What is the main cause for Assam Floods and how that can be prevented?

50 people died, 45 lacs directly or indirectly affected, 95% Kaziranga National Park damaged. This was the situation last year in 2019 and this year 2020 the same situation repeated. The situation gone from bad to worse. More than 120 people till now have died in Assam Flood. This keeps repeating every year.

2012 – 124 people died

2015 – 42 people died

2016 – 28 people died

2017 – 85 people died

2018 – 12 people died

Many people died, lacs of people got affected and many animals also died in national parks. But there is no improvement

Why Assam Floods every year?

Most flood prone states in north and north-east India are affected because of Brahmaputra river which keeps changing its direction every now and then. The river is an unstable river. In the year 1950 a major earthquake in Assam changed the way Brahmaputra river flows. From 1959 – 2010, 12 major floods took place in assam. But from last couple of years the frequency of floods has seen a major rise. Every year Assam encounters a major flood. The main question is why the frequency is increasing.

Some of the main reasons behind any floods

1 – Deforestation

2 – Unplanned growth

3 – Encroachments of Floodplains

4 – Improper Drainage System

5 – Failure of embankments

6 – Climate Change

Let us discuss on two main topics Climate change and Failure of River Embankments

Climate Change – This time Mizoram, Meghalaya, Tripura, some parts of Bihar and some parts of Uttar Pradesh are affected drastically. Because of climate change sometimes we are seeing drought and sometimes heavy rainfall. All are unpredictable. Couple of days back I wrote a blog on

Embankments – Also called as Levy or Dykes. This is that wall which is constructed on the riverbanks to help the streamlined flow of the river water and to prevent the floods in the nearby areas. Historically its been proved that this is the best way to stop and control floods. Could be made up of concrete or mud. Usually when embankments are made, the river water flows in a are narrower than it was flowing earlier to the construction of embankments. Eventually the sedimentation will also rise high. And if the sedimentation is not taken out from the embankments, the water will start flowing above the embankments which will then again go to the food plains. People in the riverbank thinks that when embankments are made, they are safe to stay in a riverbank which is wrong. The chances of floods go high if the sedimentation is not cleared. Also, they need to think that sedimentation clearing is not an easy task to carry out. Any government may or may not attempt that on a regular basis. An embankment is as useful as it is destructive at many cases. Low standard embankments are used to be to flood prone if that collapses. Also, high sedimentation would cause for the river overflow that would directly contribute to floods. There are almost 450 embankments in Assam from which more than a half are in extremely vulnerable conditions. They can break easily. Experts say that in Assam, there is a huge contractor-administration nexus that benefits monetarily from a flood situation. After every flood, the contractors build new embankments which is kind of a source of income to them. According to a report in

My View – Any river is a natural resource and man should act in accordance to that not against that. Building embankments is good but not extreme near to the riverbanks but rather at some distance to the riverbanks. The floodplains in between the embankments and the river should be utilized properly to do plantation. Netherlands is one such country to adopt such a measure. In this approach what would happen is river would get more space to flow and the sedimentation as I told earlier will also be reduced and everything will be on control. And yes the most important point is embankments should be made much more stronger to have proper and good control of the river water to help them flow with no harm to mankind.

What are the mysterious parcel from China to USA and UK

How would you feel when you receive any parcel without placing any order? Feels good right! But how would you feel when you got to know that there is something mysterious and is harmful? There is no doubt that your excitement would be broken. Something like that happened with some of the people in USA and UK. Let us talk about that today.

A state in USA named Louisiana on 24^th July 2020, a resident there received a parcel in which it was mentioned as jewelry. At first, the man no doubt had a better feeling of getting jewelry without placing any order and that is too free of cost. But when he opened the parcel, he was surprised to see that the packet consists of seeds. And with a confused state of mind he immediately called the Department of Agriculture and Forestry. They took the parcel for examination. With no time, many other residents of the USA received such parcels on which jewelry, headphone and many other such stuffs were written. On July 27^th, 2020, the department issued an order saying that any such parcels received should be informed to police immediate. Since the rules in the USA are very strict, the actions were taken with immediate effect and there was a significant control over the mysterious parcel. Now, the question is from where these parcels are coming. The text written over the parcels were in a language from Mandarin, China. The from address are also from China and some from Uzbekistan. These two points clearly proves that the seeds sent were a plan of China. Not only the USA but certain parcels were received by residents in Britain. The parcels received in Britain are from China, Malaysia, and Serbia.

