Chicu Lokgariwar

My first trek in the Himalayas was a transcendental experience. Even a decade after, I remember the intense beauty of every vignette I came across. That’s why I was excited about the Himalayan Cleanup, held on May 26 this year.

Untreated sewage is the biggest source of water pollution in India with around 70 percent of the raw sewage generated in urban areas entering lakes, rivers, seas and underground aquifers.

Alternative Futures: India Unshackled is a new book that dares to imagine what India could be.

Tenzing Lepcha, the lead activist of Affected Citizens of Teesta (ACT), is proud of his work in the last year. “All this was overgrown,” he says pointing at the orderly farm.

As we sit sipping tea with him, Ugen Lepcha calmly spells out his stand. “Even if it means having to leave my (political) party, I will continue to be against dams,” he says. Ugen Lepcha, the president of Passingang gram panchayat in the Dzongu area of Sikkim, clearly has courage when it comes to his political convictions.

I grew up in the Konkan, drinking water from a well that was filled by rainwater, filtered through the area's laterite aquifers and “fortified” by the leaves shed by the jackfruit tree above it. And then I moved to Pune, where I came across a cloudy, salty, heavy liquid that passed for water.

It was supposed to be a normal monsoon as Indian Meteorological Department had predicted. But barring the central plateau, the rest of India may be forgiven for thinking that the Biblical deluge has come a second time.

After a gap of 67 years, the Indian Prime Minister made an official visit to Israel this year.

The children of Shri Ram Vidya Mandir in Dotiyal in Almora district of Uttarakhand were hushed as they entered the hall. Within 15 minutes, they were all giggling in anticipation of the fun of learning something new. This is one of the schools where students are taught the basics of hydrogeology and water quality.

In the early half of the last century, two people in love with each other worked in their own separate ways to create the India of their dreams. Venkapaiyya worked in the district court at Kasargod, Kerala eventually retiring a few years before India became independent and spent his days administering the laws of British India.