People and Organisations

Introduction: The Ganges

The first discussion was on June 4 2011, in which Rama Rauta and K C Sivaramakrishnan shared their experiences of working with the government and people’s organisations to save the Ganga.

There are about 227 lakes and wetlands in Sikkim, many of which are revered by the people as holy.

"When I wake up in the morning, I feel like a normal person, but when I get up, I realize that I cannot walk properly. I feel like running but I cannot", laments Md. Manik Uddin. This isn't unique to just Manik. Many others of Tapatjuri village in Nagaon, Assam feel the same.

Meghalaya boasts one of the rainiest places on the planet at Cherrapunjee, receiving over 11,000 mm of annual rainfall. Yet, despite all the rain, water availability remains a problem for many rural and urban communities across the State. Natural springs that have provided drinking water for generations are in crisis.

Water touches our lives in many ways. Our childhood memories are often entwined with the rivers that we have crossed, lakes that we have seen and the ponds that we may have jumped in. In his Bharat Darshan, the author Kaka Kalelkar travels across the length and breadth of the country and takes us to many such places we may have visited but have probably forgotten about.

Kanhar, 1976; Polavaram 1941. These are just two of the several dam projects that were proposed decades ago but are yet to see the light of day.

SOPPECOM and Water Aid have been working for the last three years on the right to water and sanitation. They have engaged in consultations with people across the nation, and used these discussions to articulate their campaign demands. The campaign has also come up with a wealth of resources on the topic but what does this right to sanitation entail? Mamata Dash explains.

With over 620 million defecating in the open in India, do we need a new approach to curb this practice? The force of habit is such that even households with toilets have around forty percent of adults defecating in the open. But, does curbing open defecation necessarily lead to significant improvements in child health outcomes like diarrhoea, anaemia, parasite infection and growth?

Groundwater isn't understood very well, especially in hilly areas where springs seem to appear and vanish of their own accord. However, as science tells us, there's no effect without a cause, and understanding the reason why water flows where it does can ensure optimal use of this natural resource to support life and livelihood. 

Mahananda, a major River of north Bihar rises in the Darjeeling district of West Bengal. It meets the Ganga after a journey of 376 km through the flat lands of Bihar, West Bengal and Bangladesh. It would spill its banks because of the flat slopes, causing deluge and waterlogging in the Katihar district of Bihar.