Political

Image and Content Courtesy: Deshpande Foundation The Deshpande Fellowship Program is a unique opportunity for budding social entrepreneurs. The Fellowship is an interactive, applied learning experience that aims to foster a generation of successful social entrepreneurs. Participants will learn existing best practices and engage with the foremost social entrepreneurs and local innovators to develop a working knowledge of leading social change models. The program will leverage this theoretical framework to aid each participant in the creation of an individualized proposal for social change. Fellows will be expected to implement their innovations with partner institutions. Twenty (25) Fellowships will be awarded. The last date for application is 1 May 2009. Women are encouraged to apply. Period: August 2009 till January 2010. Deadline: Apply by 1 May 2009.

The words above are from a user & beneficiary of the Ask A Question Service on the India Water Portal, powered by a collaboration with WES Net.

Safe Water Network , a not-for-profit dedicated to the development of reliable, sustainable, and scalable water solutions for the world's poor , announced today a partnership with India-based organizations Bhoruka Charitable Trust, the Centre for microFinance, and the Institute of Health Management Research for a rainwater harvesting optimization program in the state of Rajasthan, India. This 18-month initiative expands on a recently completed program that delivered rainwater harvesting systems to 15 villages in the Churu District of Rajasthan. The program supports the development and validation of improvements in three areas: cistern design, water quality, and funding tools. The program also includes the completion of a white paper, which will make policy recommendations specific to Rajasthan. Learnings from the initiative will be shared with others who are working around the world to help the nearly one billion people living in areas of acute water scarcity.

Forwarded to the Portal by: Sulekha M.V.,Water Today Water Today, a bimonthly magazine focuses on changes and developments in the Water and Wastewater industry. It offers a high-level forum for discussion thereby enabling the water industry professionals to delve the issues about the products of interest, projects, and best verified practices that will benefit the industry. Water Today seeks quality articles written by water experts that can be published in our magazine. The article/case study may be about 6-8 pages in MS Word format with relevant images and tables etc. Our current issue is on Water Audit (last date for submission of article is 2nd April). The editorial calendar is given below for ready reference.

"If it had not breached at Kusaha, it would have anyway breached at this point," points a villager towards the probable location on the eastern bank in village Rajabaas near Prakashpur in Sunsari district of Nepal, located 14 km upstream of Kusaha where the Eastern Afflux embankment of the Kosi had breached on the August 18, 2008.

"Megh Pyne Abhiyan" is a network of NGOS that has been working in flood affected areas in Bihar with Arghyam support for the past few years. MPA has been grappling with the idea of providing clean water and sanitation in Bihar.

Image and Content Courtesy: SIWI The Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) and SIWI welcome entries for the third edition of the WASH Media Awards competition open to journalists who publish or broadcast original investigative reports between March 2009 and April 2010 on water supply, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) issues in their countries. Journalists can submit one piece of work such as an article from traditional print or recognized online newspapers, magazines or journals; a radio broadcast; or a television documentary or report. To be eligible, entries must be published or broadcast between 1 March 2009 and 1 April 2010. Articles or broadcasts can be submitted in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Russian. Works not originally published or broadcast in one of these languages must be translated into one of the five competition languages.

The Orissa River Conference is being held from April 18 - 20, 2009, Sambalpur, Odisha.

India River Network (IRN) and Water Initiatives Orissa (WIO) invite you to a three day long Orissa River Conference. Rivers are in stress and dying. Odisha is no exception. All of its rivers including major rivers Mahanadi, Brahmani are dying of quantitative and qualitative degradation and decrease. Water salinity in the lower Brahmani has gone up as river flow has almost stopped in crucial summer months. Water flow in the Mahanadi River too is decreasing at a rapid rate. A comparison between second half of the post Hirakud dam period with the first half shows about 15 percent of decrease in average annual flow. Other rivers like Baitarani, Subarnarekha, Vanshadhara, Rushikulya and Nagabali etc. are also suffering the same fate. The problems are manifold. Unsustainable growth of population; industrialization led pollution; climate change and many other problems have virtually wrecked havoc on the fate of the rivers. The rivers are dying and are surely spelling doom for the civilizations around them.

At the 5th World Water Forum,  Watershed Organisation Trust (WOTR), was awarded the coveted Kyoto World Water Grand Prize at a glittering closing ceremony to mark the closure of the Forum on World Water Day (March 22) at Istanbul, Turkey. The award was presented to Dr Marcella D'Souza, Executive Director of WOTR in recognition of the outstanding contribution made towards organising rural communities for watershed development and rain water harvesting in an inclusive, equitable, sustainable and gender sensitive manner.