Emergency and disaster management has become a widely researched area in the last decade. The use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) has been highly advocated for addressing the obstacles and improving decision-making in the event of a disaster. A number of ICT support systems and frameworks, both conceptual and application-based, have evolved over time to support the highly time and collaboration intensive task of emergency and disaster management. The use of ICTs like GIS has helped the relief worker to a great extent.

In this article, we suggest the use of the Gini Index to measure the inequality in infrastructure services provided within an urban region. We develop a functional form for the Lorenz Curve, the basis of measurement of the Gini Index. The sparse nature of data available to measure the distribution of infrastructure services within an urban region results in a challenge in estimating the Lorenz Curve.

Emergency and disaster management involves four stages: Mitigation (Planning), Preparedness, Response and Relief. Concerned authorities at different levels (central, state, district, etc.) play different roles and have different responsibilities in each phase of emergency and disaster management. GIS-based tools have been shown to be useful in the response and recovery phases of an emergency. In this paper, we propose how GIS-based simulation tools can be used in the Mitigation and Preparedness phases of emergencies and disasters.

With the increase in simulation of urban environments for the purpose of planning, modelling vehicular traffic has become important. While empirical evidence on traffic flow is relatively sparse, models representing the same are being increasingly used for planning urban roads and environments. In this paper, a simple explicit model is proposed to approximate the speed versus density of vehicular traffic flow.

• Ground-based BC showed positive relationship with MERRA2-BC and CAMS-BC
• CBPF analysis identified the local sources of BC and BCbb
• CWT analysis identified regional and long-range sources of BC and BCbb
• CRB in NW-IGP

The novel coronavirus pandemic has brought the world to a standstill. It has created a lot of uncertainty for many businesses. The outbreak has affected the Indian solar industry, hampering manufacturing and project development. According to CRISIL, 3 GW-solar projects of ₹160 billion are likely to get affected due to delays. This is a matter of concern for Indian project developers. But, amid this gloom, there is a silver lining. There is a lot to discuss about how India has achieved new records in solar power generation.

Swarms of locusts are currently on the rampage in Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, after leaving a trail of destroyed crops in Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana. These are no ordinary hoppers in that they become dangerous when they enter the gregarious phase, by forming swarms that can travel up to 150 km per day and eat as much as about 10 elephants in a day. When millions of locusts descend on a crop, they destroy everything, devastating the agricultural supply chain and livelihoods of farmers.

By now, it is evident that India’s current housing conditions make it challenging to practice lockdown and self-quarantining effectively. For starters, our high population density and low open space per capita in urban areas make outdoor social distancing practically impossible.

The advent of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic had forced India to resort to a lockdown. To contain the spread of COVID-19, nationwide lockdown had been announced in phases since 24 March. This has adversely affected the power sector, hitting the demand and collection, and hence, the financial health of distribution companies (DISCOMs).

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