Equity

This year’s budget was expected to be extensively farmer- and rural-sector oriented. And that is exactly what it turned out to be. The distress in the agrarian sector has intensified and its political implications were rife this year considering the Lok Sabha elections are scheduled next year.

There is a reason why water bodies are considered a resource. From the water they provide to the many living organisms they support, water bodies are constantly supplying us with things essential to our survival. They also provide livelihood as this story of some enterprising tribal women in a remote village in Andhra Pradesh exemplifies.

Pitidri is a nondescript village that dots the rainshadow area of Purulia district in West Bengal. Droughts are common here even when the area is endowed with above average rainfall of over 1300 mm a year. Until some time ago, Urmila Mahato, a 42-year-old farmer from Pitidri had been struggling to ensure her family’s food security.

The fields are silvery white with raw salt crusts in the vicinity of Nawa, a small town on the northwestern banks of Sambhar lake, India’s largest inland lake. Nawa lies about 90 kilometres east of Jaipur. Also an extensive saline wetland and a Ramsar site, the blinding white salt flats stretch as far as one can see.

Rathnakar Salian is a traditional catamaran fisherman from Sasihitlu village in Mangaluru district of Karnataka. He learned how to throw the net, how to pull it out, and how to look for fish in the sea from his father and uncles.

The Palk Bay is an ecological paradise located between the island nation of Sri Lanka and the South East Peninsula India. The region separates the coastal areas of Tamil Nadu from the northern parts of Sri Lanka.

The Palk Bay is a 15,000 sq km biodiversity conglomeration nestled between the island nation of Sri Lanka and South East Peninsula India with a coastal length of 250 km on the Indian side. 

“Sometimes I go for open defecation, sometimes I use the toilet. It’s not like I always have to use the toilet. When I go for work here and there, I defecate in the jungle,” says Renu from one of the remote villages in Tehri Garwal district of Uttarakhand when asked why she does not use latrines every day.

November 19th is World Toilet Day. Enormous progress has been made in the global effort to provide safe and affordable toilets for the world's poorest citizens since World Toilet Day was first declared in 2001.

In the early hours, the villagers of Khalabari, a tribal-dominated village in the Dumuripadar gram panchayat of Koraput district in Odisha step out of their houses for bringing wood and drinking water. The road to the forest where the water is available is rocky.