India’s scorching summer heat adds new risks this year to an energy-sapping challenge that Munni Adhivasi has surmounted every day for two decades, by trudging for kilometers to carry home water.
Munni, who said she feared dying in the heat, teared up as she railed against the government’s failure to provide drinking water to more than 200 tribal families in her hamlet of Hinauti in northern Uttar Pradesh.
“All I can think is how many trips I will have to make to bring water needed for drinking and cooking for four children and three goats,” added Munni, who carries home on her head all 30 liters her family and livestock need each day.
Photo: Reutersa
This year’s summer, torrid even by Indian standards, with temperatures exceeding 40°C in many areas early in the season, adds risks of dehydration and heat stroke to her woes.
“This drill to collect water is the worst form of punishment inflicted upon us,” said Munni, who did not know her exact age, but appeared to be in her 30s.
She was among a group of women and children from four villages in the area who draw water from their usual source, a reservoir beside a quarry where many of their husbands find daily employment.
Photo: Reuters
The heat wave has killed more than a dozen people nationwide since late March.
India has urged its officials to draw up action plans to ameliorate the temperatures, and is working to step up drinking water supplies to more than 50 liters per day for each person in the countryside by 2024.
To achieve that goal, it aims to build desalination plants in coastal areas, capitalize on existing resources and boost groundwater levels, which the government said in 2019 had fallen 61 percent in the decade since 2007.
Photo: AFP
Munni said she sees no rapid end to her ordeal.
“There are some water taps installed, but not a drop of water has ever trickled from them,” she said.
A US YouTuber who caused outrage for filming himself kissing a statue commemorating Korean wartime sex slaves has been sentenced to six months in prison, a court in Seoul said yesterday. Johnny Somali, 25, gained notoriety several years ago for recording himself doing a series of provocative stunts in South Korea and Japan, and streaming them on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. South Korean authorities indicted Somali — whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael — in 2024 on public order violations and obstruction of business, and banned him from leaving the country. “The court has sentenced him to six months in
Former Lima mayor Rafael Lopez Aliaga, a Peruvian presidential hopeful, gathered hundreds of supporters in Lima on Tuesday and gave authorities 24 hours to annul the first round of the country’s election over allegations of fraud. Lopez Aliaga is locked in a tight three-way race with two other candidates for second place in Sunday’s vote. The election runner-up wins a ticket to June’s presidential run-off against front-runner Keiko Fujimori. “I am giving them 24 hours to declare this electoral fraud null and void,” said Lopez Aliaga, surrounded by a crowd of several hundred supporters. “If it is not declared null and void tomorrow,
PAPAL RETORT: Pope Leo told reporters that he has ‘no fear, neither of the Trump administration nor speaking out loudly about the message of the Gospel’ US President Donald Trump has feuded with Pope Leo XIV over the Iran conflict — setting off an unholy row that could have serious political implications for the Republican leader back in the US. Trump has drawn barbs even from some allies over the attacks on the US-born pontiff, who has criticized the Trump administration over its immigration crackdown, the intervention in Venezuela and the Iran war. The president risks alienating the religious right in November’s crucial US midterm elections. So far the unprecedented clash between the leader of the most powerful military on Earth and the head of the world’s 1.4 billion
A 16-year-old boy has been charged with murder and aggravated sexual abuse in Florida in the death of his 18-year-old stepsister on a Carnival Cruise ship, the US Department of Justice said on Monday. Timothy Hudson was initially charged in February and subsequently indicted on March 10, but the breadth of the case was not known until a seal was lifted on Friday last week, weeks after US District Judge Beth Bloom in Miami said that he would be prosecuted as an adult at the request of the government. Anna Kepner had been traveling on the Carnival Horizon ship in November last
RSS