A total 10.3284 million hectares of agricultural area across India has been affected due to hydrometeorological disasters, Ramnath Thakur, Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare told the Rajya Sabha.
The Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, in coordination with the India Meteorological Department, Indian Council for Agriculture Research and other concerned agencies, continuously monitors the impact of climate variability, including climate change, El Niño conditions, deficient rainfall and erratic monsoon on agricultural production.
Historical analysis indicates that severe southwest monsoon rainfall deficiency has generally been associated with a decline in Kharif foodgrain production, particularly when the ll-India rainfall deficiency exceeds about 10 per cent. Major drought/ El Niño years viz. 1982, 1987, 2002, 2004, 2009, 2014 and 2015 witnessed rainfall deficits ranging from 12 to 22 per cent with varying impacts on Kharif production.
However, during the recent years, the adverse impact on production has moderated due to increased irrigation coverage, adoption of improved and drought-tolerant crop varieties, better weather forecasting and propagation of advisories, improved input availability and crop management practices, contingency planning by the States and enhanced Government interventions, Thakur told the Rajya Sabha.
The Government of India has not received reports indicating any nationwide shortage of anti-rabies vaccine. However, temporary local shortages may occur in some health facilities due to increased demand, procurement delays or supply chain issues. Such situations are addressed by the concerned state/Union territory governments through redistribution of available stocks, emergency procurement and strengthening of supply chain management, Jagat Prakash Nadda, Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare told the Lok Sabha.
The Total Fertility Rate (TFR) of the country stands at 2.0, according to National Family Health Survey-6 (2023-24), Anupriya Patel, Minister of State in the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) told the Lok Sabha.
There were an estimated 1,569,793 cancer cases reported in India last year according to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) – National Cancer Registry Programme (NCRP). In 2024, the number of cancer cases were estimated at 1,533,055, Prataprao Jadhav, Minister of State in MoHFW told the Lok Sabha.
There has been a rise in obesity — a key risk factor for chronic non-communicable diseases — according to the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-6). Around 30.7 per cent of women and 27.3 per cent of men aged 15-49 years were reported as overweight or obese. Blood sugar level — high or very high (>140 mg/dl) — or taking medicine to control blood sugar among adults more than 15 years of age has increased in both women (13.5 per cent to 17.8 per cent) and men (15.6 per cent to 20.9 per cent), Jadhav told the Lok Sabha.
The government has allocated the Union Ministry of Steel an amount of Rs 455 crore to implement pilot projects for use of hydrogen in the iron and steel sector under the National Green Hydrogen Mission launched by the Union Ministry of New and Renewable Energy. Four pilot projects in the steel sector have been awarded under the National Green Hydrogen Mission, Bhupathiraju Srinivasa Varma, Minister of State in the ministry told the Rajya Sabha.
India’s AI policy is aimed at creating economic opportunities and employment for youth, while addressing risks associated with it. India’s AI strategy builds on the country’s vibrant IT sector with an annual revenue of $300 billion and a 6-million strong workforce, Jitin Prasada, Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology told the Rajya Sabha.
Data centres are located across the country in locations including Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Noida and Jamnagar. The installed capacity has grown from 375 MW in 2020 to current capacity of about 1575 MW. Data centres are seeing continuous innovation in the way they are developed and operated. The industry is increasingly adopting advanced cooling technologies such as direct-to-chip liquid cooling, adiabatic cooling and immersion cooling. With the evolution of AI infrastructure, cooling technologies are also moving towards closed-loop liquid cooling systems. This has significantly reduced water consumption, improve energy efficiency and enable higher-density AI computing. Industry is also deploying high density racks to efficiently support high‑performance computing and AI workloads for further reduction of power and water consumption. Together, these technologies are significantly improving water use efficiency (WUE) by lowering the water requirement across data centre operations, Prasada told the Rajya Sabha.