A six-year-old boy lost his life after falling into an abandoned borewell – one of the many that have sprung up across the state to combat the severe water crisis. But it was human error, not the drought that claimed the child’s life.

A report in this paper stated that Sunil Haridas More had accompanied his grandmother as she went to work at a farm in drought-affected Shirur. It was there that he fell into the uncovered borewell, remaining stuck for over 31 hours. Though efforts were made to rescue him, he died once he arrived at the hospital.