Equity

Disasters have the ability to disrupt everyday life. However, it is not often that we probe about what constitutes a disaster? How do we define it? Well, a disaster varies in definition for different agencies.

The worst and most inhumane form of discrimination and untouchability is seen when it comes to water. Even today, many villages have a different source of water allotted for Dalits. Many a times, upper caste men and women forbid Dalit women from touching the public source of water fearing the source will be “polluted".

Women, major contributors in agriculture and irrigation

Historically, water is a gendered burden, with women being the primary caregivers responsible for cooking, washing and cleaning chores in the house and in modern times in institutions (teachers, anganwadi and healthcare workers). Women have traditionally been associated with various water related tasks - be it collecting, fetching, or purifying water.

Many of the challenges sanitation workers face, stem from their lack of visibility in society, says a report ‘Health, Safety and Dignity of Sanitation Workers’ produced jointly by The World Bank,

Maharashtra is the second largest sugar producing state in India, after Uttar Pradesh where as high as 1.6 million farmers cultivate sugarcane on 0.7 million hectares of land. The sugarcane industry provides direct employment to about 0.16 million workers while 1.5 million workers engage in sugarcane harvesting and transport operations every year.

Parasite, the South Korean movie released in 2019 has gained attention worldwide especially after its historical win at the Oscars 2020. The film takes on two different worlds co-existing in a country but set apart by class and wealth.

The challenges to sustain groundwater dependency in India are many where groundwater over extraction is not only leading to rapid depletion of the resource, but also giving rise to water quality issues in a situation where the response at the level of policy continues to be lukewarm.

“Every single number in the budget, be it receipts or expenditure is a lie. The budget numbers can no longer be trusted, as the difference between actual expenditure and budget estimates are off by around 25 percent.

Common pool resources, popularly known as “commons”, are those resources which are accessible to the whole community or village and to which no individual has exclusive ownership or property rights. Commons have two essential characteristics: non-excludability and high-subtractability.