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Crops hit as northeast India gets scant rain in monsoon season
New Delhi, Aug 9, 2006 Indias flood-prone northeast Assam state is suffering an unusual dry spell this summer that has hit farmers who depend on seasonal monsoon rains to sow rice and other crops, officials said Wednesday. "This is a near drought like situation with more than 50 percent of the crop land badly affected due to inadequate rains," Assam Agriculture Minister Pramilla Rani Brahma said. The lack of monsoon rains that normally sweep India from June to September, has affected millions in Assam where more than 75 percent of the 26 million population eke out a living through agriculture. The state government said in a statement that 15 of the 27 districts in Assam were parched and had received "very little rainfall" this year. "The rainfall pattern this monsoon in the northeast is rather scanty and it is mainly because of a trough located south of its normal position and so there is more rain elsewhere in the country," Dulal Chakraborty, deputy director general of the Regional Meteorological Centre in Guwahati, told AFP. Floods in four other Indian states have displaced almost 860,000 people, officials said, with the death toll from lashing monsoon rains at 196 in the past week. But compared to the mean average monsoon rains, Assam has received about 30 to 35 percent less rainfall this year, Chakraborty said. "It is an irony to have escaped the floods this year, but then curse the rain gods as our crops die for lack of rainfall," said Mohammed Zaidul Islam, a farmer in Hajo village, 30 kilometers (19 miles) west of Assams main city of Guwahati. In 2004, Islam and his family of three were adrift on a wooden boat for two-weeks as flood waters washed away their mud-and-straw hut. Every year the monsoon causes the Brahmaputra River to flood in Assam in a ritual that leads to frequent loss of life and displaces millions. A wave of flooding in June killed 11 people and displaced 500,000 people. The 2,906-kilometer (1,816-mile) river -- one of the longest in Asia -- is usually in full flood in the summer from monsoon rains and melting glaciers as it traverses Tibet, India and Bangladesh before emptying into the Bay of Bengal. "But compared to previous years, the floods this year were almost negligible," Assam flood control minister Bhumidhar Barman said. Local villagers in many parts of the state were taking recourse to folklore to bring relief -- performing frog marriages in an effort to appease the rain god and end the near drought. "This practice of frog marriages has been going for ages and we believe it does work when there is drought. God will definitely answer our prayers," said Swarnlata Das, a housewife. Community Email This Article Comment On This Article Related Links Dirt, rocks and all the stuff we stand on firmly
US diplomacy hails success... saving orphaned snow leopard cub
Washington, Aug 8, 2006 The US State Department found some rare good news to announce on Tuesday: a successful joint operation with Pakistan to save an orphaned snow leopard cub, one of the world's most endangered animals. |
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