Why is China sending seeds? Sounds funny right!

Let me drive you through an example. In the year 1947, when India got independence, there were extreme shortage of food and food used to be imported from many countries among which USA was one. Along with the food products, by mistake a parcel came from the USA carrying Parthenium in the year 1950. Parthenium is a plant that is little long in height and at the top it carries small flowers. These plants are not very ecofriendly. Research says that Parthenium damages 20% of the world’s eco system by minimizing the growth of grass which is a source of nutrition to many lively creatures. This is called agricultural bioterrorism which will drastically have an impact on the economy. There are certain other plantations also in the world. In Italy, there is a special type of cheese called ParmigianoReggiano made from a milk. The milk is produced by cow who eats some grass which are not good for health. But the taste of those cheese is little salty and good to taste. With strict restriction, the milk production is allowed in 4 places of Italy.

Question here is if the seeds coming in parcel from China would also have some negative impact on the eco system? Why are the seeds coming in a confused way? Somewhere written jewelry, somewhere headphone! Is this only because of the trade war between China and USA? Is China trying to take over the world economy by destroying the eco system? Many such questions are yet to be answered. The main reasons are yet to come forward. Let us wait and watch.

My View – If anyone is receiving any such mysterious parcels from any places, please make sure to report to the police and do not open the parcel until and unless you are very much sure about that. This is a tough time we are going with. And wrong step would hard the mankind and eco system which directly or indirectly impact the economy.

Insurance Scams in India – Be Aware and Be Safe !

Insurance, I hope we all are aware of that. It is basically the purpose of securing, whether that is a car, a building, health, or a land. In India there are multiple companies who provide insurance with many benefits. But do you know many of them are just scams. They will approach you to take insurance with hell lot of benefits but at the time of claim, you mostly will be shocked to get a decent level of ignorance from those companies saying that so and so benefits are not covered under your insurance. This basically is a scam and we all need to understand and take the correct insurance for any of our asset.

Difference between Indian Insurance and Foreign Insurance

Let me tell an incident. 2 years back, there was a theft in one of my manager’s house in USA. The very next day of that theft, I had a call with her. She was literally crying. And upon that call I understood what exactly happened. I was just amazed to hear that her entire house with all the stuffs over there were insured and she had to get back for everything that has been stolen. Then I asked her that why she is crying. It was the passport case which was gifted by her father who is no more and that was the precious thing for which she was crying. Money cannot buy memories ☹. Also, she told me that she will be getting the amount within a week time.

Let me tell you another incident. My sister is working in Hamburg, Germany and when the pandemic of Covid 19 started globally, all offices provided options to work from home. And then my mother asked her to come to India and start working from home till the pandemic goes off. But she refused and told that in Germany she is insured by the company and if anything happens the company is going to take care of her. And with god’s grace nothing has happened to her and

Last year Feb 2019, I broke my leg and I being insured by ICICI Lombard in a group insurance from my company was no doubt to get the insurance but then I had to fight to get the entire amount. Now here I should claim both the hospital and the insurance company. What basically happens in India is hospital upon knowing that the patient is insured starts charging like hell. And the insurance companies also try their best to lessen the amount. After a long fight, I got an insurance of Rs 62000/- and I had to pay Rs 15000/- from my pocket. If I would have been somewhere in USA or any European country, I would not have to pay a single penny from my pocket. Upon looking at the discharge summary after some 3 days of discharge from the hospital, I got to see that I was charged for something unusual. The general medicine doctor’s presence at the time of operation who was the owner of the hospital was charged Rs 10000/- which was extra. He was not at all present at that time. There was a miscellaneous of Rs 5000/- which is again a huge amount. Miscellaneous is anything that comes under the category of micro level. Here the hospital also charged more upon getting to know that I am insured. So, both the hospital and the insurance company did their best to save their money.

Some of the Insurance frauds

1 – After surrendering policy, do not take new insurance

2 – Do not take over insurance

3 – 15 days free lock in period

4 – Do not lie any insurance

My View – The government should regulate the body to take proper examination of insurance at every possible place and every possible case wherever insurance comes into play. Insurance companies should give their best so that more and more people would come forward to take their plan. And for the people who takes insurance, I would like to urge everyone that whenever you are taking any insurance, please go through the documentation part very thoroughly and take your decision. There are lots of hidden secrets which come out as a shock at the time of claim. All the documents are available online. If not, there are reviews through out the internet. At least please go through that before taking any decision.