Photos, Illustrations and other Images

Pallichal panchayat in Thiruvananthapuram is one of its best performing panchayats. It has received a number of awards for achieving high literacy levels, keeping up good sanitation practices and for implementing a number of agricultural and irrigation initiatives.

Sudha Gunavante is a contented woman. She has reason to be. After all, she and her husband have managed to prosper on their farm, her children are well-educated and well-settled, and her rhododendron syrup is the pride of the village. If that is not enough, she has also managed to escape a centuries-old curse.

For the last 50 years, the Bhilai Steel Plant, which is India's largest integrated steel plant has got its supply of iron ore from Dalli Rajhara's mines. Dalli Rajhara, a municipality which is also an industrial city is located 90km south of Durg in Chhattisgarh. It is a part of the Rajhara group of mines. Iron ore mined in this area are of two types - hematite and magnetite.

Tawang, a mystical, magical place is nestled in the mountains of Arunachal Pradesh. Indians not from this region as well as foreigners need special permission to visit this restricted area. It is only accessible through a narrow mountain pass. A road snakes through this pass, which is the second highest motorable pass in the world, and at a height of 13,700 feet, reaches a crystal clear lake.

Left, right, up, down...bump, bump, bump! That was me… being thrown about on all sides of the jeep that I was in. No, I wasn’t off-roading! I was on an investigative mission to Pinrow, a village in Nainital district, Uttarakhand from my home. I was investigating the impact of the state government's push for 100% of child births to happen in the hospitals.

Meet Ajay, a software professional in Bangalore with over 8 years work experience. He came across the India Water Portal when he searched for borewell consultants. He found the information on the site so reliable and useful that he kept coming back. On one such visit, he read about the volunteer program, which encourages non-water experts to engage with water data.

“I want to live in a house like this!” was my first thought when I entered Vishwanath’s home. (Vishwanath is Founder, Director of Biome Solutions). My colleague and I had gone to visit his house to see and understand how he has implemented ranwater harvesting systems and other green initiatives there.

Pure, clean and safe drinking water isn’t available easily these days. Growing population, industrial development and environmental degradation are all causes for this. Given this situation, it becomes even more important for us to be aware of purification techniques and the available water purifiers in the market to ensure that our drinking water is of good quality. 

If you thought that Uttarakhand was a land populated solely by tourists, I wouldn’t blame you. After all, that’s been the focus of the media in relation to who’s been affected by the recent floods – pilgrims at the Char Dhams and at Hemkund Sahib. The numbers are staggering, no doubt.

Sanitation is a familiar term but is often misunderstood to mean the building and using of toilets but this isn’t true. It covers a whole range of thought and action both pre and post latrine use, which includes cleanliness, personal hygiene and the safe disposal of the urine and faeces.