It was a photo exhibition on climate change, but instead of the negative impact of the phenomenon, it showcased how people in rural India are coping with changes in climate and evolving new ways to cope with it.

Organised by international NGO Oxfam India, the exhibition was inaugurated Thursday and will be on till Nov 22 at the Aga Khan hall in central Delhi.

Exhibiting the various ways in which local communities are adapting to changing climate patterns, one of the photographs showed how the local people in Maharajganj in Uttar Pradesh have built hand pumps on the roof of their houses to safeguard from sudden floods.

'In Rajasthan, wheat production was badly affected because of the drought. Therefore people there are now growing berries which are more drought resistant and this has been giving them a big margin of profits,' said Vanita Suneja, campaign and policy coordinator of Oxfam India.

In Anantpur, Gujarat, water pumps run on solar power are being used to irrigate wastelands.

'Climate change affects villages in the worst possible manner. However adaptation models have assisted villagers in coping with the problems that climate change brings to them,' Suneja said.

'While the local communities have been adapting their farming and other methods to cope with climate change, we in the civil society have been helping them technically to make their ideas come true,' she added.

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