News and Articles

The policy brief published by the Centre for Policy Research (CPR),  India addresses the debates around climate change that took place before and after the Copenhagen Climate Conference (2009) that raised a number of questions regarding the architecture of the global climate regime.

This research report by the National Institute of Hydrology deals with optimum water management in a command area. The dynamics of water within the unsaturated zone of soil is a complex phenomenon dependent on properties of the atmosphere, soil and vegetation. For agriculture water management, it is necessary to have models that accurately predict the behavior of soil moisture.

In this study, a model is developed to stimulate the dynamics of soil moisture within the root zone in an agriculture command. Focus is given to incorporate the spatial variation in crop type, soil type and rainfall in the command area and the dynamics of soil-water-plant interaction is stimulated.

This book published by Henry L. Stimson Centre highlights the richly diverse nature of India's views on climate change through its range of essays. These essays demonstrate and challenge the international perception of India as a monolithic actor with a single set of opinions and views in the climate change negotiations.

In this chapter, the author discusses the strengths and the weaknesses of India's climate policy in the context of the increasing threats that have been identified to the water resources in the country. The author states that India's climate policy is still in its emerging state and argues that though the policy does highlight many important areas related to climate change, it does not give adequate attention to a very crucial area of water management.

This note by the Public Interest Foundation (PIF) presents a proposal for making National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) work better. It offers an alternative to the existing rigid framework for implementation and complex procedures leading to bureaucratization of the implementation process thereby causing uncalled-for delays. The note is a follow-up of its collaborative study with National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER) on “Evaluating Performance of NREGA” as well as the Comptroller and Auditor General's (CAG) performance report on implementation of NREGA. 

This report from the Right to Food Campaign traces the implementation of National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) in West Bengal and points to the failure of the State in guaranteeing basic entitlements. It asserts that West Bengal is way behind other States, in implementation of this scheme, as per the data on NREGS website.

This report by National Institute of Hydrology provides a compilation of the hydrological information of seventeen different river basins of South Bihar (now Jharkhand). Hydrological modeling of a basin requires detailed hydrological information about the basin. Further, the hydrological information of a region or a basin is of immense use to water resources planners and managers. However, the hydrological information collected by different organizations are often scattered and are not in representable form.

Ariticle Courtesy: National Alliance of Peoples' Movements

Dear Saaathis,

You all must have got the word by now ...Narmada is in serious crisis ...Not just the people and the environemnt, but the very project itself today...And unjust politics is also at its peak again ...This is the last and critical leg of the SSP battle...

Thousands of us are to embark on an indefinite mass action of Narmada from April 11th and sit before the Narmada Control Authority from the 13th at Indore. The situation is very serious and highly politicized, since even as there are 2 lakh adiavasis, farmers, fish workers, labourers yet to be rehabilitated in the submergence area, only corruption has increased ten-fold and gross environmental non-compliance has been exposed by the latest Devender Pandey Committee.

The Water Footprint Manual (2009) by the Water Footprint Network (WFN) is a comprehensive and up-to-date outline of the method of water footprint assessment. It introduces how water footprints can be calculated for individual processes and products, as well as for consumers, nations and businesses.

The concept is introduced as a comprehensive indicator of freshwater resources appropriation, as against the traditional and restricted measure of water withdrawal. The hidden water use behind products are measured over the full supply chain and water consumption volumes are measured by source and polluted volumes by type of pollution. All components of a total water footprint are specified geographically and temporally. Blue water (surface and groundwater), green water (rainwater stored in the soil as soil moisture) and grey water (polluted water) footprints are defined and are included along with the indirect water use in measuring the overall water footprints.

This  report by the World Bank discusses the climate changes in India and the disasters associated with these climate changes such as floods and droughts and their negative impact on agriculture, food production, livelihoods, security and the condition of the vulnerable groups in the country. The report goes on to discuss the policies undertaken by the Government of India to deal and adapt with these changes and the challenges faced in implementing these policies.

This report by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) highlights the phenomenon of climate change and argues that water storage will be a key strategy for climate change adaptation in the coming years.

The report discusses the importance of the Hindu Kush Himalayan ranges as an important source of water to a large section of the population and warns of the impending crisis of water scarcity and food insecurity in the regions of Asia, if water harvesting and conservation efforts are not undertaken. The document argues that water storage thus becomes a central issue, which is very complicated to implement, particularly in the Hindu Kush Himalayan region.