Role of Local Communities Never before has the role of community been considered as important in governing the disasters related to rivers as it is now. In all policy formulations by and for the hill states of India, local communities are given a predominant role in governing disasters. Being located in […]
Everybody Loves a Good Flood
Everybody Loves a Good Flood In the summer of 2006, I remember having visited the district of Malda situated in northern West Bengal in connection with our research work on riverbank erosion. We were interested in finding out how the prolonged process of erosion causes slow, almost invisible displacement of population over decades. While many […]
The Pecking Order of Climate Injustice
The Pecking Order of Climate Injustice Collecting Meaningful Feedback for Event Improvement The debate surfaced in a way when heavy rain lashed parts of northern West Bengal – Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri districts in particular on the night of 4-5 October 2025. The region recorded 261 mm of rainfall within a very short time of only […]
Ping Pong Of Climate Actions
Ping Pong of Climate Actions Climate change never affects us uniformly. The varying impact of climate change is felt across regions and states, classes and ethnicities, gender and sex and so forth. A study on the ‘primitive’ Irulas conducted in 2011 by the Mumbai-based Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) showed how the already poor […]
Workshop on ‘Addressing Natural Disasters in Uttarakhand:Learning form the Grassroots’
Workshop on ‘Addressing Natural Disasters in Uttarakhand:Learning form the Grassroots’ Laws and Government policies of disaster mitigation and management are usually criticized on the ground that they have so far been informed by what is called a ‘top-down approach’. A research paper on ‘Disaster Management (Amendment) Act 2024: Old Wine in a New Bottle’ published […]