Shortly after noon on Saturday, the twin-engine plane they were traveling in crashed into a muddy field in Copake, New York, killing both young couples and the Groffs’ parents, Dr. Michael Groff and Dr. Joy Saini — each celebrated surgeons.
The family fled the low-lying Darrang district, which receives heavy rainfall and natural flooding. But rising temperatures with climate change have made monsoons erratic, with the bulk of the season’s rainfall falling in days, followed by dry spells. The district is among theto climate change in India, according to a New-Delhi based thinktank.
Floods and droughts often occur simultaneously, said Anjal Prakash, a research director at India’s Bharti Institute of Public Policy. The natural water systems in the Himalayan region that people had relied on for millennia are now “broken,” he said.In the past decade, Prakash said, the number of climate migrants in India has been growing. And over the next 30 years, 143 million people worldwide will likely be uprooted by rising seas, drought and unbearable heat, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported this year.India estimates it has around 139 million migrants, but unclear is how many had to move because of climate change. By 2050, cities like Bengaluru are predicted to become the preferred destination for the nearly 40 million people in South Asia forced by climate change to leave their homes, according to a 2021
“Especially if you’ve aspirations for your second generation, you have to move,” said Prakash.Children play in a narrow lane of a poor community in Bengaluru, India, Tuesday, July 19, 2022. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)
Children play in a narrow lane of a poor community in Bengaluru, India, Tuesday, July 19, 2022. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)
Children play in a poor neighborhood next to an upscale residential apartment building in Bengaluru, India, Wednesday, July 20, 2022. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)He asked the justices to block the order from U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander in Maryland as the lawsuit plays out.
An appeals court previously refused to immediately to lift the block on DOGE access, though it split along ideological lines. Conservative judges in the minority said there’s no evidence that the team has done any “targeted snooping” or exposed personal information.The lawsuit was originally filed by a group of labor unions and retirees represented by the group Democracy Forward. The Supreme Court asked them for a response to the administration’s appeal by May 12.
More than two dozen lawsuits have been filed over DOGE’s work, which has included deep cuts at federal agencies and large-scale layoffs.Hollander found that DOGE’s efforts at Social Security amounted to a “fishing expedition” based on “little more than suspicion” of fraud.