Daily Gist of The Hindu/Indian Express: 6 Oct 2025

Why is this important? India, a massive country exposed to numerous environmental hazards like heatwaves, cyclones, floods, landslides, and extreme rainfall events, demands a multifaceted disaster risk reduction (DRR) approach. The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) are tasked with pre-disaster preparedness and post-disaster on-ground response through the Prime Minister’s Ten Point Agenda on Disaster Risk Reduction (2016). More recently, it has included funding initiatives, upgrading disaster management capabilities and updating, to volunteer management networks.
Key Issues:
1. Multi-Hazard Vulnerability: Extreme weather events, urban flooding, landslides, cyclones and heatwaves all result from anthropogenic climate change.
2. Financial Constraints: Historically, reconstruction has depended upon multilateral debt financing mechanisms.
3. Capacity Constraints: Limited capacity and the inability to transfer scientific understanding to local authorities limits actions and support.
4. Urban Floods and Environmental Degradation: Degraded urban water environments and ecosystems increased vulnerabilities.
5. Climate Change: Long-term thought to mitigate and adapt is required.
Challenges:
• Coordination across Center-State and inter-ministerial leverage for multi-hazard management.
• Coordination across various geographies for Nature Based Solutions.
• Community awareness and engagement – focused primarily at the Panchayat and school level.
• Maintenance of current Early Warning Systems for multi-hazard.
• Integration of scientific assessment and evaluation and technologies into financing and operational support.

3. Pre-Disaster Preparedness & Capacity Building:
• ₹5,000 crore allocated for modernisation of fire safety infrastructure.
• Creation of 2.5 lakh volunteers each under Apda Mitra and Yuva Apda Mitra.
• Expansion of geo-spatial training labs and action-based research at NIDM.
• Standard courses on disaster management with 36 streams to train public servants and Panchayats. 4. Disaster Management Measures:
• ₹10,000 crore approved for innovative and nature-based solutions.
• Examples include:
o National Cyclone Mitigation Programme (2011–22): early warning systems, cyclone shelters, embankments etc.
o Urban water bodies revitalization, slope stabilization, forest fire, monitoring glacial lakes.
5. Early Warning and Community Awareness:
• Common Alerting Protocol using multi-media to send alerts in the regional languages, in a timely manner.
• Trainings facilitated by NDRF Academy, National Fire Service College, NIDM etc.
• School safety program for mock drills on hazard-specific awareness.
6. International Cooperation:
• India is at the forefront of the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI).
• Most Bonn is able to manage DRR at G20, SCO, BIMSTEC and IORA.
Way Forward:
• Scale up nature-based mitigation projects and integrate them into urban planning.
• Strengthen the scientific and technological assessments to predict various hazards.
• Scale up the community-based capacity building in vulnerable rural regions.
• Strengthen the international collaborations to exchange knowledge, practices and lessons learnt.
• Institutionalize monitoring and evaluation frameworks for all disaster risk reduction projects.
Conclusion:
India’s multi-hazard environment requires a proactive, science-based