2009 is turning out to be a signficant drought year. While the government has been responding to the drought to some extent, the lack of a national strategy that can be rolled out quickly at scale is exposed. We also don't have a mechanism where we use whatever long-term forecasting tools are available and trigger pre-emptive measures when there is a high probability that a particular year is a drought year. What effective measures are being rolled out right now ? Can we hear from rural NGOs across country on what they are seeing in their local areas in terms of drought effects and responses ? Vijay Krishna