Rajasthan declares 1,388 Villages in 4 Districts 'Drought-affected' :

1. The Rajasthan government has issued a notification declaring 1,388 villages of 13 tehsils in Barmer, Jaisalmer, Jodhpur and Hanumangarh districts drought-affected.

2. A total of 131 villages in Barmer district have been declared "severely drought-affected" and 92 villages as "moderately drought-affected". In Jaisalmer, 632 villages have been declared "severe" and 40 villages "moderately drought-affected".

3. Similarly, 13 villages in Jodhpur district are "severe" and 297 villages are "moderately drought-prone". A total of 182 villages in Hanumangarh district are "severely drought-affected" and one village is "moderately drought-affected", as per the notification.

4. The provisions regarding the declaration of drought in these affected villages will remain in force for six months from the date of the notification.

Drought in India :

Drought in India has resulted in tens of millions of deaths over the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. Indian agriculture is heavily dependent on the country's climate: a favorable southwest summer monsoon is critical to securing water for irrigating India's crops. In parts of India, failure of the monsoons causes water shortages, resulting in below-average crop yields.This is particularly true of major drought-prone regions such as southern and eastern Maharashtra, northern Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Gujarat, Telangana, and Rajasthan.

Impact of El Nino :

All such episodes of severe drought correlate with El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events. El Niño-related droughts have also been implicated in periodic declines in Indian agricultural output. Nevertheless, ENSO events that have coincided with abnormally high sea surfaces temperatures in the Indian Ocean—in one instance during 1997 and 1998 by up to 3 °C (5 °F)—have resulted in increased oceanic evaporation, resulting in unusually wet weather across India. Such anomalies have occurred during a sustained warm spell that began in the 1990s. A contrasting phenomenon is that, instead of the usual high pressure air mass over the southern Indian Ocean, an ENSO-related oceanic low pressure convergence center forms; it then continually pulls dry air from Central Asia, desiccating India during what should have been the humid summer monsoon season. This reversed air flow causes India's droughts.The extent that an ENSO event raises sea surface temperatures in the central Pacific Ocean influences the degree of drought.Around 43 per cent of El Nino events are followed by drought in India.