NAPSIPAG DISASTER RESEARCH GROUP(NDRG-2020) is a specialized body of NAPSIPAG (Network of Asia Pacific Schools and Institutes of public Administration and Governance-2004) which is located in India. It owes its origin to NAPSIPAG researchers in Law & Governance who discovered the need for transdisciplinary interaction with practitioners in law-administration-natural sciences-e-governance and Artificial Intelligence to prevent and mitigate disasters. Disasters have become too frequent and more devastating with a gruelling dent in the GDP of Asia Pacific countries. India, Bangladesh and Pakistan alone combine to show the highest mortality risk index (MRI) but this is also a region where almost 40% of the world’s poor are located in subsistence economy in fragile zones. Disasters are more an issue of development, livelihood and sustainable socio-economic prosperity. The immediate catalyst to bring disaster managers together was the NAPSIPAG’s International Conference at Doiwala in Dehradun June 20-22, 2013 at the EcoAshram of legendary environmental lawyer Shri.M.C.Mehta. The timing of this meet on ‘How Much Land Does a Man Need’ was on land mismanagement and human greed as a cause for environmental distress and disasters. This discourse providentially coincided with the devastating and ruinous Uttarakhand floods. The spectre of death as humans and nonhumans succumbed to a furious and anguished nature in the rapids of the holy river Ganges called for revisiting laws and institutions which failed humanity. The congregating experts from all over Asia-Pacific vouched for an intensive research, training, education and dissemination in disaster studies as an indispensable pathway to sustainable development…..Read more