Research Papers

Of the one billion defecating in the open globally 66% live in India, of which 92% live in rural areas. Despite concerted government efforts for the last three decades to promote sanitation, India continues to lag behind in terms of access to basic sanitation facilities.

Piped water supply has often been referred to as a gold standard while evaluating access to water supply.

Besides water scarcity, allocation of water has become an important concern in India over the last few decades.

Increasing concerns over the consequences of inadequate urban sanitation and water with regard to poverty, health, livelihoods, and education have spurred global declarations on the human right to sanitation and water. However, the social and spatial heterogeneity of urban poverty is often missing in global policy debates.

Kerala, flanked on the west by the Arabian Sea and on the east by the Western Ghats is bestowed with enviable natural resources. It has 44 rivers spanning its lush green landscape and rainfall that averages as high as 3000 mm a year.

Highly advanced community level drinking water treatment facilities are increasingly being contemplated as good quality water supply solutions in locations where water sources are unreliable, and not available inside or near households.

As many as 2.4 billion people lack access to improved sanitation globally. 710 million of these people live in urban areas. In India alone, 769 million people lack access to improved sanitation and as high as 597 million people defecate in the open.

Shared sanitation facilities in India

Four years ago, the international community at the Durban climate summit agreed to establish an international binding climate agreement as the current Kyoto protocol is set to expire in 2020. Closer to the Paris summit, countries were to prepare a post-2020 action plan on climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Rivers are the not just the lifeline of our country, but life itself. We may revere them, even worship them but we continue to pollute, choke, and poison their waters. A river, its catchment area, and its floodplains have evolved over millions of years, and once damaged, may not be easy to reclaim.

When I first spoke with Bhagoti Devi, I attempted to break the ice by telling her how warmly our mutual acquaintances spoke of her. She was nonchalant. "Of course they will recommend you speak to me”, she said. “After all, it took a lot of hard work to have such a thick forest standing here.”