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Credit: Binay, Business Standard

During conflicts and wars, many die as a consequence of bombings and battles. To the death toll, many more zeroes get added in the days and months to follow! Poor hygiene and sanitation takes several hundred lives in the refugee settlements.

In an earlier post on IUWM and interventions based on hydrological considerations, I had discussed the typologies which could define the way we intervene and address the inconsistencies in the water utility services as well as the net water availability of the region.

This report by ACWADAM based on a rapid hydro-geological appraisal of 2 villages, in Supaul distict in flood-prone North Bihar, gives a good understanding of local conditions as well generates a lot of useful data, that can help in planning groundwater management interventions in a village. Such information is crucial especially for regions such as North Bihar, where current data about the local conditions are literally absent.

On 15 November 2009, I set out to gather see how people were coping in the aftermath of the floods that hit parts of North Karnataka. We chose to visit Gudisagar in Navalgund Taluk in Dharwad district.

 Famous quote on Ganges:

"The Ganga, especially, is the river of India, beloved of her people, round which are intertwined her memories, her hopes and fears, her songs of triumph, her victories and her defeats. She has been a symbol of India's age-long culture and civilization, ever changing, ever flowing, and yet ever the same Ganga."

The complete title reads as “The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World to That Which Is to Come”. I see the version two of this epic work by John Bunyan being written in our times, for the journey which the modern world has undertaken to achieve “development” at all costs. It won’t be an allegory this time. It would be a factual story of how we plundered the planet of its resources, to realize a life which could no longer be sustained within the replenishing levels of the natural processes.

William Pollard of the

Pilgrims making their way to the source of Ganges known as Gomukh (a glacier high up in the Himalayas named Gangotri). Photo Credit: Vineeta Rajput