International Issues

This document provides the background for a workshop on 'Water Challenges in Greater Bangalore', organised by NIAS and CASSUM at the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Indian Institute of Science (IISC) campus on March 27, 2007.

The document highlights the current scenario of privatisation of water services that are being funded by international financial institutions under the water sector reforms in the city of Bangalore, which have had a very negative impact on the urban poor, who continue to face the problem of inadequate, unreliable and unsafe water supply as compared to other posh and water rich areas in the city.

Had the opportunity to attend a recent worldwide gathering on the topic of youth and social entrepreneurship, which gave much food for thought. The event was the 5th Global YES Summit, entitled “ReWork The World”.  Details of the gathering are at www.reworktheworld.org . The message there  was that we need to do something radical in order to find productive work for the vast numbers of youth coming into the workforce especially in developing nations. The new jobs cannot be of the old variety, they need to be green, sustainable jobs. In other words, we need to ‘rework the world’.  The conference was based on the premise that these new jobs will come out of social entrepreneurship.

In realizing this vision, WWF-India has partnered with Tetra Pak in designing the Young Climate Savers programme, aimed at imparting education on climate change in 200 schools across 10 cities in India through teacher training workshops and mainstreaming climate issues in the academic curriculum.

After months of playing hide and go seek, the world's biggest polluter finally got working to shape up their act with the Clea

Arsenic (As) in groundwater is a major health concern in Asia and the risks from using shallow tube wells (STWs) for drinking-water are well- known. At present, twelve countries in the Asian region have reported high As levels in part of their groundwater resources.

When climate change was first posited as "real" people all over the world realized that this issue encompasses the inter linkage of several other issues. The scope and magnitude of the consequences of climate change are also very far reaching.

Some of the issues the SBSTA is currently dealing with are land use, land-use change and forestry, adaptation, mitigation, research, systematic observation and bunker fuels.

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