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The Fifth Floor

Factual: Life Stories

Global stories from the BBC’s 40 Language Services, with Faranak Amidi

Faranak Amidi presents global stories from the Fifth Floor, home to the BBC’s 40 Language Services.

Faranak Amidi presents global stories from the Fifth Floor, home to the BBC’s 40 Language Services

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The Fifth Floor: Parched Lands and Parched Lives

Documentaries

Parched lands in drought-stricken India

27/05/2016 GMT

Parched Lands and Parched Lives

BBC World Service - The Fifth Floor, Parched Lands and Parched Lives

How severe drought is changing lives in India

A journey around India reveals how severe drought is changing lives

This week temperatures hit 51C in Rajasthan. India is feeling the heat, and also the absence of monsoon rains to cool things down. There's been three years of drought affecting around 300 million people.  BBC Hindi's Ajay Sharma travelled nearly 7,000 km around the country to find out what happens to rural people when the rains fail year after year.  He found people despairing for lack of water and mounting debt.

The Town Running to Success
It may be a small village in the highlands of Ethiopia, but Bekoji has produced some of the best runners in the world, including seven Olympic medal-winners. So what's the secret to their success? BBC Africa's Emmanuel Igunza went for a run with the new breed of young stars - so how did he get on?

Tehran Book Fair 
This month saw the Tehran International Book Fair take place in Iran. To mark the occasion a group of independent Persian publishers from across Europe came together in London for the first time to take part in an alternative book fair, the Tehran Book Fair Uncensored.   BBC Persian's Majid Afshar and Anahita Shams provide a guide on what can be found at both book fairs in London and Tehran.

Lunch for a President 
President's don't often eat on a budget, so Barack Obama's $6 Vietnamese meal in Hanoi this week generated a lot of interest.  So where would the denizens of the Fifth Floor take the President for good cheap eats if he were to visit their country?  With Firuz Rahimi from BBC Afghan, Irena Taranyuk from BBC Ukrainian, Hussein Askari from BBC Urdu and Mexican Lourdes Heredia.

Dominicans in Lesbos 
What are 46 people from the Dominican Republic doing in a migrant camp in Lesbos?  Their presence came to the attention of the Spanish speaking press during the Pope's recent visit to the island.  Intrigued, BBC Mundo's Arturo Wallace went there to find out.

And Fifi Haroon shares the wild side of the web.

Photo: A farmer sits on parched cracked ground in India, Credit: Ajay Sharma/BBC

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