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Food security bill passed

Water consumption varies based on many factors – how much water is available, where one lives, one’s personal habits, the weather, the seasons and so on and so forth. Each of these contributes to varying usage patterns.

Traditional water bodies such as bawdis and talabs have long since been an integral part of rural life in India providing water, fish and sometimes even just a venue for people to chit chat. The flat plains in Western Uttar Pradesh, where the Ganga and Yamuna rivers meet, is no exception.

As temple tanks go, this one is quite beautiful. It is a rectangular masonry-lined tank, about the size of a badminton court. Brick steps lead down to the water. On one of its longer sides is a lovely old temple, shaded by mango trees. Groups of men and women sit and gossip in the coolness. Facing them is an avenue of large trees, below which sit contemplative buffaloes.

Shantamma woke up one morning with a high fever. She also had a sudden pain at the back of her eyes and severe joint pain. She had been finding it very difficult to move around and go on with her daily routine. And it was quite a tedious routine, which began at 5 a.m. She was a house maid and worked at multiple houses every day.

Dongria Kondhs win the mining battle

'The Water Catchers’ is a story of an unlikely hero, an unassuming boy living in the concrete, water-deprived city of Mumbai. The boy named Chintu, has a simple wish - to find water in the village called Tintodan of his forefathers.

A recent news report said that UNICEF was promoting a machine that purifies sweat from people’s clothes to get potable drinking water (Fox News). Sounds gross?

Kalaivani, a single mother of three, took to farming after the loss of her husband almost two decades ago. Since then, she has grown all the crops on her farm without using chemical or synthetic pesticides or fertilisers. Over the last few years, she has focused her time and energy in growing organic cotton. 

Nitrogen and phosphorus are essential for plant growth – that is common knowledge for farmers. Cow dung contains nitrogen – that is also common knowledge for farmers. Then why is it that many farmers look for costly solutions rather than use the abundant cow dung they have in their farms as manure? Luckily, one farmer did think of this.