Shimla, Feb. 3 -- The skies over Himachal Pradesh remained eerily silent this January, with barely a whisper of rain to quench its parched lands. Gone were the familiar rhythms of winter showers drumming against rooftops, the crisp scent of fresh earth after a downpour, or the gentle snowflakes blanketing the mountains. Instead, the state found itself in the grip of one of its driest starts to the year in over six decades, with the India Meteorological Department (IMD) reporting an alarming 84 percent rainfall deficit.
Himachal received a meager 13.3 mm of rainfall against the normal 85.3 mm - making it the ninth driest January since 1901. The driest January on record remains 1966, when the state saw an astonishingly low 0.3 mm of rain. Th...