Aarti Kelkar Khambete

Thanal, an NGO in Trivandrum city, Kerala that continues to work on a range of environmental issues in the state had organised 'Bag Tree', a zero waste campaign in collaboration with the Zero Waste Centre in Kovalam, Trivandrum with the aim of creating awareness among the people to stop using plastic bags and replace them by paper bags.

Current evidence has shown that a large population of people in India practice open defecation and do not use toilets even when available.

Fisherfolk form an important community in Kerala, but remain neglected and marginalised inspite of the higher socio-economic progress the state has made as a whole.

Guest post by: Aarti Kelkar-Khambete

Image Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons

The sanitation crisis and the recent evidence on lack of toilet facilities 

The issue that has been making headlines in the last few days has been that of the continuing debate between the states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu over the Mullaperiyar dam. This debate has opened  up a number of issues related to the ownership and use of water between the two states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala in the context of the current changes and the loss of relevance of the laws and decisions made during the colonial rule; the water sharing, irrigation and power generation needs of both the states; and the recent concerns on the safety of the dam in Kerala versus the urgent irrigation needs of the agricultural sector in Tamil Nadu.

A view of the Mullaiperiyar dam on Kerala-Tamil Nadu border at Kumili.Photo: Vibhu

Image Source: The Hindu

This article sheds light on the history of the Mullaperiyar dam and the background for the current deadlock between the two states over the dam. The current deadlock between the two states over the dam is essentially not a dispute for water, but has its roots in the colonial times, and has to do with the need to come to terms with the agreements and decisions made in those times with changing economic, political and environmental contexts and concerns about the safety of the dam in Kerala versus the irrigation needs of the farmers in the state of Tamil Nadu.

Guest post by : Aarti Kelkar-Khambete

The Madurai Symposium organised by the

A look at the news in the month of September 2011, indicates that the month has experienced a range of events such as heavy floods in different parts of the country with Orissa being the worst affected state, a major earthquake in the North East with Sikkim being the most affected, reports of flash floods and landslides in various parts of the country as well as  reports of heavy rainfall in different parts of the country with indications that the rainfall may further subside in the coming week.

 Even with its questionable merit, the superbug study has identified the need for us to question the focus that we have on finding  narrow solutions to health issues .It has also highlighted the urgent need to address the broader infrastructural needs of the country such as access to safe drinking water and sanitation

Image source: Wikimedia Commons  

The superbug study

New Delhi and the world was hit by panic last week because of a recent study published in the journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases  , which found a high level of water contamination acquired from drains and public taps across India's capital city. The water was allegedly contaminated with superbugs, or what has been referred to as bacteria carrying the NDM 1 gene. Four percent of drinking water samples (2 of 50 samples) and 30 percent of drain samples (51 out of 171 samples) were found to be contaminated with superbugs [1, 2].