Disaster management in India: are we fully equipped?

Disasters occur with almost unpredictable probability, even though some ideas about the regions of incidence and likely impact on likelihood are available in the scientific literature. In this lecture, I have taken a full view of six disasters that include hydro-geological, meteorological, climate based like floods and droughts as well as the biological holocaust of Covid-19 pandemic. The approach followed in this lecture is to analyse the occurrences, incidence, history and devastation caused by the disaster. The impact and policies to alleviate the effects are also discussed. The culture of disaster reliance is discussed at the end.


Introduction
I feel quite honoured to be invited to deliver this prestigious lecture on a subject that is quite close to my academic work for decades. I was very fortunate having not only worked when Professor L S Venkataramanan was at the ISEC as senior Professor and later on as Director of ISEC. I joined his research team on the "Dynamics of Rural Transformation" a project sponsored by ICSSR, spear-headed by Prof C T Kurien. The project was already quite delayed and Prof LSV wanted me to join in order to finish the work. We worked together and completed the project out of which I could publish one or two papers. Unfortunately, his ambition that we should publish a book out of this work and on our joint works on supply & demand projections of food grains in Karnataka remained unachieved. He had negotiated the publications with Late Shri Tajeshwar Singh of Sage publications but unfortunately before it could take final shape that fateful accident took him away. That was a great loss for the academic fraternity and personally to me, as he was quite an affectionate person in my life. I specifically chose this topic to deliver this lecture as I have worked for quite some time in the areas covering many of the aspects which touch the core L.S. Venkataramanan Memorial Lecture; This lecture was delivered by Prof. R. S. Deshpande at the Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore (ISEC) as LSV Memorial Lecture on October 28, 2018. The article was submitted to ISEC for publication and circulation. This lecture is presented here in its original version (with minor modifications). 1 3 has a very thin, nearly unpredictable probability and is hence called a disaster. Mismanagement of these elements and disturbance to the base element equilibria are the main reasons behind every disaster. At times the disaster management bodies were not able to do anything to prevent deaths. Even a moderate earthquake of magnitude 6.0 on the Richter Scale in Sikkim in 2011 was a disaster, causing large-scale destruction and many deaths. There is little control that can be exercised over these events. The disturbance in the base element equilibria needs to be managed with human efforts. Even though forecasting the probability of occurrence is difficult, being prepared for extreme events is not impossible. Certainly, there have been many efforts towards preparedness for disasters and a list of many such requirements for avoidance and mitigation of disasters due to climatic changes are listed in the IPCC reports. In India, the Ministry of Home Affairs brought out an Act of 2005, a policy document in 2011 that was reviewed in 2013 suggesting a framework for the plan. Further, a Disaster Management Plan was brought out in 2016. However, it is a fact that disasters occur not simply due to disequilibria but more so due to under-preparedness and management failures of such events.

Understanding disasters
Understanding disasters, therefore, involves deciphering the complex interactions between a multiplicity of climatic and manmade factors with the environment and its components. Not all environmental and climatic variables need to behave normally across years and regions. There are always variabilities and these vacillations differ in their intensity across space and time. It is the intensity of these oscillations that distinguishes them from simple aberrations and normal behaviour to reach disaster or catastrophe. There is always a history of the probability of occurrence of most of these climatic events be it rainfall, temperature, pandemic, diseases, floods, droughts, tornados or any such things. The probability distribution of occurrences is shown in Fig. 1, which indicates the well-known normal probability distribution. This is a distribution of probabilities and standardized occurrences of the events. The most feasible probabilities are clustered in the centre having occurrences that are positive (favourable) and negative (unfavourable). The probability of the occurrences is spread on both sides and any events happening out of the normal (central bell shape) are not desired, whereas the events with probability falling within the central portion of the bell shape are desirable. The basic parameters of the normal distribution are that it has zero expected value and constant standard deviation.

3
The figure shows a bell-shaped curve having four segments on the negative side (left side) and other four segments on the positive side (right side). If we take any event which may occur on either of the sides, they differ from normal occurrences to abnormal occurrences. The normal occurrences are shown in the central portion of the normal distribution. The central portion indicates the normal behaviour of any phenomenon. Initially, the first departure segments on either side beyond one standard deviation away from the mean can be called "Mild shock or aberrations". The "aberrations" are events that go slightly away from the central portion of the bell-shaped normal distribution. The central portion which ranges from − 1 to + 1 standard deviation (SD or α) and covers about 68.26% area includes all the events that come within the one SD of the mean or normal occurrence. These could be called mild shocks or adverse situations that are usually in the range of routine management techniques. The second group comes on the right, and the left side includes the fluctuations which go beyond one SD and extend up to 2SD on either side. These should be called aberrations and occur in the probabilities falling in that range of two standard deviations below or above the normal. These events cover 27.18% of the area and therefore will occur approximately at that probability of occurrence. The severe fluctuations come in the range of 2 to 3 standard deviation either below or above the normal occurrences. The Agricultural Commission 1976 defined severe fluctuations in this range of probability and demarcated the regions as susceptible to droughts and floods based on the probability of occurrence in the regions between 2 and 3 standard deviations on either side, and severe fluctuations and up into calamity when the occurrence takes place in the range of 3 to 4 standard deviations from the normal. The severity depends on the closeness of the event towards the border of four standard deviations on either side of the distribution. If we take the example of drought and floods, the first group within one standard deviation show a mild impact depending on the vulnerability of the region. The second group falling beyond two standard deviations on either side will result in a drought or flood situation depending on the closeness of the event to the point mark at three standard deviations. These should be called severe fluctuations and require immediate management on behalf of the policymakers. The calamity occurs when the events take place marking the fluctuations beyond three standard deviations, and the severity depends on the closeness of the event near the four standard deviation point. Such situations are cataclysmic situations and have to be dealt with very carefully as calamities. Any event that occurs at any point beyond the four standard deviation limits on either side requires preparedness as well as skills to deal with catastrophic situations. Such events occur with very thin probability and hence can result in a holocaust. In all these events, the role of administrative response is quite important and necessary to avoid loss of assets and life as well as ameliorate the suffering of the population. Therefore, it is a battle of wits between the learner and scientists and the natural events that require preparedness and management of the calamity.

Disaster: typology and response
The Disaster Management Act, 2005, defined disaster as "a catastrophe, mishap, calamity or grave occurrence in any area, arising from natural or manmade causes, or by accident or negligence which results in substantial loss of life or human suffering or damage to, and destruction of, property, or damage to, or degradation of, environment, and is of such a nature or magnitude as to be beyond the coping capacity of the community of the affected area" (GoI 2005). It is a sudden occurrence with a severe jolt that disrupts and destroys normal life and brings economic activities to a standstill, destroying the normal functioning of society and resetting the development clock.

