Amita Bhaduri
A future without water?
Posted on 11 Dec, 2018 01:17 PMSikri is a small village that lies 65 km north-west of Bharatpur on the Alwar road. The village used to depend on a traditional irrigation system that assured water throughout the year. A local saying related to the water availability at Sikri goes thus: Lakh daal le chittri, jay rahoongi Sikri (You may put lakhs of fetters to stop it, but the waters will still reach Sikri).
![An off-taking canal that promoted flow irrigation. The system has become a relic of the past. There is a demand to revive this colonial irrigation system whose bund is over 17-km long and has 28 distributaries. (Image: India Water Portal)](/sites/default/files/styles/featured_articles/public/iwp/lead-bharatpur.jpg?itok=uQBTRow7)
Two states and a river: More power or more water?
Posted on 25 Nov, 2018 12:26 PMA new study, Mahanadi: Coal Rich, Water-Stressed sheds light on how both Odisha and Chhattisgarh have locked horns over the distribution of waters of the Mahanadi river. The 851-km-long river originates in the Dhamtari district of Chhattisgarh, flows through the state and then Odisha before joining the Bay of Bengal at Odisha’s coast.
![The Hirakud dam (Image: Makarand Purohit, India Water Portal)](/sites/default/files/styles/featured_articles/public/iwp/mahanadi.jpg?itok=Ma4jlC1T)
From river to sewer, Paondhoi waits for redemption
Posted on 12 Nov, 2018 11:16 AMRiver Paondhoi is best known today as a sewer running through Saharanpur city. Originally, however, it was an important source of drinking water for the city. In its heyday, the water of the river ran ankle deep, just enough to wash one’s feet. People coming into the city would wash their feet in the river giving it the name, Paondhoi.
![The Paondhoi with hazardous materials and pollutants dumped into it. (Image: India Water Portal)](/sites/default/files/styles/featured_articles/public/iwp/paodhoi.jpg?itok=sQWDCaKP)
Tech to tackle sewer deaths
Posted on 21 Oct, 2018 11:44 AMAnil (40) died on September 14, 2018 while clearing a block in a sewage line at Dabri, a locality in north-west Delhi. Cleaners hired by state governments and civic bodies are supposed to be provided safety equipment like gas masks, goggles, gumshoes, gloves, safety belt etc. Yet, Anil was unprotected when he died of asphyxiation due to the presence of poisonous gas in the gutter.
![Women who took part at the India SaniTech Forum say that they want to ensure there are no more deaths from manual scavenging. (Image: India Water Portal)](/sites/default/files/styles/featured_articles/public/iwp/ms-lead.jpg?itok=s9BxfSYG)
Why floodplains need to be protected
Posted on 12 Oct, 2018 11:56 AMThe Kerala flood of 2018 was 30 percent less intense than that of 1924 deluge, the biggest in Kerala’s history. Yet it caused a huge loss of lives, property and infrastructure. Swollen rivers ruptured their banks and floodwaters gushed through houses built on the floodplains.
![Real estate development has wiped out large swathes of land on the active floodplain of the rivers in Kerala; the reduction in its cross section led to massive inundation during the Kerala floods, 2018.](/sites/default/files/styles/featured_articles/public/iwp/kerala.jpg?itok=IGI7sN5j)
Swachh Bharat Mission: It’s all about numbers
Posted on 02 Oct, 2018 11:06 PMWe have just a year to go for Swachh Bharat Mission’s (SBM) deadline of making India open-defecation free (ODF). In the last four years, the government has built 86.08 million toilets (as on September 26, 2018) throughout the country as a part of this flagship programme on providing safe sanitation to all by October 2019.
![Sanitation is not just about constructing toilets. (Image: India Water Portal)](/sites/default/files/styles/featured_articles/public/iwp/toilet1_2_0.jpg?itok=KLv3wh45)
Ganga clean up: It’s all talk and no action
Posted on 19 Sep, 2018 12:06 PMAs the Ganga emerges from the glaciers and glides along the foothills of the mighty Himalayas through the towns and cities with their sprawling ghats, engineered embankments, hydroelectric dams, and interrupted flows at barrages, the icy chilliness of its waters is lost.
![The Ganga at Garhmukteshwar (Image: Chicu Lokgariwar, India Water Portal)](/sites/default/files/styles/featured_articles/public/iwp/gadmukteshwar_sunset_1.jpg?itok=zkh85N_I)
Kerala battles the worst flood since 1924
Posted on 25 Aug, 2018 05:34 PMWhen the five overflow gates of the Cheruthoni dam, a part of the Idukki reservoir comprising Cheruthoni, Kulamavu and Idukki arch dam were opened one by one on August 9, 2018, a torrent of water and mud gushed out. Heavy, unceasing rains had led to the dam reaching close to its maximum capacity, forcing the dam authorities to open all its gates.
![The floods in Kerala have taken nearly 400 lives and have displaced around 1.2 million people. (Image: Ranjith Siji, Wikimedia Commons: CC BY-SA 4.0)](/sites/default/files/styles/featured_articles/public/iwp/800px-kerala_flood_2018_-_angamaly-_img_20180818_084500.jpg?itok=snwGpfV4)
Footwear industry pollutes, villagers put their foot down
Posted on 23 Aug, 2018 08:09 PMAs per the regional plan 2021 chalked out by the national capital regional planning board in 2005, Bahadurgarh, a small town in Haryana is a part of the Delhi metropolitan area. The town, located in Jhajjar district, is growing at a fast pace.
![Leftover materials tossed out by the factories at the footwear park. These will end up in landfills and pollute the environment. (Image: India Water Portal)](/sites/default/files/styles/featured_articles/public/iwp/rubber-raw-compressed.jpg?itok=XYtRUGH4)
Delhi stands up for its trees
Posted on 20 Aug, 2018 11:28 AMRecently, Delhi saw an urban Chipko movement of sorts with the people coming out in large numbers with a single agenda—save the last of the trees left in the city. In the famous Chipko movement of 1973, local communities in Tehri Garhwal, Uttarakhand emblematically embraced trees to demand an end to deforestation through forest exploiting contractors.
![People of Delhi came out in large numbers recently and kick-started a movement to save trees. (Image: Delhi Trees SOS)](/sites/default/files/styles/featured_articles/public/iwp/delhi_trees_sos_group_1.jpg?itok=q4-HQ0ei)