Counting climate change discordant notes
Image credit X.com @Shubhamtorres08
Centre & states yet to see climate change urgency
By Manish Anand
New Delhi, August 1: New parliament building, symbol of India’s engineering prowess, is now leaking. The smart city of New Delhi transformed into a pool of water after half an hour of rains on Wednesday evening.
Indian Metrological Department (IMD) in an infographic said that all districts of Kerala witnessed 100 to 1100 per cent more rains on Monday and Tuesday. Kedarnath valley in Uttarakhand reportedly witnessed another spell of heavy rainfalls following a cloudburst.
The hide of the media at the Press Club of India at a stone’s throw distance from parliament was a spectacle of comic relief. A small group of journalists doggedly held on to their table, while a waiter served them with pool of water almost touching his knee.
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The highly spirited media persons at the Press Club of India symbolised the collective psyche of Delhi. Monsoon fury is for just a few days, and they too will pass as is the case with several of the adversities faced by the people in the national capital.
“I think Delhi is on it’s deathbed. History tells us that cities are established, grow, thrive, and then die. Delhi is dying,” lamented Ambrish Mithal, a senior doctor with Max Healthcare.
He summed up the exasperation of Delhi, saying: “People are either burning in the heat, or choking due to the pollution, or dying due to dengue/viruses, or just drowning”.
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Ironically, Delhi holds the moral torchlight for whole of the country. The high lessons of conserving water by digging ground recharge well and plantations are sounded out from the occupants of the North and the South Blocks. The Bhavans here host conferences to deep dive into risks of the climate changes. The babus draft policies, including 100-day agenda and sometimes the ‘transformative’ roadmap to make India a developed nation by 2047.
But Delhi is just another city where waterbodies have been encroached upon and even the Yamuna floodplains have not been spared. The apparent psyche of the mandarins of power suggests that the future generations will only have to face the fury of the climate change.
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Weatherman Subham shared the Thursday update of extremities of the rains. “Beas river of Himachal Pradesh is in full rage after overnight heavy rainfall, while there are reports of damage to the Malana dam. Churu in Rajasthan recorded 125 mm rainfall till 8:30 am today; it’s highest one day rainfall ever in August,” added Shubham.
The rainfall is not evenly spread across the country. Bihar is yet to see rains expected in Monsoon. Similar is the situation in other states.
Only a few weeks ago Delhi and parts of the country battled extreme heat. The United Nations chief António Guterres had warned of the possibilities of five lakh people dying annually globally on account of extreme heat.
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Union Minister for Home Affairs Amit Shah told parliament yesterday that the government will bring a legislative proposal on disaster management in the ongoing session. His remarks came ahead of Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan putting out a statement, saying that “there had been no warning of excess rainfalls in Wayanad until July 29 (a day before the landslides)”.
Delhi was almost flooded with about 111 mm of rains in a short spell. But this may be a new normal. Dehradun received 172 mm of rainfalls, and the score chart for Jaipur and Ambala respectively read 156 mm and 141 mm.
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