3
The administration of disasters is certainly a challenging job as the administrators do not get any warning and also have very little knowledge of the severity of the impact (Sharma and Kaushik 2012). The administrative response goes by the type of disaster, and it has been very clearly documented in the Disaster Management Manual of the Government of India, 2016. Broadly the type of disasters indicated there are shown in Box 1. These are classified according to the causes of disasters which is the usual way of classifying disasters across the world (UN and World Bank 2010;UNESCAP 2016). However, it is essential to understand that disasters do not strike uniformly across regions and humanity. The severe impact is felt in the most vulnerable regions, and hence, the impact gets weighed by the intensity of the disaster as also by the vulnerability of the region. The UNISDR/SDMC report (2014) gave a good framework for disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation. The calculus of disaster management, therefore, works on three important dimensions. First, the type and probable intensity of desire. Second, the vulnerability and the population of the region. Third, the main economic base of the region and its dependent activities matter the most. It was in 2001 that a High Power Committee of the Ministry of Home prepared a report about disaster preparedness in India (GoI 2001). There was no institutional set up for managing disasters in India till the 1990s and all calamities were handled with a "firefighting" approach in a great hurry. A disaster management cell was placed under the Ministry of Agriculture after the declaration of "International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction" (IDNDR) by the UN General Assembly and a series of disasters (like Latur Earthquake (1993), Malpa Landslide (1994), Orissa Super Cyclone (1999 and Bhuj Earthquake (2001) India's hazard-prone area has been mapped by the Building Material and Technology Promotion Council (BMTPC) in their "Vulnerability Atlas of India" presented in Map 1 showing the multi-hazard zones of India. We have placed this map here to give a glimpse of the problem and the dimension of the issues to be tackled. BMTPC has done significant work in mapping the hazard-prone areas of India and mapped the information in policy convenient maps. It has been well documented in the BMTPC work that 85% of India's area faces multiple hazard vulnerabilities. Almost 22 states are under the continued shadow of disasters of one type or other. The eastern and western coasts are vulnerable to weather storms on both the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea coast (Map 1). The eastern coast faces several sea initiated turmoil. About 8% of the coastal area is prone to cyclones. Droughts and floods are regular visitors in most of the states, especially in central India. It is seen that India has about 68% of its area categorized as "drought-prone", and at the same time, about 12% of its area faces frequent floods. Acute seismicity resulting in earthquakes is confronted by almost 57% of the area that falls under the high seismic zone (World Bank 2010).
Any disaster causes not only huge material losses but also human and animal lives. However, these are not uniform across various typologies of disasters. The predictability, damage, loss of lives and material differs across disasters (Table 1). In many cases, all the economic activities come to a standstill and the government has to spend additionally to recoup the losses and bring back economic activities to normalcy. The World Bank report documented 73 such instances of natural catastrophes in just four years between 1996 and 2000 and reported direct losses on public and private economic infrastructure in India (UN and World Bank 2010). Similarly, vulnerability across states also differs significantly. Some states are well prepared to deal with such situations (Karnataka, Odisha, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh) with little warning, but a few others squarely face destruction (Table 2).
It was noted that "Losses amounted to approximately $30 billion over the past 35 years (nominal values at then applying exchange rates)". Since less than 25% of the registered loss events actually provide any loss estimates, the official numbers substantially understate the true economic impact of direct losses. A crude grossing up for reporting frequency indicates that direct natural disaster losses equate to up to 2% of India's GDP and up to 12% of federal government revenues" (World Bank 2010, Table 4). Another map from BMTPC clearly gives the geographical locations of climatic disasters. Even though most of the states in India are vulnerable, the Finance Commission has noted the severity in some selected states and accordingly sanctioned funds towards the purpose. The Fifteenth Finance Commission, after reviewing the earlier process under various Finance Commissions, submitted two reports on disaster management. The FC recommended a new methodology which stands as a combination of a) capacity or need of the state (based on past expenditure); exposure to disaster risk of the states (including area and population); and hazard & vulnerability (disaster risk index). The capacity or the need of states was to be prepared for disasters to deal with the situation fully and allocations were indicated to support SDMAs, SIDM, training and capacity building activities and emergency response facilities. The FC recommended funds under two headings namely: Corpus of Rs.1,60,153 crores for SDRMF for states ; and corpus of Rs.68, 463 crores for NDRMF for states (2021-26) (Finance Commission Report 2021).
It is known that the Indian subcontinent falls under severe disaster-prone regions and it has to confront various types of disasters. In the hundred years from 1900 to 2000 402 events could be termed as disasters and 354 in the two decades thereafter . Each one of these has historically been subjected to such calamities. Based on the probability of 1 3 occurrence of such events taken together with scientific data about the climatic factors and other geological formations disaster-proneness is arrived at. BMTPC and the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India have recorded the vulnerability maps (see Map 2). In about two decades after 2001, a total of 100 crore people have been impacted and nearly 83,000 lost lives due to these disasters. If the losses are adjusted with current prices, the losses come out to a staggering Rs. 13 lakh crore or 6 per cent of the GDP as estimated by the State Bank of India (SBI). The damages caused by the hydro-meteorological calamities were reported in the Indian Parliament recently under an un-starred question. The data from the Ministry of Home affairs are presented in Table 3 Map 1 Multi-hazard-prone areas of India  (Table 3 and Fig. 2). Almost annually human and livestock lives that are lost are about 2 thousand and 74 thousand, respectively. The damaged houses count per year is 11.8 lakhs, and the cropped area damaged goes up to 40 lakh hectares a year. It is reported in the 15th Finance Commission report that the total expenditure on disaster response and relief across twenty-eight states between 2011 and 2019 was Rs. 1,66,702 crore (Table 8.1 of the report). A significant jump in the expenditure could be noted. Besides impromptu grants from the Government of India during calamities, successive Finance Commissions have followed different approaches to determine the allocation of funds for disaster management to the State Governments. Initially, from 1957 to 1984-89 it was called Margin Money Scheme to cover the ad-hoc expenditures incurred by the States. After 1995 and till 2010, the approach was based on providing the Calamity Relief Fund. That was changed during 2010-2015 to National Disaster Relief Fund (NDRF) and State Disaster Relief Fund (SDRF). Besides adding the National Calamity Contingency fund, the 15th Finance Commission brought in a new nomenclature of National Disaster Mitigation Fund (NDMF) and State Disaster Mitigation Fund (SDMF). The 15th Finance Commission Report also uses a new methodology, which is a combination of capacity (as reflected through past expenditure), risk exposure (area and population) and hazard and vulnerability (disaster risk index) for determining state-wise allocation for disaster management. This shall be continued for the five-year award period from 2021-22 to 2025-26. The mitigation funds at the state and country level were intended to aid the implementation of mitigation measures in states for the award period, as provided in the Disaster Management Act 2005.
Broadly, disasters can be placed into six groups: (I) Water and Climate Related:   Electrical disasters and fires e) Air, road and rail accidents f) Boat capsizing g) Village fire; (5). Industrial: (a) Nuclear Leak; (b) Industrial Chemical leak; (c) Operational Negligence and the last one are: (6) Biological: (a) Biological disasters and epidemics; (b). Pest attacks; (c). Cattle epidemics; (d).Food poisoning. Usually, these originate as natural hazards or human-induced vulnerabilities. These can also result from a combination of any of these. As indicated earlier, it is the non-normal behaviour of the "Pancha Mahabhutas" coupled with human interactions that result in these disasters. Most human-induced factors can worsen the negative impacts of a natural disaster. The UN Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) also noted that human-induced climate change has a significant role in both the frequency and intensity of these episodes (Mall et al 2006(Mall et al , 2011aKelman 2008Kelman , 2009Dhar 2010). At the policy level, the Government of India recognized the severity of the impact due to climate change even before 2001 and set in motion preparations accordingly (GoI 2008(GoI , 2012. IPCC (2013) brought forth the necessity of intergovernmental cooperation while keeping in view the probability of increasing disasters (Seidler et al (2018)). At about the same time, the Government of India appointed a task force to review disaster management in India and the task force gave clear guidelines which were followed in the Act (2005) and Disaster Management Plan that followed in 2016 (GoI 2013(GoI , 2016. While heavy rains, cyclones, or earthquakes are all extreme natural events, the impacts relate mainly to actions or inactions in human activity. Extensive industrialization and urbanization increase both the probability of human-induced disasters and the extent of potential damage to life and property from both natural and human-induced disasters. Climate change has also contributed to the severity and frequency of these events (UNISDR/ SDMC (2014;Shamsuddoha et al 2013). In the first kind, we have hydro-meteorological disasters that cause significant damage to the ecology as well as human and animal lives. The economic impact of these disasters is quite significant. The impact of the four important components as recorded and analysed in the Ministry of Home Affairs of the Government of India, namely cyclones, tornadoes, whirl winds and floods as well as droughts, come under this severe most category. The second major cause is due to the changes in the geological patterns, especially reflected in earthquakes, landslides and avalanches are seemingly caused by geological causes, but the role of human activities in them cannot be undermined. The third typology of disasters is due to unpreparedness and failure to understand the pattern of natural events. Therefore, these are caused mainly due to the inaction of the State agencies and the response of the population. The last category includes biological disasters either due to human intervention or the intrusion of biological elements like viruses, bacteria or any such epidemiological events. These phenomena are of organic origin or carried by biological vectors, including exposure to pathogenic micro-organisms, toxins and bioactive substances. Major accidents due to the mishandling of chemicals, atomic energy or radioactive material also have a significant impact on human lives. It is, therefore, necessary to understand the mechanics of most of these disasters to equip and be prepared to meet the calamities for reducing the losses.

Mechanics of disasters
Disasters have different typologies. Among the disasters that we have taken for discussion in this lecture are cyclones or tornadoes, earthquakes, floods and droughts followed by the pandemic. It was necessary to keep the contours of this lecture limited to the available data and time at my disposal. Each one of the typologies mentioned above has a serious impact on human life and livelihood. Besides, most of them force to restart many developmental initiatives destroyed during the disaster. These include houses, roads, railway lines, bridges, factories, banking, trees, crops and many other things that come in the region.

