Maharashtra

To develop a watershed means, conventionally, to treat this whole area in such a way so as to conserve and nurture the natural resources of the area. These natural resources chiefly include the soil and water.

The collection includes the following four case studies from India:

CEPT University has received a major grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to research urban water and sanitation issues. The aim of this programme is to develop better information on water and sanitation performance at the local level. This in turn will be used by the state and local governments for extending services to the poor, strive for financial viability, and improve reliability and quality of services.

The research will focus on the use of performance indicators and benchmarks to facilitate consistent reporting, monitoring, planning, budgeting, and investing in water and sanitation services in all urban areas of Gujarat and Maharashtra states. Lessons from the project will be disseminated to other states and at the national level.

CEPT University with its partners will work with state and local governments to develop a reliable and sustainable Performance Assessment System (PAS) for urban water and sanitation services. The PAS envisaged in this project includes: Performance Measurement, Performance Monitoring, and Performance Improvement.

A two day National Workshop on need for policy and legal norms for allowing freshwater flows in Rivers in India on January 3-4, 2009 at Bangalore ended with a unanimous demand that governments must allow continuous, sustained freshwater flows in all perennial rivers of India, whenever, a dam, diversion or hydropower project is planned, constructed or operated. Inaugurating the workshop on the morning of January 3, 2009, Shri L C Jain, former member, planning commission of India (and many other important posts), expressed his pain and anguish on the state of India's Rivers, "It is very disturbing that the acts of commissions and omissions of the authorities have ruthlessly, blindly, heartlessly lead todestruction of almost every major rivers of India. The hearts of the officials and ministers should throb for the millions depending for their needs and livelihoods on the rivers, but it seems that the stones of the South and North block buildings have entered their hearts." Quoting Gandhiji's agenda for the economic independence of India from what he wrote in the Young India on November 29, 1929, Jain said, Land, Water and Air cannot be subject of commerce, but the planners lock up the pain, hunger, malnutrition in the paragraphs of their five year plan documents and do not ensure their inclusion in their actual plans and programmes. He expressed his deep anguish that even the recommendations of the official policies and committees on ensuring freshwater flows in the rivers remain unimplemented.

Guest post from Daniel Bachhuber ======== Whitman Direct Action (WDA) is a non-profit, open-source, and student-run organization from Whitman College in the USA dedicated to helping marginalized people by promoting economically and environmentally sustainable community development.

Thanks to Sanjay Bapat for forwarding this to us: ========== Dear friends: Popular demand has been pulling at our sleeves… so we are happily extending our deadline! Harvest 2 Harness is extending the deadline for submission of your entries on Rainwater Harvesting models to February 29, 2008 (Friday). After 3 successful years, you will agree that we have created a brand out of H2H… your support, of course, being the most significant part of this.

3 day workshop organised by Ecological Society, Pune 7-9 February 2008 Salient Points:Top management experts will facilitate your understaning and interact with you in the 3-day residential workshop in a sylvan environment.

"We invite you to an exhibition of black and white photographs celebrating Land, Water and People presented by German Agro Action (GAA- Deutsche Welthungerhilfe) in collabor