AA Edit | Get tech to beat El Niño

There are few events that are regularly awaited with such interest every year and fewer which make news on account of their timeliness or lack thereof, such as the southwest monsoon. Fewer still that so deeply impact the lives and livelihoods of 140 crore plus Indians.

According to available records that span 150 years, the earliest monsoon was May 11 in 1918 and the most delayed was the one landing on June 18 in 1972 with instances of such deviation being few and far between, yet everyone, from the data crunchers of the Prime Minister’s Office and Niti Aayog to the lonely farmer in the rain-fed farmlands of Malappuram in Kerala, are all ears for the official forecast by the India Meteorological Department (IMD) of the event. This year, it was supposed to be late, and true to predictions, landed on June 8 instead of the usual June 1.

As Alexander Frater documented in his 1990 travelogue Chasing the Monsoon, the advance of the monsoon follows a steady pattern by which it covers the whole of India over one-and-a-half months, before withdrawing by October by way of the northeast monsoon. In the process, it waters India’s vast agricultural fields, replenishes reservoirs and aquifers and produces electricity. While droughts grease palms of the few high and mighty, a good monsoon cheers every segment of society and economy.

Monsoon rains are important for the country as rain-fed agriculture makes for about 51 per cent of country’s net sown area and accounts for nearly 40 per cent of the total food production. The bad news refers to the reports of El Niño impacting monsoon this year. This could prove punishing going forward, as nations have refused to recognise the urgency of global warming and climate change. It’s time policymakers started designing ways to protect the vast majority of the population. It is not for no reason that Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru called technological and engineering solutions. These are more urgent now.