Cyclones, tsunamis, thunderstorms and tornados
Cyclones, thunderstorms and tornadoes are among the worst impacting events that come with little warning but visit frequently. The eastern coastline covering about 8% of the land is extremely vulnerable. It is estimated that approximately three cyclones visit the coastal line every year with varying intensity. Therefore, regions from West Bengal to Tamil Nadu are highly vulnerable. The west coast is relatively less vulnerable due to its geographical formation, but any event on that side of the sea cannot be ruled out. If the west coast gets any visitations of events similar to that on the east coast of India, the devastation and loss of life will be unparalleled. In the event of a fully developed cyclone, the coastal line also faces gales and strong winds; torrential rain and high tidal waves. As the storm surges, it destroys human habitations. Large human casualties take place as many times it comes without sufficient warning (Table 4). The East Coast of India, along the Bay of Bengal, affects the population of West Bengal, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, but also parts of Karnataka, Pondicherry, and Telangana. A similar event on the West Coast adjoining the Arabian Sea will impact Maharashtra, Goa, Gujarat, Karnataka, and Kerala. India has a coastline of 7516 km, of which 5700 km is susceptible to cyclones and tornadoes. About eight per cent of the country's area and one-third of the population living in the 13 coastal states and UTs are vulnerable to cyclone related disasters. 5700 km. of the coastline stays continuously exposed to tropical cyclones. Usually, these events originate in the deep side of the Bay of Bengal and south western side of the Arabian Sea.
The Indian Ocean is one of the six major cyclone-prone regions of the world. Cyclone incidence is very high during April-May and October-December. About 80% of total cyclones invariably touch the long eastern coastline. Cyclones of various intensities peak in October or November (Cyclone Phailin) and a few with low intensities strike in May (Cyclone Mahasen). Most of the cyclones have caused damage to the eastern states in India. It is noted that the ratio of cyclones occurring in the Bay of Bengal to the Arabian Sea is approximately 4:1. Gujarat is the state that faced a few cyclones originating from the Arabian Sea. A cyclone gets formed due to coriolis force and with variations in the vertical wind speed or upper divergences above the sea level systems. A mature tropical cyclone has strong spiralling wind around the centre called EYE, and this enters the region of calm subsiding air pocket. The diameter of any storm in the ocean is between 600 and 1200 km, and the system sometimes moves slowly but often with heavy speed. There are six main requirements for a tropical cyclone to start. These are sufficiently warm sea surface temperatures, atmospheric instability, and high humidity in the lower to middle levels of the troposphere; enough coriolis force to develop a low-pressure centre; a pre-existing lowlevel focus or disturbance; low vertical wind shear. The table above indicates the typologies of disturbances and associated wind speed along with the possible impact as seen with historical data. It was since the mid-90 s the practice of naming the storm has come into being and almost every storm is named by the World Metrological Department and it is followed by the metrological departments in the country of its origin. The worst tropical cyclone called Mitch visited in 1998 followed by hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Nargis in 2008. Phallin struck India in 2013 and Fani from 26 April 2019 to 5 May 2019. SCATSAT is the Indian satellite developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation to keep a close eye on cyclones and prepare an early warning system for the East Coast to help give warnings. However, such warnings come only a few days or a week before the actual strike. Besides, there are a few Doppler radars that have been placed at various places on the East Coast, but the density of radars in the Arabian Sea is comparatively less. That side depends more on the naval intelligence data ( Table 5).
The history of cyclones world over is quite distressing. On 7 October 1737, a Bay of Bengal-originated cyclone destroyed 20,000 ships and left 300,000 people dead. It is also recorded that on 25 November 1839, the City of Coringa in Andhra Pradesh, a harbour city was destroyed. In 1789, a different cyclone passed near the area, generating a large storm surge killing over 20,000 persons. The November 1839 cyclone killed 3,00,000 people and devastated the entire area. It is recollected that on 5 October 1864, most of Calcutta was denuded by a cyclone and 70,000 people drowned and the devastation of the region was  unprecedented. There were many episodes of climatic strong aberrations after that but in October1967, a massive cyclone struck rural Orissa leaving behind a trail of deaths and destruction. The precise number of fatalities and destruction is unknown. After this, the next significant strike of the cyclone was in September 1971 along with huge tidal waves in the Bay of Bengal killing more than 10,000 people in Orissa. In Andhra Pradesh, cyclone and tidal waves claimed more than 20,000 lives in November 1977 and again in the same month in 1996 cyclone struck Krishna district. It took an unexpected turn towards the Godavari delta with high speed winds causing severe devastation and many deaths. Eastern Orissa confronted a super cyclone in October 1999 that recorded a wind speed of 190mph and sea waves which rose up to 15 feet high. All that caused devastation in the districts of Kendrapara, Jagatsinghpur, Puri, Cuttack and Jajpur. About 9,500 people died, and 2.5 million became homeless. Four hundred thousand heads of livestock were drowned, and damage estimation reached 3.5 US $ billion (cyclone https:// en. wikip edia. org/ wiki/ Cyclo ne). It can be seen from Table 5 that from1990 till recently almost 50 major cyclones visited the east coast of India, the maximum visitations being to Tamil Nadu followed by West Bengal. The severity was quite strong in Odisha and Andhra Pradesh. "The frequency of cyclones on the east and west coasts of India between 1877 and 2005 shows that nearly 283 cyclones occurred (106 severe) in a 50 km wide strip on the East Coast; comparatively the West Coast has had less severe cyclonic activity (35 cyclones) during the same period. More than a million people lost their lives during this period due to these cyclones" (National Disaster Management Plan 2016, P. 20).

Impact
Cyclones are one of the thin probability events, and predictions are hardly a few days to a week before. The event occurs, and the central spot as well as the starting point can be located. The Doppler radars and naval intelligence provide continuous signals, and the progress in intensity and direction could be tracked. Even then, preparedness to meet the effects of disasters does not totally eliminate the losses as the spillover effect is deep in the mainland too. The Super Cyclonic Storm Amphan 2020 in the Indian Ocean was one that created huge devastation. It impacted most of the eastern coast leaving behind a trail . Four people died in Odisha, two from collapsed objects, one due to drowning, and one from head trauma. Across the ten affected districts in Odisha, 4.4 million people were impacted in some way by the cyclone. At least 500 homes were destroyed, and a further 15,000 were damaged. Nearly 4000 livestock, primarily poultry, died (various news reports then). The cyclone was strongest in its northeast section. The next storm was a depression that did not affect India. Then, a severe cyclonic storm Nisarga hit Maharashtra, with significant damage. Nisarga caused 6 deaths and 16 injuries in the state. Over 5033 ha (12,435 acres) of land were damaged (Effects of the 2020 North Indian Ocean cyclone season in India, en.wikipedia.org and various news reports). Cyclones cause hugescale devastation to society and life gets totally disrupted. Lakhs of livestock get inundated so also did the property and crops. All economic activities come to a standstill and even though rehabilitation works begin immediately, it takes a few years for the livelihood cycle to assume normality.

Policy response
India's Disaster Management preparedness has improved substantially since 1996. Following the 2001 expert committee recommendation, in May 1916, the Government of India released a detailed Natural Disaster Management Plan. In chapter three of this report, a detailed framework of rehabilitation and recovery after the cyclone is systematically recorded. First, emphasis is laid on understanding the risk through observation networks, information systems and research forecasting. Zoning and mapping as well as monitoring the progress of cyclones need to be emphasized. Hazzard risk and relative vulnerability along with dissemination of the warning systems data and information are to be recognized as important aspects. The report further provided policy guidelines about the institutions involved and overall disaster governance, and response systems as well as responsibilities to be shared. It is recommended that multi-purpose cyclone shelters, social housing schemes and hazard-resistant constructions be built. Capacity building and legal systems needed for meeting emergencies during cyclones have also been stated. Pandey (2016) suggested revisiting the existing legal framework of disaster management in India. This report is quite holistic as far as policy is concerned. It is only to be seen how the implementation process takes it forward and that comes only during the next episode of the disaster.

