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Correspondent

21 August 2024 at 3:50:16 pm

Arid State

Maharashtra has finally put an official number on a crisis that farmers have been experiencing for weeks. The state government has declared 265 of its 358 talukas drought-affected, activating the first stage of its drought-management framework. The scale of the distress should make this more than another seasonal relief exercise. It is a reminder that water stress is no longer an episodic crisis but a recurring governance challenge. The state received 798.2 mm of rain against a normal 970.9...

Arid State

Maharashtra has finally put an official number on a crisis that farmers have been experiencing for weeks. The state government has declared 265 of its 358 talukas drought-affected, activating the first stage of its drought-management framework. The scale of the distress should make this more than another seasonal relief exercise. It is a reminder that water stress is no longer an episodic crisis but a recurring governance challenge. The state received 798.2 mm of rain against a normal 970.9 mm between June 1 and September 26, a deficit of 18 percent. The first drought trigger is activated when rainfall falls more than 25 percent below normal and is accompanied by a prolonged dry spell of 21 days. Though the aggregate state deficit is lower than that threshold, the taluka-level assessment has established the conditions required for intervention. Except for five districts, rainfall has been deficient across the state. The government has ordered a stay on the recovery of agriculture-related loans and restructuring of crop loans, while extending concessions on electricity bills for agricultural pumps. Employment Guarantee Scheme norms are to be relaxed; food grains provided to farmers and arrangements made for drinking water and fodder. Crop-loss surveys will determine the eventual financial assistance. While these measures can cushion the shock, they cannot solve the problem. Maharashtra has lived with drought long enough for drought relief to have become an administrative routine. The more difficult question is why the state repeatedly finds itself having to mobilise the same machinery. Tankers, fodder camps, loan restructuring and employment guarantees are indispensable when the rains fail. But they are essentially the politics and economics of response, not resilience. The state has considerable experience in watershed development, farm ponds, check dams, groundwater recharge and other forms of water conservation. Yet the effectiveness of such interventions depends less on announcing them than on where they are built, whether they are maintained and whether groundwater extraction is regulated. Large-scale water-conservation works announced as part of the present relief package must therefore be judged by measurable outcomes rather than expenditure. There is a larger agricultural question. A state with highly variable rainfall cannot indefinitely expand water-intensive cropping patterns in regions whose hydrology cannot support them. Crop choices, irrigation efficiency and groundwater management have to become part of drought policy rather than being treated as separate subjects. The present declaration should consequently be viewed as both relief and warning. While the relief is urgent, the warning is structural. The state government cannot control the monsoon but it can decide how much water it captures when the rains arrive, how efficiently it uses what it stores and how resilient its farmers are when the skies fail. A drought code can declare an emergency. But only sustained water management can prevent the emergency from becoming routine.

Father seeks FIR against Aaditya

Correspondent
Mar 25, 2025
1 min read

Mumbai: Satish Salian, father of former celebrity manager Disha Salian, on Tuesday, submitted a complaint to the Joint Commissioner of Police demanding the registration of a case against Shiv Sena (UBT) MLA Aaditya Thackeray and others in connection with his daughter's death in 2020.


Salian visited the office of the joint commissioner of police (crime) in south Mumbai accompanied by his lawyer, days after he moved the Bombay High Court seeking a fresh probe into the circumstances surrounding the death of his daughter and former manager of actor Sushant Rajput in June 2020.


The HC petition stated that "Disha was raped and murdered, and there was a politically-orchestrated cover-up to protect certain influential persons".


The petition demanded the registration of an FIR against Aaditya Thackeray and transferring the probe to the CBI.


The petition will likely come up for hearing in the first week of April.

Aaditya Thackeray had said he would respond to the allegations in court.

"I am expecting justice for my daughter," Satish Salian told reporters after submitting a written complaint to the JCP.


"I won't speak now. I am feeling dizzy," he said.


His lawyer, Nilesh Ojha, said a written complaint was submitted to the Mumbai Police demanding the registration of a case against Aaditya Thackeray and others.


Disha Salian died on June 8, 2020, after falling off the 14th floor of a residential building in suburban Malad, six days before Bollywood star Rajput allegedly committed suicide in his apartment in Bandra.

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