News and Articles

This is a translation from the Nepali of an article that first appeared in Nepal magazine on 11 July 2010. Dipak Gyawali is member of the panel of experts reviewing the Mekong River Commission’s Basin Development Plan and vice-chair of the technical committee of the UN’s World Water Assessment Programme. He was Nepal’s Minister for Water Resources during 2002-03.

Many Nepalis would be shocked to hear that Bhutan will face load- shedding from the coming winter. The citizens of Nepal have, after all, been told for decades that Bhutan has done a great job of developing hydroelectricity, that it has earned significant money by exporting electricity to India, and thus it has been able to achieve the highest per capita income in Southasia. Conversely, Nepal has been ridiculed for wallowing in ‘empty nationalism’ and stirring ‘needless’ controversies over the Mahakali Treaty of 1996 (for water sharing on the Mahakali River) as well as hydropower projects such as the West Seti, both of which involve export of electricity to India.

This report published by SANDRP, Urgewald and International Rivers Network (IRN) provides a brief background on India's power and financial sectors and illustrates the issues at stake by giving examples of two important power projects in India, the Dabhol project and the Maheshwar project.

The next part of the report describes the role that the domestic and international financial institutions have played and continue to play and the controversies that have been associated with the functioning of these institutions in the implementation of the hydropower projects in India.

The report emphasises the importance of the role of NGOs and civil society movements in making these institutions accountable to the common people whose lives are affected by the projects/ interventions.

"So far, we have recovered 170 bodies, 140 of whom have been identified," said an officer in Leh's police control room, adding that up to 300 people were still unaccounted for.

Aid workers also estimate that 10 to 12 villages remain inaccessible due collapsed bridges and blocked roads where landslides deposited boulders and mud up to 15 feet high (4 metres).

• WIO demands the Government of Orissa to come out with a White Paper on water first and then decide on new allocations.
• No new industries should be allowed to draw water unless this White Paper prepared and made public.
• That Orissa is a ‘Surplus Water’ state is a ‘myth’.

This document by Urgewald provides a brief overview on the role of India's premier dam building agency, the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) in the construction of dams in India and is highly critical of the mode in which the NHPC has been aggressively expanding its operations of building dams across rivers in the country. 

It aims to inform the public, investors and financiers about NHPC’s track record and expansion plans and presents compiled information from three regions where NHPC has been actively involved in the construction of dams namely:

• Narmada Valley in Central India
• Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh in Northeastern India
• The lands of the Kuki people in Northwestern Burma, where NHPC is building a dam for the military junta.

WIO Urges the Government of Orissa to come out with a While Paper on state and availability status of water resources in the state. The demand comes in the wake of the government's consistent claim that the state is water surplus even though water scarcity hits us all every day.

Sambalpur, 5th August 2010 -  As the industrial overdrive of Orissa continues with signing of MoU after MoU with water guzzling industries, there is no clarity on the exact water available in the state.  The government has been propagating that Orissa is a water surplus state. However, statistics used by the various reports of the government are dated to 2001, from when the real industrialization boom has taken off in the state.  It is time that the government comes out with a transparent position paper on the exact water availability in the state or else water conflicts will aggravate.

This initiative is an attempt to provide daily updates on Flood Situations and related events/news to water enthusiasts, professionals and citizens concerned about flood in Odisha. News and information collected from Odia news papers, English media (internet editions) and web site of Department of Water Resources, Govt of Odisha are put together at one place to provide an overview of flood in Odisha on a daily basis.

This initiative is an attempt to provide daily updates on Flood Situations and related events/news to water enthusiasts, professionals and citizens concerned about flood in Odisha. News and information collected from Odia news papers, English media (internet editions) and web site of Department of Water Resources, Govt of Odisha are put together at one place to provide an overview of flood in Odisha on a daily basis.

Floods: lessons to be learnt from the massive flooding in Surat city

A report by IIM criticises the way in which dams are managed in the country and calls for the need to apply Management Science / Operations Research techniques and information technology to improve dam management and prevention of floods

Flood fury: are we ready to face such an event?

Water is the base of life as we all know but a very interesting fact comes in my mind that what should be the full form of water. If one's define it there comes a better sentence. Let's we know it's full form.

W-when
A-atmosphere
T-threatens
E-earn
R-revenue