News and Articles

This report by Him Dhara, an environmental research and action collective, deals with the Asian Development Bank financed hydropower projects in Himachal Pradesh, which are leading to obstruction of the rivers and their consequent disappearance for harnessing energy and making ‘judicious’ use of the water. Within the hydro sector the attention has turned to the Indian Himalayan region which is estimated to have seventy nine per cent of the total hydropower potential of the country.

The technology of ‘run of the river’ (ROR) used to tap “the flow of rivers” in high gradient zones to generate power has given impetus to setting up of hydro-projects in the Himalayan states. In India, the mountainous region of the Himalayas offered the “perfect setting” for such projects, with the availability of several flowing water sources that could be tapped before they reached the plains. Of the Himalayan states, after Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh is second in line with a hydropower potential of about 21000 MW. The installed capacity has increased twenty fold (from 326 MW to 6370 MW) in the last ten years indicating the frenzied pace of hydropower development in the state.

The Ganges

 This would be in addition to the other measures approved by the Cabinet on 19th November, 2009 under the special package for implementing drought mitigation strategies in Bundelkhand.

It’s May already and the advent of one of India’s most awaited natural event the monsoon is nigh. This year according to early reports it may be in the Andaman’s by the 12th of May itself and may arrive in Kerala earlier than June 1st its usual arrival date.

While the city is getting ready cleaning up its storm-water drains and sewerage networks other measures are equally crucial. The de-silting of the various tanks in the city is a must as well as the cleaning up of the channels leading up to them. The overflow weirs and the ‘Rajakaluves’ the channels linking one tank to the other, need to be dredged and de-silted too.

You must have heard of the meteorological department’s monsoon forecast. It promises to be a near normal monsoon season from June-September with rains expected to be 98 per cent of the long period average with a 5 per cent variation. Sounds good.

This document describes the Goa Sewerage System and Sanitation Services Management Act and includes:

How exactly do contaminants spread underground? How much urban stress can an aquifer withstand?

With the need for clean fresh water growing daily, finding answers to those questions is a top priority for researchers at G360, the new Centre for Applied Groundwater Research at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada.

 Marking the exact location on the map.  It’s not really the lake itself, but the lake bed area on the right side of the bund/road adjoining the lake.

The agricultural land below the lake abutment forming the Bellandur Lake is being developed for residential / commercial use as the case may be. It is the present owners’ choice to convert agricultural land into residential / commercial purposes as it has now come within BBMP area. Some who may not like to convert have that choice too.

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 Due to my childhood acquaintance with paddy cultivation, I used to be curious to understand global processes and methodologies around this cultivation and to do better to help my local community benefit.