Society, Culture, Religion and History

We all know the statistics: 2.6 billion people around the world are without access to a basic toilet. Diarrhoea – the vast majority of it due to poor sanitation and hygiene – is the second biggest killer of children worldwide.

Between us, we also have many of the answers. We have experiences of low-cost technologies that are acceptable and affordable for poor communities in rural areas. We have been involved in designing communications programmes that have contributed to sustained behaviour change.

We have seen governments and civil society working together to set up policies and programmes that ensure access to better sanitation in challenging settings, such as crowded informal settlements in fast-growing megacities. We have also seen businesses grow up around sanitation and hygiene, allowing individuals to make a dignified living and clients to buy the sorts of products and services they want and need.

Content courtesy: India WASH Forum

This research monograph on Thirupporur and Vadakkuppatu: Eighteenth Century Locality Accounts, prepared jointly by the Centre for Policy Studies, Chennai and Tamil University, Thanjavur, presents a graphic picture of the society and polity of eighteenth century Tamil Nadu.

Content courtesy: OpenSpace

Organization: Agragamee

Agragamee, which means, "pioneer", is a group of activists and thinkers committed to working with marginalized and underprivileged communities in the tribal districts of Orissa, in India. Our efforts at initiating a people-centred development have combined an issue-based approach with programmes for socio-economic development.

It does this in the context of the new decentralised  governance structures that are based on the assumption that domestic water supply is the legitimate domain of women and thus power and authority needs to be granted to women to manage water resources.

However, there is a very little understanding of how this has benefited women and what are the challenges experienced during the process of implementation or the outcomes gained from these processes, in the context of the Indian society that continues to propogate patriarchal values and is based on structures that are inherently hierarchical and inequitable.

Some of the papers dwell on and explore the inherent biases in the literature and make an attempt to understand their implications for women in managing water resources, while some of the papers share case studies on the outcomes of the implementation of the decentralised water management policies at the village level.

This report deals with environmental assessment and environmental management framework for the World Bank supported Jalanidhi-2 programme of the Kerala Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Agency (KRWSA), an important player in rural water supply and sanitation sector of the state.

Orissa was hit by two spates of flood in September 2011, the first one being caused by heavy rains in the Mahanadi catchment and release of huge discharges from Hirakud dam. The second one was caused by heavy rains and flooding of Brahmani, Baitarani and Budhabalanga rivers. These floods point to the loopholes in river basin planning and management and calls for urgent attention of planners and policy makers. 

A look at the news in the month of September 2011, indicates that the month has experienced a range of events such as heavy floods in different parts of the country with Orissa being the worst affected state, a major earthquake in the North East with Sikkim being the most affected, reports of flash floods and landslides in various parts of the country as well as  reports of heavy rainfall in different parts of the country with indications that the rainfall may further subside in the coming week.

Water Initiatives Odisha, brings out a special note on this issue in response to the latest spell of the flood disaster in northern Odisha Rivers.