Amita Bhaduri

Author and conservationist, Anupam Mishra has spent decades promoting water conservation and management. Through his travels across various states of India, he has been studying and teaching the time-tested techniques of rainwater harvesting.

When the DNA of a plant is modified using genetic engineering techniques or biotechnology, the plant is said to have been genetically modified (GM). What does this mean to you and I? Quite simply, it means that the crop could have undergone this process in order to become something that it wasn't in the first place. 

Did you know that the planet would die in three days if it ran out of water? Water is a basic necessity and the United Nations recognized the right to it as a basic human right in 2010. Isn’t it ironic that we are still allowing a few utility companies privatise it, speculate over it and control it?

Environmentalist Robert Swan, the first person to walk the North and South Pole, was in Delhi last year. He launched phase IV of Project Search, which aimed to promote environmental awareness and sustainable lifestyles among students. Swan noted that not many Delhiites scored high on topics of environmental awareness.

We await a future that could be hotter and drier because of climate change. This is increasingly recognized as a global concern and available data suggests that it is increasing the frequency and severity of weather-related hazards in South Asia.

The construction industry went through a boom in the 1990s due to more people demanding and affording houses. This put a lot of pressure on the Pennar area in Andhra Pradesh. Sandmining, which is the process of taking sand, became rampant at that time.

Dr Peter Spillet of the Thames River Restoration Trust shared that the Trust was the recipient of the 2010 Theiss International Riverprize funds on behalf of many organizations involved in the restoration work on river Thames in United Kingdom. He said that the Trust had shared the money for twinning projects in various countries including in India.

There is a palpable sense of a looming water crisis in India. Conflicts across competing users and uses are on the rise. In the irrigation sector, it is widely felt that “paucity of resources and poor performance of existing major and medium irrigation systems are the two main problems”(1).

Kosi, one of the most vibrant rivers of North Bihar begins its journey at a height of about 7000 m in the Himalayan range. After entering the plains, the bed of the Kosi widens drastically and it spreads over 6 to 10 km.

Magadh Jal Jamaat, a loose network of progressive individuals in Gaya has been successfully able to revive over a dozen abandoned water sources and have instilled in people the need to create, clean up and conserve several lakes and ponds in the region.