 Over the past few weeks, massive floods wreaked havoc on multiple North Indian states. India's capital neutrally struggled with flooding in mid-July. Once again, towards the last week of July as well, there was a risk of floods as a water level in the Yamuna River rose. The flooding over the past many days has also impacted large areas of northern India, including the iconic Taj Mahal, as shown in captured footage. The floods have claimed lives and caused destruction and displacement. The worst hit have been states like Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Chandigarh, Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir, Haryana, Rajasthan and Delhi. Hundreds of lives were lost during the two weeks of torrential rain and flooding, and tens of thousands were displaced. The state of Himachal Pradesh was the worst affected, over 150 people died and infrastructure worth millions has been destroyed. The chief minister of the state claimed that the floods cost the state a loss of around 98 million US dollars. The damages mostly occurred in areas where massive amounts of construction debris have been dumped despite objections by scientists and residents. The current phase of flooding follows an intense heat wave that took the lives of over 100 people in India. The summer months of March, April, May and June are generally hot in India and an average of 45 degree Celsius that is 113 degree Fahrenheit was recorded in most parts of North and East India. Heat waves have recently become the norm in summer months intensifying before the onset of the monsoon. Now this monsoon was marked by heavy rain and July 9th saw the most rainfall for a single day in July in more than 40 years in Delhi. The rain led to the overflowing of the Yamuna river which subsequently submerged the city in needy water and displaced tens of thousands of people. Since the beginning of this monsoon season, Delhi, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh 3 states have received 112%, 110% and 70% more rainfall than what they normally get. Heavy rains were reported in the western and southern regions of the country as well. At least 27 people died and more than 100 are missing following a landslide that buried a village in the Raiagat district of Maharashtra state due to the heavy rain. Houses and vehicles were also swept away in the western state of Gujarat due to flooding caused by the rain. Now there is a lot of debate about the reasons for this extreme climate phenomena. Scientists have said that climate change and global warming are responsible for the heat waves as well as the intensity of the rain that takes place. But it is also very clear that our development model is the reason for why cities are flooded. This includes how cities are built, the kind of various construction activities, sewage networks that are constructed as well as how our hills and mountain ranges are exploited. This includes urban affairs expert Tikindar Singh Panwar who is also the former deputy mayor of the city of Shimla in the state of Himachal Pradesh and asked him why it is that we see so much flooding. First and foremost I think there was a debate in the parliament as well where a very interesting figure was given that over the period we have seen more flooding taking place in the country and particularly in urban India. Primarily because of the climate change impact that we are witnessing and that is also emanating from the IPCC. We are screamingly coming to us the IPCC 6 and of course the walking groups 1, 2 and 3 and they have focused their attention on two major parts of the country that's the Himalayas and the coastal cities and they said the bomb is soon going to get severely affected. It's a matter of a few years, a few decades if not years when massive land mass would be submerged. Having said that, that's just one part. The other part is we have seen instances where the towns that never got flooded, I mean since their inception if you ask me, also have been witnessed to massive flooding. To me I think if it's 20% climate change, 80% it's I wouldn't say human induced but it's the way we have developed the whole trajectory of urbanization of urban development in the country and this particularly in the last three or four decades. Why is it three or four decades? Because that is where the impetus comes from the center. I go back to the first urban commission which was headed by Charles Croy. It's a fantastic commission if you go into those details but there's one new vocabulary that gets introduced into the overall urban process that is treat cities as engines of growth. So treating cities as engines of growth means you have to attract investment and when you have to attract, so that's the first distinction I want to make. The second one is that instead of a holistic city approach where you look at drains, where you look at infrastructure, where you look at the entire social infrastructure development process, the paradigm shift was more project oriented. So you've got a project, take for example, target mobility in one city, solid based management in another city and then likewise water in some other city and that's how the shift started taking place. JNNU was kind of precursor and then now it's matured into the smart cities mission and I think it's the project oriented approach in the cities which is primarily responsible for urban flooding because what it has done is it has completely ruined the drain system of the cities. Now come to Simlai because we have different forms of manuals, the British manual is a very interesting manual and actually the British manual tells us how the drains must be constructed in a mountain town for example but under the smart city you find all these drains have either been encroached upon or have been like, you know, I mean you find a real estate development taking place in certain areas which were supposed to be no construction so and just imagine a few weeks ago we came from U-20, I mean, you know this whole Ulabalu that is being made about the G-20 thing. So we had this urban 20 happening in Ahmedabad and Ahmedabad was a showcase to the entire U-20 nations that look this is how the Prime Minister envisioned our urban stuff in the country and you know which eventually led to the formation of our smart cities mission and Swachh Bharat mission and then Amroth and all that stuff and just yesterday we saw that the entire airport not just the city but the airport was flooded people were saying I mean they were ridiculing us saying that I mean it's a shame for us as well that is it an airport or is it a port you know where you can just land ships into a town. So I think yes climate change is important but at the same time it's more human induced I mean it's the so-called development induced strategy which has actually destroyed the not just the conventional wisdom but also the wisdom that you require in constructing or in creating the cities and just for this engines of growth vocabulary or this new paradigm that you require investments so the investment is the primary mode whether the investment is taking place in a river bank or the investment is taking place in some of the urban commons you know the the lakes and the water bodies for your real estate development doesn't matter much and that's how the nature answers back and it has I think answered back and come to Himalaya as I mean we discussed that earlier the way the colossal loss that we have witnessed I'm still continuing I mean we have lost our roads we have lost houses we have lost lives and we find no end to it.