China offers to bring artificial rain to India’s drought-hit regions

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holiday season, no-shows were few, causing a surge in the number of passengers denied a seat despite having a confirmed ticket,” said Sudhakar Reddy, national president, Air Passengers’ Association For flights with a travel time of less than an hour For flights with a travel time of less than two hours Avoid rush hours:

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Some no-frill carriers have a ‘no-overbooking’ policy. So, for urgent trips, such as a medical emergency at home, travel operators advise avoiding full service airlines. of India (APAI).

A senior executive with an aviation think tank requesting anonymity said, “These days, most airlines use software programmes, which suggest selling more than For flights with a travel time exceeding two hours Royalty programmes: Airlines tend to give first preference to travellers belonging to their frequent flier schemes; offloading such passengers could be the last thing on their mind. Therefore, pick airlines that offer such programmes. April recorded the highest number of denied boarding cases owing to overbooked flights this year, according to data from the civil aviation ministry. Total domestic passengers denied boarding in April Total compensation paid Month April March February January the available number of seats in a flight based on an algorithm drawn from last-minute cancellations observed earlier. But sometimes, the estimates go haywire, particularly during peak travel Domestic passengers denied boarding Total compensation paid by domestic carriers season.” Frequent fliers said there is a need to revise the civil aviation compensation policy, keeping in mind the average one-way fare on metro routes.

“The policy grants a full refund

Compensation paid (Source:

Civil aviation ministry) of the fare apart from the compensation, depending on the travel time. But that seldom adds up to the spot fare, which travellers spend in cases of emergency,” said Bikram Ghosh, a frequent flier. BEIJING: China has offered to share its cloud seeding technology with India, which could be used to artificially induce rain in droughtaffected regions.

Cloud seeding, a technique mastered by the Chinese, is a form of climate modification that is used to form rain by either using artilleries to fire shells containing rain-inducing chemicals into the cloud cover or by dropping the said chemicals from an aircraft.

A team of top meteorological scientists from Beijing, Shanghai and Anhui are in Mumbai to study the drought patterns in Maharashtra, where the first such project is likely to be implemented.

The offer to share the technology free of cost was made during Communist Party of China’s (CPC) Shanghai secretary, Han Zheng’s visit to India earlier this month. During a meeting with Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, Han offered Chinese assistance in mitigating the drought situation in the state. The offer attains significance because China has historically WHAT IS CLOUD SEEDING?

It is the process of spreading either dry ice or more commonly silver iodide aerosols, into the upper part of clouds to try to stimulate the precipitation process and form rain not been keen on sharing this technology with other nations.

China has been using cloud seeding since 1958 to not only alter weather conditions but also clear air pollution. The process was famously implemented in the runup to the 2008 Beijing Olympics to clear the city’s notorious smog and ensure weeks of “clear blue sky”. China has also used the method to bring relief to its drought-hit areas in the Northern provinces.

Last year, the Chinese government had used cloud seeding to induce rain in Inner Mongolia and in 2014, the same technique was used in the Liaoning province.

“The efforts resulted in 360 million cubic meters of rainfall in total, with 100 million cubic meters falling in the worst-hit city of Chaoyang,” a statement from the Chinese met office had then said.

However, it remains to be seen how effective the technique will be in India. Cloud seeding works best when precipitation levels are at least normal. In 2009, excess cloud seeding over Beijing had resulted in more than usual snow fall which triggered an unexpected cold wave. Experts also warn of secondary air and water pollution as an outcome of the chemicals used in the process.

HOW IT IS DONE? Since most rainfall starts through the growth of ice crystals from super-cooled cloud droplets, artilleries are used to fire shells containing rain-inducing chemicals into the cloud cover or the said chemicals are dropped from an aircraft

CHINA STARTED its cloudseeding program in 1958 based on rain formation theory by Swedish scientist Tor Bergeron. That summer, Jilin Province received its first artificial rainfall from a government cloud-seeding project.

1 3 MODIFYING THE CLIMATE

ACROSS CHINA, 2,235 counties have already conducted cloud seeding projects out of the total 2,900 counties. In the past decade alone, roughly 490 billion tons of water was released as a result of cloudseeding projects