India

This Civil Engineering Course under the National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) on the broad subject of Solids, Materials and their Mechanics has been developed by Indian Institute of Technology’s and the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore as a collaborative project supported by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (Government of India) to enhance the quality of engineering education in the country, by developing curriculum based video and web courses. In these web based lectures, the authors have developed the subject in detail and in stages in a student-friendly manner.

Last week saw the publication by BS Books of the India Health Report 2010 (henceforth referred to as IHR10), edited (and mostly written) by Ajay Mahal, Bibek Debroy and Laveesh Bhandari. For anyone interested in India’s health status, access to health care and medicines, emerging health problems, the infrastructure of health services, medical ethics, health-care financing, government programmes and regulations and key issues in health sector reform, this 138-page report is an excellent introduction-cum-survey. Here I provide a highly selective summary to whet the appetite of readers to peruse the full report.

The Eleventh Plan (2007-08 to 2011-12) sought to build on the gains achieved in the Tenth Plan and shift the economy to a path of faster and more inclusive growth. The Mid Term Appraisal (MTA) report for the Eleventh Five Year Plan 2007-2012  by the Planning Commission reviews the experience in the first three years of the Plan and seeks to identify areas where corrective steps may be needed.

The Eleventh Plan recognises the special challenges of water resources management facing India and the likelihood that these will grow over time due to the rising population and industrialisation. 

This chapter discusses the major features of the water problem facing the country followed by a review of the performance of the schemes dealing with water in the Eleventh Plan. The chapter also proposes an alternative approach to be elaborated into an operational strategy to be implemented in the Twelfth Five Year Plan.

This presentation by ACWADAM on aquifers states that a systematic approach to groundwater studies is required to understand how water exists in each type of rock or sediment for which hydrogeological mapping of aquifers becomes significant in every watershed programme. The necessity of studying the scientific aspects of groundwater such as its properties and distribution below the earth’s surface is highlighted.

This presentation by ACWADAM deals with the Himalayan mountain system,  the planet's highest, and home to the world's highest peaks. It specifically deals with the various divisions, the kind of structures present and the presence of groundwater in the massive mountain system.

The presentation deals with weathering, erosion and deposition of rocks -

• The process of breaking down and alteration of rocks and formation of new materials from them is known as weathering of rocks.
• The group of processes whereby the materials of the earth’s crust are moved from one place to another by running water (including rainfall), waves and current, glacier ice and wind is known as erosion.  
• The processes whereby the material being carried during the process of erosion is deposited either through physical processes (such as drop in the velocity of flowing water) or precipitation of dissolved material under a set of conditions for instance, the deposition of limestones from water rich in calcium carbonate is known as deposition.

This presentation by ACWADAM on processes that shape the earth attempts to understand the irregularities of the surface of earth so as to consider the movement of groundwater. The earth’s surface is dotted with what is commonly perceived as high grounds or ‘hills’ and the low grounds or ‘valleys’. Hills and valleys result from movements in the earth and the long term processes of breaking-down the earth surface at some places and building it up at others, also called as diastrophism.  

Reports of floods, swelling of rivers continue from various parts of North India such as Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand. There have been reports of landslides in the Himalayas, Himachal Pradesh, especially Shimla where the tourism industry has suffered and tourists have been reported to be stranded because of floods and landslides. Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand have been the worst hit with a high number of deaths due to monsoon and floods.

Agriculture/Watershed Development

• Scientists from Central Rice Research Institute (CRRI) in Orissa have developed a new rice variety for water-logged areas
• Andhra's mammoth water harvesting program - 'Jalayagnam', sinks