Health

This report by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) deals with the economics of wastewater use in agriculture. It presents an economic framework for the assessment of the use of reclaimed water in agriculture, as part of a comprehensive planning process in water resource allocation strategies to provide for a more economically efficient and sustainable water utilization. 

In recent years, scientists have detected very high levels of aerosol pollution in the air over India. Some of it is the result of industrial and agricultural activity, and some of it is nature at work.

Sanitation/Wastewater

• India tops the list of nations lacking toilets
• India hunts for a Rural Toilet Design, 1000 Euros up for grabs
• 82% of rural India deprived of three basic necessities of life — tapped drinking water, electricity connection and sanitation
• There are 700 million cell phone connections in India, but only half this number of Indians have access to private toilets, says a UN study

Climate Change

• India to release climate change report on Tuesday

 Environment

• India proposes a new emission check system
• Call for declaring soil as national resource: Soil Conservation Society of India

This is a status report of Arghyam's sponsored efforts to develop and showcase community managed water and sanitation systems in 17 schools of 7 districts of Karnataka.

The Government of Karnataka through its Suvarna Jala Yojana aims at providing drinking water in 23,683 rural government schools. This was funded to the tune of Rs 7735 lakh. Arghyam conducted a survey of this scheme in 2007 in 7 districts to ascertain the status of the scheme.  The survey found out that out of the 1269 rainwater harvesting structures completed by November 2006 only 140 structures were  functional.

This presentation by ACWADAM deals with climate change and its impacts on long-term replenishment of groundwater. The presentation provides an overview of the current insights and knowledge on climate change impacts and gives an overview of best options for developing and safeguarding groundwater resources.

This collaborative research work between National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases (NICED), Kolkata and International Vaccine Institute (IVI), Seoul under the Diseases of the Most Impoverished (DOMI) Program, supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation aims to give useful information for the prevention and control of typhoid fever and cholera. The aim is to accelerate the introduction of new generation vaccines against cholera, shigellosis, and typhoid fever, through research and capacity-building. 

This paper by National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases (NICED) is based on a prospective, community based study in an impoverished urban site in Kolkata in order to measure the burden of cholera, describe its epidemiology, and search for potential risk factors that could be addressed by public health strategies. The study population was enumerated at the beginning and end of the study period. Surveillance through five field outposts and two referral hospitals for acute, watery, non-bloody diarrhoea was conducted from May 2003 to April 2004.

This study by the Central Public Health and Environmental Engineering Organisation (CPHEEO) assesses the status of water supply, sanitation and solid waste management in selected 300 cities and towns of India including all metropolitan cities and selected Class I and Class II urban centres. It estimates the requirement of funds for full coverage of population by these services in the urban areas of the country from 1999 to 2022 (at five yearly intervals). Overall, the study confirms the normal notion that the metropolitan cities are better provided for than the other size class of urban centres.

This paper from Current Science deals with anaemia in pregnancy and low birth weight babies, which can lead to maternal and infant mortality, and continues to plague India and several other countries despite nutritional counselling and maternal iron and folic acid supplementation. It reports the results of fluoride avoidance as an approach to address the issue. The methodology of the research entailed the following -