India

The history of the United Kingdom’s interest in the Indian monsoon is discussed as also the challenges of climate change for India. Some basic facts regarding the Indian socio-economic context are presented to underline the importance of rainfed agriculture and hence the dependence on monsoons.

Content and Image Courtesy: NABARD Consultancy Services

NABCONS is providing consultancy services to NABARD for implementing watershed projects in Rajasthan, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh. The operational responsibility of the programme implementation rests with the Programme Management Unit (PMU), established especially for implementing the projects at Dahod (Gujarat), Udaipur (Rajasthan), Warangal, Sangareddy and Ongole (Andhra Pradesh).

Wastewater/Sanitation

• India: Land of many cell phones, but fewer toilets
• Rural women help Himachal fight open defecation
• Eco toilets at the Pollutetech 2010 exhibition in IISc draw attention
• 6 districts in Karnataka achieve near total hygiene standards
• Poor sanitation lets super bug thrive in India

New satellite images from NASA show the extraordinary scope of the continuing disaster in Pakistan, where thousands of square miles of land remain submerged two months after the country was hit by catastrophic flooding.

A satellite image captured last week shows flood waters lingering in Sindh Province and Manchhar Lake at twice its normal size.

Manual scavenging is the most obnoxious and inhuman practice violating the dignity and human personhood of safai karmacharis. It involves the engagement or employment of sections of people to manually dispose human excreta from dry latrines with bare minimum aids such as scrappers, brooms and baskets.

Manual scavenging is integrally linked with caste system and is imposed on certain dalit sub-caste groups particularly on their women. As a result all persons engaged in manual scavenging are dalits, and of them 82% are women.

 Participatory hydrological monitoring improves the users’ understanding of local groundwater resource characteristics and helps local communities to form a community opinion to support appropriate measures for managing the available resources equitably.

This  document on the Finance Commission, India website is divided into the following chapters:

Climate Change

• Gujarat farmers fight against climate change: Adopt technology to conserve resources and maximize benefits
• Higher-than-normal temperatures in Ladakh pose a threat to its glaciers and thereby life in the region
• South Asia is the world's most climate-vulnerable: India ranks second