Amrtha Kasturi Rangan

Any large-scale water security program by the government needs two things: [i] continuous data - given the dynamic nature of water - its annual replenishment depends on how much rainfall occurs and what farmers decide to grow in that agricultural cycle; and [ii] people who understand this data and continue to maintain the implementation post-intervention.

If you are a practitioner, working in the areas of water and sanitation, it is likely that you are building capacities of different people. What if you had a simple but versatile tool that can help build awareness and capacities; that can surface questions and answers and do this for communities, government officials and CSOs?

A few of us did an exercise where we closed our eyes and thought of the first four words that came to our minds when we thought of water data in India. Here is what we came up with:

A quick search for the word data on India Water Portal results in a flood of queries - people are looking for water data - for specific villages, cities or for the entire country. 

The COVID-19 crisis has brought the world to a standstill. Government, civil society and volunteers are rallying to ensure that social and economic inequalities do not dictate how this crisis draws lines between the “haves” and “have-nots”. Nonetheless, the crisis seems to have deepened the existing divide.

Even as I sat down to write this the Jeevan Raths have rolled out and are serving migrants essentials - food, water and sanitary

Listen to the interview here:

Maharashtra has the highest COVID-19 cases in the country and the government is taking a slew of measures to flatten the curve. We speak to Mr.

Sharing the right information with rural communities is emerging as an important need in tackling the COVID-19 pandemic. The unavailability of content in local dialects and regional languages is posing a big challenge to NGOs that are working in rural areas to spread awareness.

Gazala Paul spent her 50th birthday among the Baiga people of Chhattisgarh. On the eve of her 25th wedding anniversary, she was in Rapar, a block near the Little Rann of Kutch, in a celebratory mood. The MLA of the region had come to a meeting organised with villagers from his constituency and promised to deliver them safe water based on sound scientific principles.