Political

A narrow ice bridge connecting Charcot Island and Latady Island ”the last remnant of the northern part of Antarctica's Wilkins Ice Shelf broke apart in early April 2009. These photo-like images, from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), show the break-up of the ice bridge.

The latest loss figures (24 Feb. 09 is five districts, 35 blocks, 33.29 lakh peopla, 9.97 lakh live stock., affected area 3.68 lakh hectares, 2.37 lakh houses, 527 human death a and 19,323 loss of cattle.

The Mazhapolima program is quite unique; it aims to (eventually) recharge about 4.5 lakh dug wells in the district, and do this through community awareness and action. It's driven by the District Collector, Mr. Kurian Baby, who strongly advocates sustainable, local development & innovation.

A Gram Panchayat (GP) in Kerala is fairly large, and has a population of approximately 20000 people, as compared to about 10000 in Karnataka, and about 700 in Uttar Pradesh. GP's have ward divisions, about 20 of them per GP. Each GP has a staff of at least 6-8 people. The GP that we visited - Adat, had about 12 employees , 4 lower division clerks, 3 upper division clerks, 1 Joint Secretary, 1 Secretary, 2 peons and 1 sweeper. Except for the peons and the sweeper, the employees are all usually SSLC-pass, but here in Adat they were mostly graduates. For salaries alone, the GP spends about Rs 1.5 lakhs per month. Adat GP executed 124 projects last year. The GP's annual budget was Rs 1.40 crores, not including NREGA funds. Out of this, Rs 40 lakhs was raised by the GP through property taxes etc. Most other parts of the country, GP budgets are only about 5 to 10 lakhs. The Adat GP office was a large 2 storeyed building. Mr Vijayan, the Joint Secretary proudly showed us their awards, which filled up an entire wall.

For the total of 6-lakh households in Thrissur district, there are a total number of 4.5 lakh open/dug wells. As per the 2001 census, 71% of the total population of the district depends on open wells for drinking. Estimates indicate that the aggregate household investment in open wells comes to about Rs. 1,800 crores and the wells have a combined capacity to yield 6.6 million m3 per day. Though the average annual rainfall of the district is about 3,000 mm, about 70% of these wells are non-perennial. Additionally, because of heavy surface run-off, groundwater levels in several blocks have fallen sharply, and coupled with saline intrusion at an accelerated pace, have led to water quality problems. In order to address the issues of quantity, quality and sustainability, the Thrissur district administration in collaboration with the PRIs have launched a process driven, participatory well re-charge programme called Mazhapolima, with an overall goal to improve the health and welfare of communities through improved access to drinking water.

Arghyam is looking for a dynamic individual to join our Urban Water Initiative in Bangalore as a Consultant - Social Development. Arghyam is a not-for-profit organization working in the water sector in India. Arghyam's vision is "Enough water, safe water….always and for all". Through partnerships and grants we support strategic efforts that address issues relating to equity and sustainability for all citizens. We are a small, diverse team comprising individuals who have come together sharing the same dream and passion for making a difference to the people of India. The core members have had decades of experience in running projects in the social, corporate and Government settings. Under Arghyam's Urban water Initiative we are taking up Integrated Urban Water Management (IUWM) in a pilot town in Karnataka through a collaborative and participative process. It involves working with the town and all its stakeholders to facilitate integrated management of water resources, water supplies, sanitation, storm water drainage, wastewater treatment etc in a sustainable manner. The objective is to develop a model town that manages its water in a manner that is socially, technically, environmentally, and financially sustainable.

A couple of years from now, beer, cola, rice, breakfast cereal, cotton T-shirts and many other goods may come with a new logo: a label which says the water used to make this product came from a sustainable source. The scheme, unveiled at the World Water Forum in Istanbul on Tuesday, seeks to make a "Water Stewardship" tag as successful as Forest Stewardship Certification, a fast-growing system that combats illegal or unsustainable logging. "That there is a crisis in water is a given, and that we need to address it is a given. That's why there's so much momentum behind developing a global standard," said Michael Spencer, director of the Water Stewardship Initiative of Australia, part of the project. Access the full article here: Coming soon: 'Sustainable water' certification

The following is a paper by Dr. Mohinder Slariya based on data collected during his Ph.D work. The work contains data sourced from the India Water Portal, and aims to illustrate local area climate changes with the development of hydroelectric projects. The abstract of the paper has been quoted below, with the full paper available as a download!

Abstract

Dams have had serious impacts on the lives, livelihoods, cultures and spiritual existence of indigenous, tribal and illiterate people, moreover on the physical environmental conditions and on the biodiversity of the area concerned. The dam related developmental activities in Ravi catchment area have been threatening the biodiversity in the whole catchment. There are more than 50 rivulets in the Ravi catchment and on which more than 70 power projects have been planned by the government by putting biodiversity at the stake. Developmental activities have unintentionally produce weather and climate modifications on a larger scale and threaten the existing biodiversity. Such developmental activities have been started day back in 1980s in Ravi basin with the installation of Baira Suil Power Project and today it has covered all most all Ravi basin starting from interstate broader of Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh and engulfed the green cover of the area. Because of this extinction the catchments area is experiencing drastic climatic changes, because of 100 km reservoirs of Shahpur Kandi (125MW), Thein Dam (600MW), Chamera-I (540MW) and Chamera-II (300 MW) and tunnelization of Ravi in 19.38 kms with a dia of 7 to 9 meters and 102 meters high surge shafts with 15.5 meters dia and underground power houses of Chamera-I & II and dry Ravi in almost all its natural route (27 kilometers in Chamera I & II). In this dry region there is a tremendous increase in the temperature and there is no timely and usual rain in the basin after the installation of power projects.

I was in Bhavnagar - Saurashtra, Gujarat and came across rooftop rainwater harvesting works implemented by (one more than 10 years ago) by Utthan with financial assistance from WASMO, along the same lines as what SACHETANA is attempting . These have strongly withstood the test of time and ALL of the rooftop rainwater tanks I saw (more than 120) were functioning and people were using this water exclusively for drinking and cooking. Here is a proof of concept idea which has withstood the test of time and which is ripe to be taken to areas of high fluoride and arsenic as one possible solution. Even in Gujarat this has unfortunately not happened in the fluoride affected areas at a scale which would benefit people.

A member of the PLC Watsan group Dhani behn, has built an Ecosan toilet for herself - one of the first in Gujarat-about a year back. This is one of the best toilets on Ecosan I have seen and the simple and elegant story of the same is hugely impressive. It is located in Bhavnagar Saurashtra - Gujarat. She was part of an exposure visit of PLC WatSan to a MYRADA project in Karnataka implementing ecosan. She has one simple reason for use of the toilet- it's less use of water. Even with a twin pit pour flush about 5 litres of water gets used for a single flush and in a day 20 to 25 litres of water can get flushed by one person. Even this is too much in arid and semi arid Gujarat. The transfer of knowledge has resulted in an elegant solution to an otherwise vexing issue that can be made applicable on a larger scale across the state. There exists tremendous interest in Eco-san from other parts of Gujarat too including the coast with its high and saline water table and the tribal hamlets with its hard rock terrain and the rest with a lot of water shortage.

ABSTRACT