Floods and water related disasters
The rainfall pattern in India is marked by its erratic fluctuations. The climatic conditions here range from snowy Himalayan heights in the north to the arid deserts of Rajasthan. The annual normal precipitation ranges between 83 and 4000 mm. Ruyli located in the Jaisalmer district of Rajasthan receives the lowest amount of rainfall measuring only 83mms, whereas Mawsynram in Khasi hills in East India gets 11,872 mm annual average rainfall.
The two major problems associated with erratic rainfall are flood and drought. In unusual conditions, these turn into calamities, if accompanied by severe management and perception failures. Floods in the Indo-Gangetic-Brahmaputra basins have become almost an annual feature. On average, a few hundred lives are lost every year, some years even millions were rendered homeless and several hectares of crops were damaged. More than 70% of the total annual precipitation occurs during pre-monsoon, southwest, north east and retreating monsoon seasons (De et al. 2005). It is estimated that roughly about 40 million hectares or 12% of Indian land is prone to flood hazards. Floods are very regular in Assam, Bihar, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, but states like Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala also have faced sporadic inundation. The horrifying memory of the Morvi Floods in Gujrat which was described as the "city of dead bodies" cannot be wiped out of our memory (Noorani 1979). Map 3 shows the flood-prone areas of India and the regions with a high probability of catastrophe. Between 1998 and 2017, 10 of the 14 extreme weather-related disasters that hit the country were floods. The floods also claimed 3,396 human lives and 239,174 cattle, besides damaging 35,07,542 houses and affecting more than 370 million people (Central Water Commission 2022, Table 6). Floods reset the development clock in these regions: roads, bridges, dwelling houses on river banks; cattle, and whatever comes in the way of water flow is washed away. In the recent past, floods are noticed even in traditional, non-flood-prone areas like Rajasthan, Gujrat, or Kerala. Various reasons like a phenomenon connected to global climate change or El-Nino, La-Nina & ENSO could be the cause (Bhat et al. 2015). Annually 32 million people are vulnerable to floods in various regions. Largely in the Indo-Gangetic and Brahmaputra plains, the floods are annual devastating agents.
The incidence of floods has increased in both number and intensity during the twentyfirst century as compared to the twentieth century. In the earlier century, the most devastating floods were recorded in 1943, 1979, 1987, 1988 and 1993; as per the records. However, during the twenty-first century when the recording became substantially good it is observed that we had more than 10 devastating floods after 2000. These were experienced in , 2015(3), 2016, 2017, 2020, 2021(Central Water Commission 2020. The worst floods recorded were in August 2018 in Kerala in Wayanad and Idukki districts causing 400 deaths and about Rs.30,000 crore in losses in terms of livestock houses and infrastructure. The urban floods in Mumbai (July 2005) caused thousands of deaths and more than 14,000 houses were inundated with a loss to the economy ranging up to Rs. 1000 crore. The Chennai flood of November 2015 caused 500 deaths and about 1.8 million displacements with 50,000 homes inundated. The total economic loss was in the range of Rs. 50,000 crore. The flood-prone areas of India as delineated by the National Disaster Management Authority are shown in the map.

Impact
Flood preparedness is one of the important areas discussed in most of the plans as certain areas are habitually flood-prone like the states of Assam, Bihar, West Bengal, Ganges, Yamuna, Brahmaputra basins, North Eastern regions, Godavari basin, Krishna and Cauvery basins. Every flood sets back the development clock in the region affected by the floods. The devastation begins at the banks of the rivers but moves inside the mainland as the feeder rivers also get flooded. Initially, the impact is reflected in the inundation of regions, crops, houses along with other economic activities. The NDMA has categorized eight groups of impacts due to floods. These include (1) The devastation of Property and Life; (2) Livestock, crops and agriculture; (3) Energy and Communication facilities; (4) Food, and Drinking Water; (5) Shortage of Basic Necessities; (6) Outbreak of Epidemics, 1 3 (7) Health Hazards and viii. Economic Activities. The Central Water Commission in its report in 2019 reported the average losses due to flood which is presented in Table 6.

Policy
It is seen that the total losses to the economy from 1953 to 2020 are to the tune of 437 thousand crores in which only the damage to the crops, houses and public utilities are Map 3 Flood-prone areas of India included. Cost relating to the loss of cattle and human lives and the cost to reset the development clock have not been calculated. The estimates of the loss provided in the table are reported losses, but then there are losses that happen in remote areas not covered by the agencies collecting statistics. These losses are quite huge in terms of all the sectors mentioned above. Floods have been our regular visitors and the region of the incidence as well as the likely intensity is easily understood from the studies conducted at the Central Water Commission of the Government of India. The important alleviation measures that have been suggested include (1) Early warning system based on the metrological data and forecasting of the rainfall in the catchment areas of the rivers; (2) The evacuation mechanism to be organized by NDRF and SDRF and keeping continuous alert in any situation; (3) The historical areas prone to floods have imbibed a perfect culture of accommodating the natural event and trying to adjust in the event of mild shocks but that does not help in unusual calamities. In the case of catastrophes, the losses even in the usual flood-prone areas are enormous despite experience & preparedness. More important is the identification of the new areas that are not usually affected by floods in the past. These regions report heavy damages both in economic as well as human and animal capital loss; iv. The embankment of the rivers every year and its maintenance needs to be high on the agenda. There are various flood control authorities for most of the rivers, however, the devastation of floods continues unabated. Either the authorities do not have a grasp of the real problem or the behaviour of the floods hoodwinks, the preparation of the authorities. v. For a long time now Inter Basin Transfer of Water Resources (IBTWR) and connectivity of rivers have been under discussion, but little has been achieved as yet. IBTWR is a project that envisaged connecting two or more rivers by creating a network of reservoirs and canals, expecting to alleviate the regular flooding of some rivers and using the water resources in the drought-prone areas. It is based on the assumption that surplus water in some rivers can be

Geological and land based disasters
India has a significant share of the Asian seismic zones and unlike cyclones, earthquakes occur without any prior warning. Therefore, the damage and loss of lives, as well as property, are huge and sudden. Asimakopoulou et al. (2010) reported that India's 12% area is prone to "Very Severe" earthquakes, 18% to "Severe" earthquakes and 25% to "Damageable" earthquakes. and West (Gujarat), fall in the Seismic Zone V. These confront higher probability of occurrence of quakes. An earthquake is caused by a sudden change in the tectonic plates that are continuously moving, albeit at a snail's pace. The plates that are deep below the earth's surface are called "continental plates". These plates move under a few kilometres in the deeper part of the earth (the mantle). They are always moving, bumping, or sliding past each other at a very slow speed but can brush against each other. Suddenly, when these plates brush strongly with their edges due to friction, a tremor eventuates. It is this stress on the edge that creates friction, which gives rise to an earthquake releasing huge energy waves and kilometres causing tremors through the earth's crust. This gets manifested into shaking of the earth's surface which is experienced as an earthquake. The tectonic plates below the bottom of the sea also experience a similar phenomenon that gives rise to tremors. Such occurrence under the oceans also causes tremors and these are called oceanic quakes.
Measurement of the energy released that causes destruction is done with the help of seismographs. This is a scale-based measurement of the magnitude of earthquake given by Richter (e.g., Richter 1958). This is called "Richter scale". The magnitude on the Richter scale is obtained through recordings of ground motion on seismographs through a seismometer. There are advances in the measurement of earthquakes that help to decipher tiny movements in the Earth's outermost layer that can provide a "Rosetta Stone" 1 for deciphering the physics and warning signs of big quakes. New algorithms that work a little like human vision are now detecting these long-hidden micro-quakes in the growing mountain of seismic data (Tables 7, 8, Map 4).

Impact
India has a long history of earthquakes. Increasing population and urbanisation with skyscrapers and indiscriminate apartments, factories, flyovers, gigantic malls, supermarkets and most of these being unscientific constructions, have all increased the frequency and magnitude of loss. Since 2001, the country has experienced 22 major and minor tremors that have resulted in over 30,000 deaths and large-scale devastation. The map of India's seismic sensitive zone (IS 1893(IS : 2002, indicates that about 60% of the land area is 1 Rosetta Stone is a stele composed of granodiorite inscribed with three versions of a decree issued in Memphis, Egypt, in 196 BC during the Ptolemaic dynasty on behalf of King Ptolemy V Epiphanes. risk-prone due to seismic hazards. The entire Himalayan belt is prone to earthquakes of magnitude between 6 to 8 MSg on the Richter Scale. Geologists have indicated the likelihood of severe earthquakes in the Himalayan region that may endanger the lives of several million in that region. These events not only cause loss of life but also damage that includes: houses devastated, destruction of roads, bridges, breaches in barges and dams that can develop fissures, loss of livestock, an outbreak of diseases, and resetting all economic activity to the start. The cost of rehabilitation exerts strong pressure on the economy and many houses with families are totally destroyed. Latur earthquake caused many children to be orphans with all the elders of the hose getting crashed in the houses. One NGO named "My Home" ("आपलघर") looked after 1650 orphaned children in Latur earthquake and educated them.

