Good evening,

Songkran is approaching fast and there still has been precious little rain either here in Bangkok or in the rest of the country. Things are getting fairly desperate in many places: more than four million people are now suffering the effects of drought in 39 provinces. Water is being distributed insofar as it is available and there was some talk of mounting weather changing programs (using the techniques developed by HM the King) but there remains a great need for more water. It would be easy to leap to a conclusion that this is a result of global climate change and, while it is having an impact, there is also the increased demand for water caused by intensifying agriculture and urbanization. We have already seen some communities fighting each other over access to insufficient water resources and no doubt there will be more to come if there is not a significant amount of rain soon.

Now realizing that their initial response was inadequate (it’s the Chuan government revisited), the current government is rolling out new measures to help people affected by the ongoing economic crisis. A scheme costing apparently 6.9 billion baht will provide assistance to unemployed people or fresh graduates so that they can obtain some kind of vocational training. Details are still sparse.

Money is also being distributed to help parents buy school uniforms for their school age children. The scheme does not appear to be means-tested, so a lot of the money will just be wasted because it will go to middle class parents who are likely to put it in the bank, since they have already budgeted for this cost. There is also, this being Thailand, a fair amount of discussion concerning who is going to be benefiting illicitly and how it might be stopped and so on and so forth. Handing out cash does not seem like a very good idea since it is too easy for people in need of something or other to spend it elsewhere (thus getting themselves in trouble, perhaps even at risk of prosecution); coupons would be a better idea.

Back tomorrow.