Hydropower

Bhakra dam was the first hydropower project of independent India. Though it brought electricity and water to vast areas, the people displaced in the Bilaspur area of Himachal Pradesh remain dissatisfied. Many of them were not adequately compensated, and began living and farming in the adjoining forests. They were allowed to stay put--unofficially--by the administration.

Aiming for an outcome-oriented programme, Government sets ambitious targets for MGNREGS

Government to install community water purification plants in water toxic zones

In December 2015, more than forty years after it was conceived, the Government was set to launch India’s ambitious 30-link river interlinking project linking 37 rivers.

Although the state of Uttarakhand is rich in water and forest resources, its watersheds are under threat of wasting and erosion due to decreased forest cover, faulty agricultural practices, hydrologic imbalances and natural calamities. The growing population is further increasing the pressure on natural resources.

Government decides not to allow new construction on the Ganga

First water atlas of the Himalayas launched in Paris

Paraswani village in Balodabazar district, Chhattisgarh contains vast reserves of limestone, a sedimentary rock that is a primary ingredient in the cement manufacturing process. Since 1992, Ultratech Cement Ltd. (UTCL) followed by four other similar companies, have begun excavating this rock within a 30 km radius of the village.

Chennai rains claim 450 lives

The epic voyage--Nadisutra--along the Ganga may have been the high point of Emmanuel Theophilus’s recent work, but there have been many more peaks and valleys for this fervent mountaineer cum ecologist. Theo lives in a remote village near Munsiyari in Uttarakhand.