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For hundreds of years, tanks, both big and small, served people and cattle alike in Tamil Nadu. Chennai’s neighbouring district of Kancheepuram was the the wealthiest when it came to water through these means.

It’s a battle that dates back to 1957. Two states of India--Madhya Pradesh (MP) and Odisha--have fought fiercely over the water of the Mahanadi they share. When Chhattisgarh was carved out of MP in 2000, it inherited both the Mahanadi and the conflict with Odisha over its water.

In his late 30s, Nilesh Heda is a renowned expert on issues related to fishing communities and wetland ecology. While doing his PhD on fish diversity, he worked with the fishing communities in Vidarbha in Maharashtra.

It is that time of the year when the empty granaries wait for the maturing paddy to fill them. Kati Bihu or Kongali Bihu (Kongal means poor while Kati is the Assamese seventh month where farmers await their harvest) is the most placid of the three Bihus (Assamese agriculture festival) celebrated without much pomp or splendour.

Forest clearance to Yettinahole project gets challenged

Country's first mobile chilled water kiosk in Rajasthan

Hasdeo Arand illustrates all that is wrong with the coal mining industry today. This ancient and dense forest in Chattisgarh, inhabited by several tribes, was once famous for being an elephant corridor. Since 2013, the area has worn a different face.

Parvati, aged 40, is an agricultural labourer working on the outskirts of Pune. The sole breadwinner of her family, she has not been going for work for three days because of severe pain in the lower back. She asks me for some pills or ointments that could relieve her of her backache.

Senthil takes a long puff of the cigarette before flicking it on the road nonchalantly. “I started smoking on the sly when I was in school,” he reminisces. “Sixty years later, I still do the same, only more smokes per day.”

Gazala Paul spent her 50th birthday among the Baiga people of Chhattisgarh. On the eve of her 25th wedding anniversary, she was in Rapar, a block near the Little Rann of Kutch, in a celebratory mood. The MLA of the region had come to a meeting organised with villagers from his constituency and promised to deliver them safe water based on sound scientific principles.