Policy
The Government of India through a special purpose vehicle namely the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) prepared earthquake disaster resources, shelf and capacity building programmes. The National Earthquake Risk Mitigation has also been ongoing as a Centrally Sponsored Plan Scheme with an outlay of Rs.24.87 crore, to be implemented between 2013 and 2015. The major components of National Earthquake Risk Mitigation Techno-legal Regime involving the adoption, enforcement and updating of the Technolegal Regime in concerned Cities/States assumed prime importance as done in the Philippines (Britton 2006). This was allocated funds to the tune of Rs.8.20 Crore. Strengthening of institutional network and capacity building among citizens through colleges and educational centres was taken up at the cost of Rs.9.52 crore. This also involved practising engineers, civil contractors and works for which a separate fund of Rs 3.85 crore and for public awareness, a separate fund of Rs.1.88 Crore was allocated. A few important components were given priority in the action to mitigate the devastating effects of earthquakes in the NDMA (https:// www. ndma. gov. in/ Natur al-Hazar ds): 1. Seismic Vulnerability Assessment of Buildings typologies work was assigned to IIT Roorkee for North Zone, (2) IIT Kharagpur for East Zone, (3) IIT Guwahati for North East Region, (4) IIT Mumbai for West Zone, and (5) IIT Madras for South Zone. IIT Mumbai prepared the draft final report. However, the recommendations of these reports are awaiting implementation for want of funds. 2. Work has been undertaken for identifying and monitoring through the seismograph earthquake hazard zones.

NDMA has undertaken a project through Building Materials Technology Promotion
Council (BMTPC) for the upgradation of Earthquake Hazards Maps for the country. 4. Project on research on soil piping in the highlands and foothills of Himalayas to avoid the disaster. 5. Soil piping 2 is a recently noticed phenomenon in Kerala. It is a sub-surface soil erosion process which is a dangerous disaster since the soil erosion also takes place beneath the soil. The Centre for Earth Science studies (CESS) with financial assistance from NDMA 1 3 is undertaking Soil Piping Project to study this phenomenon and suggest measures to avoid a disaster. 6. NDMA is financing the proposal of Mission for Geospatial Applications (MGA), Department of Science and Technology for River Monitoring, Modelling and development of Early Warning System. 7. Landslide Mitigation and Management in India, a technical committee has been constituted by the Ministry of Mines on the initiative of NDMA. 8. Flood protection, NDMA is coordinating with MoWR/CWC and Survey of India for steering and approval of the project for River Bathymetric Survey and Preparation of Digital Elevation Models.
In addition to these steps, every state government was advised to take steps that include undertaking training in the construction of earthquake proof housing, bridges and barges. Identifying and pin pointing seismically active regions and categorize them into acute, moderate and low risk categories so that the efforts could be accordingly directed. It is essential to establish a network of seismometers and undertake deep earth research on plate movements with expert geologists.

Droughts: that breaks the spine 3
Drought is not simply a climatic phenomenon, but it also represents the failure of the human intellect to meet a situation that occurs due to climatic variability with a certain frequency. Over centuries human civilisation accommodated the climatic fluctuations of various magnitudes and evolved by imaginatively adjusting to them. There were also incidents of critical travails owing to the destructions created during some extreme events (Sen 1981;Dreze 1988;Sen and Dreze 1991;McMinn 1902). There are usual climatic aberrations that are regular micro climatic within one standard deviation of the bell shaped normal distribution. However, the extreme fluctuations in the climatic parameters crossing certain limits and extreme events like famines cause significant devastations resulting in human miseries.
Drought is an unescapable phenomenon which prevails in almost every region of the country with different intensities. Irrigated regions are insured with the availability of water but more frequently drought visits the rainfed regions of the country. It is a climatic event that intensifies the already fragile ecosystem of the rainfed regions and the extreme cases result in famine. It is only a climatic aberration of various magnitudes depending on the intensity of aggregate rainfall as well as the timelines of rainfall (Deshpande 2022;Nadkarni and Deshpande 1982). A devastating drought resulting in a famine fully nullifies the development efforts, besides inflicting serious miseries on the human population. The examples of these kinds of famines are many in history.
The phenomenon of droughts culminating into famines was quite pervasive in British India during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Famine Commission's Reports from 1870 to 1901 documented the travails and suffering of the population. Several researchers have analysed these reports of the Indian Famine Commission (IFC) from 1878 to 1901 (Romesh Dutt 1901;Loveday 1914;Bhatia 1967;Srivastava 1968;Baishya 1975;Brennan 1984) and brought out the failure of the state to ameliorate the impact. Therefore, the efforts in understanding the phenomenon of drought or for that matter famine could be traced back to the Famine Commission's Reports of 1880 to 1901 as well as the First Irrigation Commission 1903, Royal Commission on Agriculture 1928 (GoI 1928).
As can be seen from Table 9, famines and droughts were certainly frequent during the British Raj. Despite their numbers being lower than that of independent India, the intensity was quite piercing. There is also a possibility of underreporting of drought miseries in smaller regions during British India. However, during those years famines were severe in impact and enveloped vast regions coupled with sluggishness in protection from the British state. In fact, the colonial government did not heed very easily into declaring a famine and bringing in any kind of amelioration measures. History of the British administration recorded that Lord Lytton (Viceroy of India between 1876 and 1880) remarked negatively to the British citizens urging relief for the suffering Indian population in 1877. Lord Lytton wrote back to London, "Let the British public foot the bill for its 'cheap sentiment', if it wished to save life at a cost that would bankrupt India" and "there is to be no interference of any kind on the part of Government with the object of reducing the price of food," and he instructed his district officers to "discourage relief works in every possible way" (Osborn 1879).
Drought is a situation largely dictated by quite a few agro-climatic parameters. It must be noted that the announcement of drought till 1972-73 was based on what was commonly called the "Annawari" system, wherein the normal crop was taken as a quality to 12 anna (before the decimal system in the currency entered India, where a rupee was equivalent to 16 Annas). It was the duty of the village accountant to report to the "tehsil office" about the crop condition. Twelve Annas were considered equal to perfectly normal crop conditions and anything below eight Annas was to be reported to the Tahsildar (Government official in charge of a Tehsil). In addition to this, the activities of migrating cattle, human population, stoppage of certain usual village activities, and availability of food grains in the market were reported to the higher ups by the village official. There was a Famine Code prepared and implemented in British India after 1883. Drought as a failure of rainfall was certainly recognized in official circles; however, the declaration of a drought affected village was solely done by the revenue department through the tehsildar and the district collector (Table 10).
There are a few other typologies of drought. In meteorological parlance broadly drought is viewed as a situation where the annual rainfall is less than 75% of the normal or there Table 9 History of droughts and famines in India: years 1800 to 2020. Source: Compiled in Deshpande (2022) from GoI (1901), Srivastava (1968), Murton (1984, Dreze (1988), Gupta (2011) This list does not include minor instances of droughts which were either very local, unreported widely or short-lived

