People and Organisations

A village of nine families bounded by a river on one side and thick forests on the other, lived here in Kilcoupe, an Irula hamlet in the Nilgiris. The women went out into the forest in search of water, a risky activity, as there was quite a large chance that they would encounter either a gaur or an elephant, sometimes even a leopard.

“Water flows humbly to the lowest level. Nothing is weaker than water, yet for overcoming what is hard and strong, nothing surpasses it.”– Lao Tzu

South India has a rich tradition of tanks with the three southern states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh contributing to close to 92% of the total irrigation by tanks in the 1970s. Two decades later, this number dwindled to close to 53%. A decade after that, in 2001, the total contribution of tank irrigation in all of India was estimated to be just around 5.18%.

Kalwaheri is a village of over thousand households comprising mostly of small farmers and landless people tucked away in Karnal, Haryana. The district, once the birth place of the Green Revolution, is now far from green.

Mile after mile of saline lands line the Delhi-Rohtak-Bhiwani stretch of the highway. Here, the land wasn't always saline, it became that way thanks to canal irrigation. Farmers have used extensive surface water, which has led to an increase in groundwater levels. This leads to the twin problem of waterlogging and salinity.

Climate change poses a threat to all. Be it forests, water or agriculture- it affects everything. India's Northeast, particularly, has witnessed a great deal of this impact. Sikkim, the physical bridge between the Northeast and mainland India, is also bearing the brunt of climate change in a myriad ways with agriculture and water bearing the most pronounced repercussions.

71% of earth’s surface is covered with water found in rivers, lakes and oceans. Due to massive urbanization and industrialization, these resources are often polluted with garbage and industrial waste among other things. There are several ways of cleaning this wastewater. One such method is bioaugmentation.

The Western Ghats, known for its biodiversity, is one of India's most sought after ecological hotspots. One of its stark features is the basalt rocks, often referred to as water buckets indicating the water retention capacity of the rock, found there.

People learn and retain better through visual media. That's a fact. So what better way to bring attention to topics around the themes of water than by screening movies? That was the thought process behind organising an event on World Water Day with school students in Shimla. 

In honour of World Water Day 2014, the theme at the Green Bazaar, a community event run by The Alternative, was water. India Water Portal collaborated to add some 'blue' to the 'green'.