India

Content and Image Courtesy: Ideaken

Programme FINISH stands for Financial Inclusion Improves Sanitation and Health and is being supported and implemented since 2009 by an Indo-Dutch consortium comprising NGOs, academic and financial institutions, insurance companies and banks from the two countries. Its objective is to diffuse 1 million safe sanitation systems (i.e. toilets with proper treatment of waste produced) to low income communities in rural India through mobilizing funds from end-user households.

Article and Image Courtesy: Everything About Water

The November edition of Droplets e-newsletter published by the Everything About Water had the following highlights:

• India: The country facing a water deficit of 50% by 2030
• India: New national water policy in pipeline
• Rajasthan: Rs. 149.59 crore plant to clean river waters
• Madhya Pradesh: State to sign 6 MoUs for water projects
• Tamil Nadu: Habitat for Humanity brings clean drinking water
• Mumbai: MMRDA plans Rs. 1200 crore water conveyance system plan

Video Courtesy: EarthReport

Source:  5min Media

It has been proved that it's a direct result of drinking ground water that's contaminated with high levels of fluoride. This video suggests that rainwater is the best source of water for communities living in these regions.

In partnership with the Columbia Water Center, researchers from Punjab Agricultural University have initiated a multi-year project to implement and field-test diverse water-saving technologies, practices and policies aimed at reducing agricultural water use in the state of Punjab, particularly among rice farmers. In last year’s trial, the most successful project involved the installation of inexpensive tensiometers in the fields of over 500 farmers, yielding water savings of 30-35 percent.

Concurrently with the tensiometer trials, the team also recruited a smaller number of farmers to adopt a different way of cultivating rice altogether: Direct seeding of rice.

In traditional rice cultivation, rice is sprouted in a nursery; sprouted seedlings are then transplanted into standing water. With direct seeding, rice seed is sown and sprouted directly into the field, eliminating the laborious process of planting seedlings by hand and greatly reducing the crop’s water requirements.

Conventional rice production requires standing water

In recent years, scientists have detected very high levels of aerosol pollution in the air over India. Some of it is the result of industrial and agricultural activity, and some of it is nature at work.

Sanitation/Wastewater

• India tops the list of nations lacking toilets
• India hunts for a Rural Toilet Design, 1000 Euros up for grabs
• 82% of rural India deprived of three basic necessities of life — tapped drinking water, electricity connection and sanitation
• There are 700 million cell phone connections in India, but only half this number of Indians have access to private toilets, says a UN study

This country-level report on the assessment of drinking water supply and sanitation in India is the result of a collaborative exercise between the Planning Commission of India, the World Health Organization (WHO), and the

Article and Image Courtesy: Water supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council

We are pleased to announce the new and improved, your entry point into the online world of the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council.

Water Governance in Motion: Towards Socially and Environmentally Sustainable Water Laws focuses on the work undertaken by International Environmental Law Research Centre IELRC on water law reforms in India. It seeks to provide a broader understanding of the conceptual framework informing existing water law and ongoing reforms.

Climate Change

• India to release climate change report on Tuesday

 Environment

• India proposes a new emission check system
• Call for declaring soil as national resource: Soil Conservation Society of India