Period
Years of drought and/famines Nineteenth century first half 1801, 1803, 1804, 1806, 1812, 1818-19, 1822, 1825-26, 1832, 1833, 1837, 1839, 1845 {13} Nineteenth century second half 1862, 1866-67, 1867-68, 1868-69, 1871-73, 1877-78, 1878-79, 1883,1891-92, 1896-97, 1898-99, 1899, 1900{13} Twentieth century first half 1900-01, 1904, 1905, 1907, 1908, 1911-12, 1912-13, 1916-17, 1918-19, 1921·22, 1934-35, 1939,1942-43, 1946, 1950, 1951{16} Twentieth century second half 1960, 1965-66, 1972-73, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1982, 1983, 1985, 1987, 1992{12} Twenty-first century 2002, 2009, 2014, 2015 is a departure of − 25% from the normal. In addition to this, meteorological scientists have also developed criteria based on Moisture Index and Aridity Index (Aridity Index (AI) = {Rainfall/Potential Evapotranspiration} in mms), The Aridity Index (AI) classifies regions as Hyper-Arid: AI < , 0.05; Arid Area 0.05 < AI < 0.20; Semi-Arid 0.20 < AI < 0.50 and Dry Sub-Humid 0.50 < AI < 0.65. Another definition is that "Drought occurs at a period in a certain area when its rainfall is less than decile − 2 and severe drought occurs when rainfall is below decile-1". Similarly, another method of Palmer's Drought Index (1965), a two-layer approach is employed in arriving at water balance. The Palmer Drought Index includes the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI), the Palmer Hydrological Drought Index (PHDI), and the Palmer Z (Moisture Anomaly Index) Index. Hydrological Drought is a result of the meteorological drought which puts stress on the surface and groundwater, thereby reducing the availability of water for different uses and arriving at the Surface Water Supply Index (SWSI). These measurements are used for the hydrological drought (Nagrajan 2010); (3) Agricultural Drought is a result of meteorological drought and hydrological drought as all the activities in the agricultural sector actually refer to the adequacy of the soil moisture during the growing season and increased aridity index. Even though it is very simple to understand the agricultural drought with satellite imagery, a Crop Moisture Index is utilized in order to declare an agricultural drought; (4) Ecological Wide Spread Drought: Ecological drought occurs when primary productivity of the natural ecosystem significantly goes down as an effect of reduced precipitation and availability of water in the ecosystem on which human as well as animal population is dependent; (5) Famine like conditions prevail when there is extreme aridity and the moisture index is at its lowest. Famine conditions are indicated by significant human and animal migration (GoI 1901;De Supriyo 2019), stress on the availability of water for drinking and other purposes, and deaths of animals and infants due to water shortages and drinking contaminated water (Fig. 3). The early cautioning system is one concept that entered the lexicography of planning or amelioration of drought impact very late. It was till the 1987 drought, the approach to dealing with drought was only of the firefighting type. The Famine Code of 1883 continued in the books and from the declaration of drought to amelioration, works were handled in the same manner as in the fifties. The development of an early warning system was almost absent and the lag between the incidence and administrative action was quite huge. The first signals as well as the warning system should begin from the village. There is a large scope of handling it at the village level and the information seeking to be placed with the village panchayats, taluk panchayats and district panchayats. The management of the data and overseeing the data transfer from the village panchayat level was successfully carried out in Karnataka through the telemetric rain gauge stations at the village panchayat (Karnataka State Natural Disaster Management Centre). This initiated drought monitoring and preparations to meet the conditions as well as ameliorate the distress from the village level. However, the implementation of such systems needs to take precedence over the mere understanding of drought (Fig. 7, Map 5). Among the essential steps to improve the monitoring of drought situation, the first step begins with the formation of a contingency plan from the micro level aggregating to the macro level. This plan should be further totalled at the state level and must include all the requirements of data at the village level to understand the intensity and spread of drought. Principally, the data have to be collected on the rainfall incidence, variability, moisture index of the soil with the well spread samples, crop conditions, and socio-economic responses of the people. The Soil Health Card scheme followed recently in many States provides only scientific information about the soil on the card supplied to the farmer, which the farmer neither understands nor can take corrective action and therefore, these are of little use other than keeping them in the cupboard. Recently, a World Bank-funded project Map 4 Seismic vulnerability Map of India on Watershed Development in Karnataka emphasized the Land Resource Inventory Card (LRI) with huge funds invested at the behest of the World Bank. This is not the only a case of putting investment down the drain on half-baked expert advice. Earlier on the advice of the World Bank experts, vetiver grass was planted as a vegetative bund with large investments in Manoli, Kabbalnala, Maheshwarnala and Puruanala watershed projects. Unfortunately, not a blade of that grass is available today in any of these watersheds and the borrowed funds invested certainly went down in the soil (Deshpande 2022).
As a submission to the Agricultural Commission 1976, the Indian Meteorological Department prepared a map of rainfall failure zones across meteorological sub-divisions. These maps were quite useful in drought planning and preparedness. The probabilities of rainfall failures in different ranges across states were arrived at and that served as a basis for future planning presented in Table 11. The states could be categorized into five levels, namely: very rare; rare, frequent, very frequent and severely drought-prone based on the probability of failure of rainfall.
The system diagram ( Fig. 4) represents three stages in the process of the impact of drought. In the first stage as soon as pre-sowing tillage is undertaken, the farmer expects the first monsoon shower that drenches the field. Sometimes, the pre-monsoon showers as well as the initial monsoon showers record failure below the normal rainfall of those three weeks. If protective irrigation is available, then the farmer continues in the first season of farming activities.
The crops start growing, and this is the initial stage of the crops when at least 2 to 3 showers are required for healthy crop growth as well as the application of fertilizers and manure. In this mid-season of crop growth, if there is a dry spell and if protective irrigation is available only, then the farming activities continue. In the absence of a dry spell also farming and activities continue. In case these two conditions are not satisfied and if the areas are already sown, the farmer suffers the loss of seeds, labour charges utilized for tillage, sowing and other activities. Initially, the farmer can postpone sowing and may get connected to either the place indicated as (A) or (B) to reach the second stage in the system diagram. The impact on the large farmers (LF), small farmers (SF) and agricultural labourers (AL) is different, and the availability of resources only dictates the further The second stage in the system diagram picks up from (A), (B), (C) from stage 1 and the farming activities continue under the condition of availability of resources to continue on the second season cropping. It is necessary to bear in mind that the loss in the kharif season makes it difficult for the farmer to have working capital in hand and thus continue cultivation in the rabi season cropping. In such situations, many farmers tend to borrow Prices of all commodities increase substantially, supplies from PDS saves the affected population by providing essentials in food As the existing wells dry out, resourceful farmers dig more wells Government also supports digging of wells or Bore wells Depletion in the forest area and the bush forests Needy villagers cut trees and sell the wood in local or other markets or to the contractors Human dignity is negotiated with money Instances of increased flesh trade and even children being abandoned

Fig. 4 A system diagram of drought impact
1 3 from the moneylenders as already the crop loan is used out and the usual sources of credit are also exhausted in the first season. An early dry spell in the rising rabi season puts two conditions, namely: 1. Availability of irrigation and if there was no drought in the kharif that signifies that the economic condition of the farmer is better and therefore the cultivator continues with farming. 2. In case there was a kharif drought confronted earlier by the farmer, the economic condition of the household gets deteriorated. However, in case there is protective irrigation available the farmer continues with farming, but in case it is not available, and Rabi sowing has already taken place then the farmer suffers rabi season drought and loss of seeds fertilizers and other costs of cultivation. Again, survival to the third stage depends on the resource position of the farmers and those who cannot afford to sustain the usual lifestyle either migrate out of the village or seek employment in their own village or outside. At this stage, the farmer tends to diversify their activities. The third stage of the system diagram begins with connectors (D), (E), (F), (G) and (GI) from the earlier stages. If the drought prevails and if the said position is quite strong, then the farmer continues with normal economic activities or diversifies into other economic activities. In this position, the farmer's availability for employment decides quite a bit about future sustenance. Otherwise, if there are household assets for the purpose of sale and at times even land, the cultivator resorts to the sale of livestock, household assets, jewellery, and even land. At this point of time the cultivator is absolutely helpless and the entire household economy is in a wreck. The economics of drought directly hinges on three important components. The first one is the timeliness of rainfall at the proper time and the availability of resources for continuing the cultivation. The second is the capability to diversify and enter into the labour market or other economic activities ensures survival of the household from a complete wreckage. Third, many times extreme steps are taken by the farmers by either committing suicide or migrating to far off places.

Impact
Drought can lead to economic wreckage only when the cultivator fails in his/her ingenuity to adjust to the situation of drought at the earliest and has non-diversified economic activities. The non-availability of water leads to the collapse of many economic activities and gives rise to epidemics like cholera, influenza and many such diseases due to the use of contaminated water. The other economic activities also get impacted and the prices of usual household goods as well as agricultural necessities increase substantially. That puts heavy pressure on the cultivator households. As seen above in the system diagram, the impact of drought varies according to its severity and the point of its incidence. However, a wide spread drought causes damage not only to the crop economy in terms of productivity, production and quality of crop output but other economic activities also. It also impacts the non-recoverable cost as there is a total loss of production, loss of animals and the usual professional activities besides non-availability of the basic requirements like drinking water, milk and of all work for the workers. The impact of drought is all pervasive as it has a spillover effect on related economic activities. The loss of crop activities exerts pressure on connected production and service sector activities thereby slowing down the process of increasing GDP. This is visualized in the form of troughs observed in GDP data during drought years. All these are shown in Table 12.

Policy
Drought has been one of the major despoilers of growth in the rainfed areas affecting economic activities. In the Indian context, drought strikes with a probability from as low as 10% to 50%. There are many regions which confront drought almost every second year like Rajasthan and a few other districts in the country. A complete review of the drought situation in the country as can be understood from various reports and academic researchers suggests failure of systematic efforts till the 1987 drought. There onwards, however, the preparedness has improved substantially.
1. It is necessary to put in place an early warning system connected from taluk to district and through the State Government to NRAA. The best example of the early warning system is available in the Karnataka State Natural Disaster Management Centre's program of establishing a network of Telemetric Rain Gauge Stations and obtaining the data on a real-time basis. 2. National Weather Watch Committee takes note of the process of drought in the country. The meetings of the Weather Watch Committee take place almost every week and almost daily during the drought situation. 3. Drought is an usual phenomena in rainfed areas, but it can also strike irrigated regions.
A drought striking an unusual area is more devastating than its strike in the usual drought-prone areas. This possibility cannot be ignored, and hence, there should be preparation for drought striking even in the assured rainfall region or in non-rainfed areas. 4. Rural-based industries have not been proliferating as they should, in the rainfed areas these would employ the rural youth who prefer to work in industries rather than agriculture. This will also control the outmigration from rural India to urban centres. 5. MGNREGS is a flagship programme of the Government of India that employs a large number of agricultural labourers from rural India. Under this scheme, employment is provided for hundred days and the rest of the time the labourer is left to fend for his/ her life as it goes. It will be possible to establish a Labour Supply Corporation (LSC), wherein the labourer should register with the corporation about their availability and time. 6. Watershed management practices are considered a panacea for the development of rainfed areas. Beginning with the initial projects in the domain of agricultural univer- implementing agencies and stakeholder farmers. Therefore, these interventions disappear as soon as the World Bank team leaves the country. 7. There is a strong need of increasing public investment in rainfed areas as well as drought-prone areas taking up projects in rural industrialisation with the help of private industries supported by the government, wherever possible. With the availability of alternative employment, it is possible that the out-migration from rural India will reduce and the rural folks will find a better alternative for sustaining their livelihood. 8. Public awareness and drought proofing efforts have to be initiated and incentivized at the village level with the complete participation of the locals. 9. Crop insurance is not a fool proof remedy anymore due to faulty administration and manifesting as an institution governed solely by private interests. Private companies are given full authority to insure and pay the indemnity as they get State support in this operation. Area approach is being followed by these insurance companies, and this will depend on the crop cutting experiments or the metrological data which comes with a lag. It must be understood that if the farmers' kharif crop has failed, she/he will not be able to undertake cultivation of Rabi crop immediately due to delay in the payment of indemnity. 10. More than anything, the "water, seed, fertilizer, pesticides" culture of technology is certainly not a solution towards drought proofing. It will not only increase the cost of cultivation and consequently net income of the farmer will fall, thereby making more farmers poorer, the farm unviable, pushing peasants out of agriculture. It was noted that between 1991and 2011 above 5 million cultivators have gone out of cultivation and that swelled the ranks of agricultural labourers moving to urban areas (Deshpande and Shaha 2021). 11. The best policy for drought-prone areas is diversification of rural industries along with agro processing.

COVID-19: pandemic: the biological holocaust
Covid-19 started in early 2020 with the first patient reporting from Trissur, Kerala. However, initially the Indian medical fraternity either had no knowledge of the potential threat or due to negligence did not note the severity of the threatening pandemic. Airports were not sealed immediately, and soon it spread like a whirlwind across the country. It needs no statement that Covid-19 spreads faster in high density regions and that explains why it was so severe in metropolitan cities in urban India, than in rural India. The initial wave of Covid-19 seemed to have subsided by October 2020 but immediately a second shock came in the summer of 2021. This was followed by a moderate amount of recovery in 2021-22. The first wave was at the peak in mid-September 2020 but slowed down thereafter till the end of that year. That allowed the Government to lift the nationwide restrictions were relaxed by June 2021. By the end of the second phase and till recently as of 30-09-2022, India reported officially4.46 crore cases along with 5.29 lakh deaths. The cumulative data are shown in Fig. 5 based on "ourworldindata.org" database.
One can see there are more than three spurts in the number of cases, the first came in October 2020 and steadily kept increasing. The second spurt in the cases was experienced in April 2021 and immediately by the end of May 2021 the country experienced another spurt in cases. The real jump came as the third push in April 2021 followed in July 2021. The next spurt in the cases appeared in Jan 2022, and the cases got in control from February 2022. It will be erroneous to generalize (fed by the news papers) that the pandemic had struck in two waves, actually 15 September 2020 saw a peak of 97,894 cases soon to reach 103,558 on 3 April 2021. It was assumed to be the peak but was negated by a new number of 414,188 on the 5 of May 2021. It is clear from Fig. 5 that there were three strong spurts but more fluctuations. It is argued that the recovery period was from August 2021 to January 2022, during which Covid-19 cases began declining rapidly, and the economy started recovering from the shock. By April 2022, however, again a spurt was seen on 4 August 2022. As the severity of the waves of the pandemic began subsiding, many of the nationwide mobility restrictions were gradually relaxed from June 2021 and again reintroduced in January 2022. The daily increments in the cases are shown in Fig. 6 starting from 4 March 2020 to 30 September 2022 (Fig. 11).
The government initially responded with a partial lockdown and then clamped a full and strict lockdown. Almost all economic activities came to standstill. Economic activities in the informal sector and MSMEs (specifically dependent on casual workers) came to a complete cessation. The major dent was on the informal sector, out-sourced employees, the hospitality industry, travel, tourism, aviation, restaurants, entertainment, commercial real estate, small transport operators, etc. The workers dependent on these vocations suffered the real blow and unemployment shot up (CMIE 2020, 2021; Azim Premji University 2021). The economy underwent a severe contraction with severe suffering.
Indian economy had the first huge jolt from April to June 2020, with the country's GDP declining by 24.4%. Followed by this in the second quarter of the 2020/21 (July to September 2020), the economy suffered another contraction of 7.4%. The mild reversal in the third and fourth quarters (October 2020 to March 2021) was not enough to cover the earlier loss. The contraction of GDP in India was (in real terms) 7.3% for the whole 2020/21 (RBI 2022a, b). The decline was the main reason for emboldening the picture of global inequality, which had been falling earlier but has started to widen again observed by some economists. While economies worldwide have been hit hard, India suffered one of the largest contractions. During the 2020/21 financial year, the rates of decline in GDP for the world were 3.3% and 2.2% for emerging markets and developing economies. Quarterly growth rates in Indian GDP in 2020-21 were − 24.4%, − 7.4%, 0.5% and 1.6%, respectively. The fact that India's growth rate in 2019 was among the highest, caused the drop due to Covid-19 to be sharper and more noticeable. Unemployment has been one of the highly referred, important injuries inflicted by Covid-19. This was due to the lockdowns and the employers of the casual labourers did not care for them. Reverse migration was an inevitable outcome protected neither by their employer nor by the State Governments. Labour as a sector is under the concurrent list as given in the Constitution of India and, therefore, the State and Union Governments together carried the responsibility to ameliorate their livelihood shocks. India's unemployment rate peaked at10.4% (CMIE, Jan 2020, p.5) indicating that the Govt of India could not manage this effectively compared to the reference group economies with similar per capita incomes. Possibly this was due to the composition of the Indian urban workforce where casualization of labour markets is pre-dominant. However, it should be noted that the data used for these rates were from CMIE and in the methodology of the survey, the CMIE report states "The sample size is 174,405 households (out of approx. 40 million households). Of this, 110,975 (out of approx. 11 million households) are urban households picked from 7920 CEBs of 322 towns, and, the remaining 63,430 (Approx. Out of 22 million households) rural households were picked from 3965 villages" (CMIE, Report, 2021, P. 193). This is certainly questionable, but probably at that time, there were no other sources available to get an idea of unemployment (Fig. 7).

