Political

This article in Marathi from the magazine Anubhav titled 'Thembe thembe samruddhi' meaning 'Prosperity with every drop' highlights the situation of acute scarcity of water in the state of Maharashtra and argues that this has been a barrier to the progress of the state leading to dire poverty and deprivation. 

Guest post by : Aarti Kelkar-Khambete

This workshop organised by the DHAN Foundation in the Gingee Town Panchayat (GTP) in Tamil Nadu on the 18th of November 2011, aimed at initiating a scientific study titled “Strategy for increasing per capita availability of water for Gingee town, Tamilnadu". Elected representatives of the town panchayat along with the general public and government officials participated in this workshop.

The Central Water Commission (CWC) has recently prepared a report on water quality scenario of our rivers and has evolved a methodology for identifying hot spots in Indian rivers. The water quality data is based on the average values observed during the last ten years (2001-2011) at 371 monitoring stations of CWC on almost all major, medium and minor rivers in India. Please find below a letter (dated November 5, 2011) from South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers & People, New Delhi to the Chairman, Central Water Commission stating its concerns regarding the report.

Guest Post: Nitin Rai, Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)

Drawing upon his experience working with the Soligas who live within the Biligiri Rangaswamy Temple Wildlife Sanctuary, Nitin Rai talks about the ‘wilderness’ myth and explores the origins and impacts of the belief that people and animals cannot co-exist. 

Organizers: Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi
                        Texas Agrilife Research, USA
                        USDA-ARS, USA

Venue: India Habitat Centre, Delhi

The camera wanders through the states of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra and records the profound traditional science of the people. “Harvest of Rain” analyses a wide variety of water harvesting systems as a function of differing ecological terrains

Content and Media Courtesy: International Union for Conservation of Nature

This 116,500 hectare brackish lagoon separated from the Bay of Bengal by a long sandy ridge was added to the Ramsar List of Wetlands of International Importance in 1981.This was because the lagoon was facing serious degradation due to siltation and choking of the seawater inlet channel, resulting in the proliferation of invasive freshwater species, the decrease in fish productivity, and an overall loss of biodiversity [1].

Organizers: IIHS

The Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS) is a national education institution committed to the equitable, sustainable and efficient transformation of Indian settlements. IIHS is India’s first prospective independently funded and managed national university for Innovation that focuses on its ongoing urban and development transformation. It is a first-of-its-kind, practice and innovation-oriented knowledge institution that seeks to bridge the conventional excellence, scale and inclusion divide.

The report recognises that most groundwater quality problems are anthropogenic in origin, caused by a combination of over-exploitation and infiltration of wastes. Inadequate infrastructure and resources mean that waste generated by cities and industrial areas is not properly collected, treated and disposed, thus leading to grondwater contamination.