Governance

Last date for contest submissions is March 26th 2008 The Global Water Challenge (www.globalwaterchallenge.org) and Ashoka's Changemakers (www.changemakers.net) have launched a global collaborative competition to find the most innovative community-based water and sanitation solutions.

A National Consultation Meet was organized by WaterAid towards developing a Citizens Report on Water and Sanitation in India was held on the 12th January 2008 at New Delhi.

In Vijaywada a determined effort has been made by the municipality to subsidize individual connection charge for the poor and break this entry barrier which prevents them from accessing piped water. An explanation of the details of the project. Should this be the approach for ensuring water for all?

Bottled water as daily drinking water Thirty five years after Bisleri launched India's first bottled water, urban India is filled with numerous bottled water brands, some known, and some unknown. There are more then 250 brands and 2000 plus bottling plants across the country. The market for packaged drinking water is around Rs 10 billion and is growing at the rate of 40 percent per annum.

According to David Foster, it is the cost of 'free' water :

Some video clippings of the Arkavathy Janadesh Yatra, a river walk along the entire length of the Arkavathy river outside Bangalore, to draw attention to this dying river.

Two press releases on the work being done by the National Disaster Management Authority regarding early warning systems for flooding, guidelines for management of urban flooding and more : http://www.pibmumbai.gov.in/scripts/detail.asp?releaseId=E2008PR58

There is a spurt of gastro-enteritis in the city today. Residents think that it is the contaminated mains supply from the BWSSB that is the source of the gastroenteritis. The Bangalore water supply and Sewerage Board thinks it is water bought by residents from the private water tankers that is the cause but then seems to change its mind.

Its an obviously useful thing for India Water Portal to have a photo repository with a free-use-with-acknowledgement license of some sort. But we have not had the opportunity to think through all the details on this. What is the best way to create this (Google Picasa, Flickr or some other tool) ? What are the details of the copyright that we would use. How would users upload their photos ?