Research Papers

Recent years have shown a growing awareness on the relevance of climate change for India within the government as well as civil society, business and media. India has prepared its National Action Plan on Climate Change amidst growing international pressure to devise domestic climate adaptation strategies.

Evidence from India shows that open defecation continues to be common, and that a vast majority of the population from both urban and rural areas continue to have poor access to toilets.

Several lakhs of farming communities in Tamil Nadu depend on the 39,202 tanks spread around the state. These tanks capture the runoff water from the monsoon rainfall that occurs in a short span of time, and also provide water for irrigation and other uses for the community.

However, these water bodies have been degenerating in the recent past due to reasons such as:

Sustainable management of groundwater continues to be ignored in India although its hydrogeological and socieconomic aspects continue to be studied extensively. Despite recognition of its importance at the policy level, no clear plan of action exists for groundwater management in India. 

Since the 1990s, it has often been predicted that all the conflicts over this century will be over water and that they will be fought in the South Asian region, which is undergoing a rapid growth in population coupled with a gradual decrease in water resources.

India has almost 17% of the world's population and 4% of the global water resources – a situation that threatens to push it towards a water crisis in the coming years. To add to this, are other reasons such as:

Fisheries are an important sector providing employment to millions of people in India and contributing to the food security of the country. Marine, inland fisheries and aquaculture are the main components of the fisheries sector.

The report title 'Turn down the heat: Climate extremes, regional impacts and the case for resilience' published by the World Bank, highlights the risks posed by climate

In the article titled 'A hundred days closer to ecological and social suicide' published in the Economic and Political Weekly, the author argues that the recent changes in the government do not seem to have helped in changing the environmental policies of the country. Rather, they reflect regressive actions that could lead to a large-scale assault on rules, laws

Aims of the report: