Political

The conference was held in Bangalore on 30th June 2009 at the ITC Windsor. With cities expanding, the need for drinking water is exponentially increasing. The municipal systems are stressed to breaking limits and more and more people are turning to bottled water. And this is the case not only in urban but in rural areas as well. Today, the bottled water industry is at 1000 crores and is visualised to expand more! In this context the Confederation of Indian Industries organised a seminar on the Packaged Water Industry on 30th June, 2009 to discuss the scope of the market, the standards of quality and the methods of disposing the waste produced due to the industry. The source for most of the drinking water in our country remains ground water. This contributes to 80% of drinking water in rural areas and 50% in urban areas. However, claimed Mr. T.M. Hunse, Regional Director of the Central Ground Water Board, the excessive usage of Groundwater is the direct cause of dry wells and the depleting levels of groundwater in the country. However, the need for bottled water cannot be denied. Despite conflicts between communities and bottled water plants, many of the country’s poor are at the mercy of the municipal supplies which are erratic and unreliable, he said. Bottled water provides an alternative way to access clean and healthy water. At the same time, it absolves the government of its duty and ends up leaving farmers high and dry. He placed full responsibility on the bottled water plants to ensure people safe water (especially when the groundwater is polluted) and work towards conscientiously using the existing groundwater supply in an egalitarian manner.

SAWAS (South Asian Water Studies) calls for papers on longer-term perspectives on water governance and management (reform) in India. The papers should not exceed 5000 words (including references and footnotes). We are inviting original, well argued and accessibly written analyses of water sector reform experiences, assessments of future developments, discussion of dilemmas and contradictions, accounts of policy processes and policy instruments, etc.

Papers are to be submitted to Dr Daphne Gondhalekhar at ZEF, Bonn (daphneg@mit.edu) not later than September 30, 2009. Papers will be peer reviewed. Accepted (and eventually revised) papers will be published in a forthcoming issue of SAWAS (South Asian Water Studies)

For more information on the broad thematic aimed at, please download the Information Click here

Image and Content Courtesy: Excella Orbit

Excella Orbit, a division of Sambodhi Research & Communications Pvt. Ltd. is conducting a bouquet of trainings during the month of July, August & September, 2009 and January-March, 2010

July 28-31, 2009 - Basic & Advanced Analysis using SPSS, Hyderabad August 10-13, 2009 - Basic & Advanced Analysis using SPSS, New Delhi August 25-28, 2009 - Design & Development of Management Information System, New Delhi

Meteorological data is essential for water resource planning and research. In India, this data is difficult to obtain for the average citizen. In this application, entire datasets for various meteorological indicators from 1901 to 2002, for any part of India, is made available for users, in a simple format.

CSE needs programme coordinators/senior researchers. To research, write, advocate and coordinate activities for environmental change

Arghyam’s Grants Team is inviting applications from dedicated and talented students for their internship programme. Positions are open for data analysis, water writing and documentation. Both these positions are for 2 months. Only Bangalore based candidates or candidates willing to relocate to Bangalore for the duration of this project need apply.

There is no other word that can aptly describe water - Blue Gold. Today I was watching the movie - Blue Gold - World Water Wars. A must see movie for environment and water enthusiasts. The movie starts with a true story of a Californian gold hunter - how his body got transformed into a quasi corpse in seven days because of lack of water. The story then moves on how we humans are using water without discretion. Here are some interesting statistics:

1. Manufacturing an average automobile requires 350,000 liters
2. Upto 7 barrels of water is required to extract a barrel of oil - Save oil to save water
3. One microchip requires 32liters of water
4. Today there are 50,000 large dams worldwide
5. Today there are at least 10 publicly traded water indices
6. 750 pounds of carcass requires 5.2 million liters of water - be a vegetarian and save water.
7. 30,240 liters of water is required per 50pound bag of wheat! Don't waste food my friends.
8. 1.8 million liters per bale of cotton - Don't buy too many clothes (don't wear too less either)
9. 77,500 liters of water is required per 50pound bag of rice. One kilo of rice requires 3,500 litres of water
10. 99 liters for an apple
11. 107 liters for a banana
12. 22,000 liters of water per 50pound bag of corn
13. 10 litres for a rose

Currently I am reading this book - "The Humanure Handbook" by Joseph Jenkins. I am impressed. If there is one thing human beings don't want to talk about, it is their excreta. I don't remember discussing managing the excreta with anyone - either at home or at school.

As part of the research study, River Basins and River Basin Organisations in South Asia, done by the Society for Participatory Development Hyderabad, CapNet South Asia (Read More) and Gomukh Environmental Trust for Sustainable Development Pune (Click Here), data about individual river basins has been collected for the river basins in South Asia.

In this presentation Probhash Kumar Biswas and Tirthankar Sarkar of Jadavpur University, Kolkata have designed a rainwater harvesting and grey water recycling system to meet some of the water needs of the hostel block in Jadavpur University.