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Society, Culture, Religion and History
Power finance: Financial institutions in India's hydropower sector - A report by SANDRP, Urgewald and IRN
Posted on 12 Aug, 2010 05:01 PMThis report published by SANDRP, Urgewald and International Rivers Network (IRN) provides a brief background on India's power and financial sectors and illustrates the issues at stake by giving examples of two important power projects in India, the Dabhol project and the Maheshwar project.
The next part of the report describes the role that the domestic and international financial institutions have played and continue to play and the controversies that have been associated with the functioning of these institutions in the implementation of the hydropower projects in India.
The report emphasises the importance of the role of NGOs and civil society movements in making these institutions accountable to the common people whose lives are affected by the projects/ interventions.
Mountains of concrete: Dam building in the Himalayas - A report by International Rivers Network
Posted on 11 Aug, 2010 07:38 PMThis document by International Rivers Network provides a background for the recent plans initiated by India, Nepal, Pakistan and Bhutan to build several hundred dams on the Himalayan mountains, which store vast amounts of water and with their high slopes and fast moving rivers, present a huge potential for generating hydropower.
India, Nepal, Pakistan and Bhutan have been facing the increasing challenges of meeting their rising elecricity and energy needs and hydropower dams in the Himalayas are being proposed as solutions to meet a considerable part of these requirements.
The document examines the various arguments that have been put forward against the building of the dams as against the proposed advantages that the dams are claimed to have for these four countries, which share common geographical, topographical and eco-climatic features but have starkly different political and economic contexts.
Second press release from Water Initiatives Orissa on the myth of Surplus Water in Orissa
Posted on 11 Aug, 2010 01:46 PM
- WIO demands the Government of Orissa to come out with a White Paper on water first and then decide on new allocations.
- No new industries should be allowed to draw water unless this White Paper prepared and made public.
- That Orissa is a ‘Surplus Water’ state is a ‘myth’.
National Hydroelectric Power Corporation: People don't matter - A dossier by Urgewald
Posted on 11 Aug, 2010 01:24 PMThis document by Urgewald provides a brief overview on the role of India's premier dam building agency, the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) in the construction of dams in India and is highly critical of the mode in which the NHPC has been aggressively expanding its operations of building dams across rivers in the country.
It aims to inform the public, investors and financiers about NHPC’s track record and expansion plans and presents compiled information from three regions where NHPC has been actively involved in the construction of dams namely:
- Narmada Valley in Central India
- Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh in Northeastern India
- The lands of the Kuki people in Northwestern Burma, where NHPC is building a dam for the military junta.
A turning point in water saving technologies in north Gujarat’s groundwater socio-ecology – a report by Carewater INREM foundation
Posted on 08 Aug, 2010 10:13 PMThe study analyses the changes in farming system and socio-economic impacts at the household level through “before-and-after” (longitudinal) comparison of adopters an
Floods, drinking water contamination, mining and waterbodies, water bills, water conflicts - News roundup (1-7 August 2010)
Posted on 07 Aug, 2010 04:51 PMFloods: lessons to be learnt from the massive flooding in Surat city
A report by IIM criticises the way in which dams are managed in the country and calls for the need to apply Management Science / Operations Research techniques and information technology to improve dam management and prevention of floods
Fluorosis in Gujarat: A disaster ahead – A report by CAREWATER
Posted on 07 Aug, 2010 08:53 AMState of MGNREGS in Bundelkhand - A report by Centre for Environment and Food Security (2010)
Posted on 06 Aug, 2010 11:05 PMThis report describes the findings of a rapid survey conducted by Centre for Environment and Food Security (CEFS) to evaluate the performance of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) in the 50 poorest dalit villages of Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh. The rapid survey was conducted in the districts of Chitrakoot, Banda, Mahoba, Jhansi and Lalitpur.
Duel among duals - Popular science of basaltic hydrogeology in a village of Saurashtra - A paper by CAREWATER
Posted on 03 Aug, 2010 07:57 PMThe report by Carewater INREM Foundation deals with the duel between popular science used in decision making by farmers and the formal science of hydrogeology that is based on scientific data collection. These two parallel streams of knowledge exist together, sometimes complement, and at other times are at conflict. People’s knowledge on hydrology is not ‘dying’, but thriving and growing well, refreshed continually by interfaces with science. In hard rock areas, the high hydrogeologic variability makes observation as important as theory since it is localized, pervasive and relevant to the needs of people.
UN affirms the right to safe and clean drinking water
Posted on 02 Aug, 2010 02:56 PMA remarkable piece of water history should have been headline news everywhere this week.