Which of the following statements best captures the essence of "Landscapes of Loss: The Story of an Indian Drought" by Kavitha Iyer?

Correct — A. HarperCollins India describes Landscapes of Loss as the story of Marathwada told through its people: marginal farmers, Dalits, landless labourers, farm widows and children, living through cyclical drought, crop loss and farmer suicides.

That is a non-fiction study of drought's human and ecological toll, which is option (a).

Why the others are wrong

• (b)
  A fictional story about a family in a drought-hit area. — It is reportage, not a novel. The publisher presents it as the story of a real region, Marathwada, told through the accounts of the people who live there.
• (c)
  A history of monsoon patterns and ancient agriculture in India. — The book's subject is a present-day crisis, a drought that had persisted for almost a decade, not the history of monsoons or ancient farming.
• (d)
  A colonial-era policy analysis of water management. — Its subject is today's agrarian distress in Marathwada, where relief packages and loan waivers have not reversed the trend, not colonial-era water policy.

Kavitha Iyer is a journalist who spent over seventeen years, across two stints, at The Indian Express, writing on India's farm crisis, land rights, farmer suicides and distress migration.

In Landscapes of Loss: The Story of an Indian Drought she turns that reporting on Marathwada, the drought-hit region of Maharashtra adjoining Vidarbha.

The publisher frames Marathwada's story as representative of agrarian unrest across large parts of rural India.

Key facts

• Landscapes of Loss: The Story of an Indian Drought is by journalist Kavitha Iyer and is published by HarperCollins India.
• It centres on Marathwada in Maharashtra, a region hit by cyclical drought and farmer suicides.
• It tells that story through marginal farmers, Dalits, landless labourers, farm widows and children.

Common traps

• Picking the fiction option because the title sounds literary.
• Choosing the monsoon-history option because a drought suggests the monsoon.

No directly related past PYQ was found.