India, Sept. 30 -- If a picture is worth a thousand words, these two-one of a village submerged in floodwaters, the other of the very same village hit by drought-portray microcosms of climate extremes.

A year ago, Sandas Chincholi, in Majalgaon taluka, Beed district, was cut off from the world for over eight days following a spate of heavy rain and increased discharge from the Sindphana river, submerging the only bridge connecting the village to the outside world. The village, surrounded by the river after the Majalgaon dam was built in 1989, became an island, sequestering its 2,154 people. The NDRF's rescue of a 19-year-old pregnant woman in labour became one of the defining images of the crisis.

Exactly a year later, Sandas Chincholi ...