Impact
The worst impact of the Covid-19 disaster was manifested in the number of deaths that occurred in this period. India lost 5, 28,655 persons up to 30 Sept 2022. This is from official records but many cases were not reported as death due to Covid. People carried a stigma attached to such declaring of death due to Covid and the neighbourhood stayed away from the entire family. Another severe agony was inflicted on the returning migrant labourers to their villages. There was a case reported from Kolhapur district that the migrants from the village were made to stay out of the village for a few days. During 1991 and 2011, there has been a significant increase in rural to urban migration from 21.2% in 1991-01 to 24.1% in 2001-11. This was due to the increase in economic activities at a very high speed in the urban locations. There were skyscrapers, new housing schemes, roads and other infrastructure, fly-over bridges, malls and many other casual employment opportunities that vindicated the Lewisian theory of rural-urban migration in search of higher wages. Unfortunately, this was without any preparations in urban areas to facilitate their stay in the urban cities.
The Government of India took quite a few steps to provide support to the affected population and these include some out of box measures such as direct spending and foregone/deferred revenue that included provision of in-kind (food; cooking gas) and in-cash transfers to lower income households; insurance coverage for workers in the healthcare sector; wage support and employment provision to low-wage workers, improving health infrastructure and increasing the number of hospital beds, ventilators, intensive care facilities and quarantine centres. In order to support businesses and shore up credit provision to several sectors of the economy and sections of the population, many of these measures are taken, but the implementation has many questions to answer.
Until August 2020, the Government of India had emphasized a supply-cantered strategy to boost GDP growth and the fall-out was squeezing the purchasing power needs. The employment losses due to the closure of the entire informal sector needed the generation of employment or providing some income support. In such a situation, it was certainly difficult to start any new employment programme and the MNREGS attendance also thinned down. As a result, the expenditure of the Union government on MNREGS declined between April and September 2020 as well as in April-September 2019. This was compensated by providing essential food articles to the poor and the reverse migrants. The government had little scope in expanding budgetary spending as the funds were directed towards the States as special grants.

Policy
Under the lockdown, complete disruption of all production activity was experienced with shrinking availability of capital, labour, and raw materials. All wholesale and retail markets as well as small shops were closed; even e-commerce was not operating. Under this pressure the MSMEs and all small businesses collapsed and these needed financing to restart, they downsized their businesses adding to unemployment. Along with this, the RBI announced a reduction in the policy rates and release of more liquidity and introduced a moratorium on term-loan repayments for six months. The Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana (PM-KISAN) providing Rs 6000 per year began with a total allocation of Rs. 160 billion. A new scheme of Direct Benefit Transfers (DBT) to old-age people, widows along with Ujjwala Yojana, and under Jan Dhan Yojana was speeded up amounting to Rs. 470 billion. On the employment front, MNREGA was extended to migrant workers and some workers in organized employment with an allocation of Rs. 922 billion. Besides, a special fund was created for construction workers of Rs. 310 billion. Direct food distribution through PDS was undertaken with an allocation of Rs. 35 billion. For the MSMEs, collateral-free bank loans of up to Rs. 3 trillion was announced. Along with this, aGovernment investment of Rs. 100 billion was initiated in funds that in turn will invest Rs. 500 Fig. 7 Daily addition to the number of deaths. Data from: https:// ourwo rldin data. org/ coron avirus/ count ry/ india? count ry= ~IND# daily-confi rmed-cases 1 3 billion in the equity capital of MSMEs. In addition to this and recognizing the stress on MSMEs a Rs. 200 billion subordinate debt was issued by banks and other financial institutions for strained MSMEs. Non-Banking Financial Companies were helped with Rs. 450 billion partial credit guarantee scheme, where the first 20% of the loss was guaranteed to be borne by the government. These were the new policy reforms including amendments to the Essential Commodities Act, liberalisation of investment norms for some sectors, etc.

Developing a culture of resilience
Disasters strike with a very thin probability and these events could be placed at the tail end of the normal distribution. Therefore, predictability of any disaster is a difficult process and even with historical experience, we understand the region of incidence with a rough probability of likelihood in about a decade. Most of the major disasters in India are now about too much or too little water and the meteorological forecasts are available to the population only a few days ahead of the event. There are short and focus which are given a few hours before the event and then medium and extended forecasts on the time scale. However, we must confess that our understanding of hydro-metrological or geophysical phenomena is still far away from advanced predictability. Therefore, disasters like earthquakes, landslides, flash floods and cloud bursts happen when the population is totally unprepared resulting in huge human and animal casualties besides the devastation of property, crops and infrastructure. At least since a few decades, the regions classified as most disaster-prone have been identified and maps are prepared accordingly. 4 The Government of India has also opened offices of the National Disaster Management Authority along with the deployment of NDRF and SDRF in the regions. Even then, the administration fails to intake a rational decision while preparing for disaster management.
Certainly, disasters strike without sufficient warning and at times the events crawl into human life. Preparedness for the eventuality is one of the important steps before the disaster strikes. Even in Chanakya's Arthshastra, it has been recorded that "There are eight kinds of providential visitations: These are fire, floods, pestilential diseases, earthquakes, famine, rats, tigers, serpents, and demons. From these shall the king protect his kingdom" (Shamasastry, p 294). Thus, the responsibility for ameliorating the conditions rests on the king or the government. It is necessary to note that the form of the government had changed from a kingdom to the Republic of India. It is not just a change of nomenclature, but such transformation enforces equal responsibility on the government and the people and that is most important to understand in today's context. People's participation in the preparedness as well as getting ideas from those who have been historically suffering disasters is essential. Our approach has always been top-down rather than learning from those who are at the bottom and suffer the most. This is expected in the republic of India (Map 6).
The map shows resilient, slightly non-resilient, moderately non-resilient and severely non-resilient districts in the country. This was prepared based on the perceptions of the disaster indicated by the population residing in the district. The level of resilience is largely decided by the probability of occurrence of extreme events and as some of the events occurred with very thin probability the perception of resilience differs significantly.
Resilience is formed by three overlapping elements: (1) exposure (the shocks and stresses experienced by the system), (2) sensitivity (the response of the system), and (3) adaptive capacity (the capacity of the system with adaptive action) (Chakraborty and Joshi 2016). Like some of the coastal districts of Tamil Nadu and Odisha have a frequency of cyclones but their expectations are not formed based on the probability the population is not so much frightened of the event or rather thinks that precautionary steps can be taken at the time of the event itself. In the olden days, society was more cohesive and social interests preceded self-interests but during the commercialisation process when self-interest predominated, social insurance slowly vanished. Society as a whole is not taking collective decisions to protect from disasters. Panicky behaviour and herd mentality predominated in society and that increased the intensity of the damages. Information also plays a very important role in preparedness for such events. It will be essential to state here that every disaster causes huge devastation and loss of lives and livelihood. Many extreme disasters reset the development clock and every effort is forced to start right from the region. Infrastructure, houses, schools and roads and whatever comes in the way of the brute force of nature are destroyed and wrecked. It takes a long time to rebuild the physical assets but even longer to recoup the psychological impact on the population.

Map 6 Culture of resilience in India
In the current situation, it should not be simply the responsibility of the government alone, but the entire rehabilitation and response work must be carried out by the people as well as the State. In India, we have accepted our Constitution and defined the nation as the Democratic Republic and therefore, the responsibility is equally on the people of the nation to meet the challenge thrown by the natural elements. Preparedness for the worst is the best kind of insurance besides the usual disaster insurance provided by financial intermediaries. The first step in such preparedness requires identifying the vulnerable regions at three levels, namely: (1) Seriously vulnerable, (2) Vulnerable and (3) Regions with low vulnerability. Similarly, in society also susceptibility differs according to the sensitivity of a social group and its social economic status. It is well known that disaster strikes fiercely at the most vulnerable. Therefore, poverty and destitution are quite common and located in these most vulnerable regions (Bhalla et al. 2022). The government has made significant efforts in putting several institutional frameworks to meet the disaster and ameliorate the after effects. 5 It is necessary that these institutions work with horizontal coordination enhancing efforts of each other. Therefore, a coordination Body like NDC involving State Home Ministers with Non-Government Expert Participation is necessary to take a periodic overview. The coordination or joint meetings of NEC and NCMC are also necessary to discuss resilience. Actually, equal responsibility and liability also lie with the private sector operating in the region. Community participation; cooperation of local administration with NDRF and Permanent Disaster Management Funds and regular contributions from the States and Central Budget are essential components.
A final plan to meet the requirements of managing every type of disaster in India requires integration of disaster mitigation and preparedness in development programmes with multi-sectoral/inter-departmental coordination and multi-hazard approach in disaster management planning. An important component is the preparedness of society through public awareness and community capacity, to cope with the hazards, reduce dependence on the government and build a culture of self-help. It needs to be seen if the Task Force for Review of DMA Recommendations-2013 as well as the NDMA Plan of 2016 is implemented, and that step can go a long way if executed scrupulously. In all, full transparency of plans and actions needs to be maintained with clear documentation. Integration of State and National DM Plans for ensuring food security and establishing quick shelter facilities is a vital component. In any disaster, transportation gets impacted; therefore, establishing proper transport networks is crucial. Preparedness at the household level also needs to be looked into in the capacity building programmes. Finally, it is a battle of wits between human intelligence and Pancha Mahabhutas; therefore, disaster strikes without much warning throwing a challenge of ingenuity for defence with all the preparations to the human race.