Society, Culture, Religion and History

A seasonal river in Pali, Rajasthan, the Bandi is nothing short of a sewer. The textile town has witnessed rampant industrial growth, raw sewage discharges and toxic contamination of its waters. The river, which is devoid of lean season flow, is polluted up to 55 km downstream. The river water is unfit for drinking as well as irrigation.

The Palk Bay is an ecological paradise located between the island nation of Sri Lanka and the South East Peninsula India. The region separates the coastal areas of Tamil Nadu from the northern parts of Sri Lanka.

The Palk Bay is a 15,000 sq km biodiversity conglomeration nestled between the island nation of Sri Lanka and South East Peninsula India with a coastal length of 250 km on the Indian side. 

“Sometimes I go for open defecation, sometimes I use the toilet. It’s not like I always have to use the toilet. When I go for work here and there, I defecate in the jungle,” says Renu from one of the remote villages in Tehri Garwal district of Uttarakhand when asked why she does not use latrines every day.

November 19th is World Toilet Day. Enormous progress has been made in the global effort to provide safe and affordable toilets for the world's poorest citizens since World Toilet Day was first declared in 2001.

In the early hours, the villagers of Khalabari, a tribal-dominated village in the Dumuripadar gram panchayat of Koraput district in Odisha step out of their houses for bringing wood and drinking water. The road to the forest where the water is available is rocky.

States freeze payments to MGNREGA workers

The theme for the Conclave this year is “Water Use Efficiency: An Imperative for India” to highlight the imperative of water use efficiency in the industry, agriculture and urban contexts. 

In India, there has been a stunning growth of inequality in the last 25 years and a spectacular growth of inequality in the last 15 years. It is not just a question of wealth and income; inequality is visible in every sector. It is visible in water whether (it is) water for irrigation or drinking water.

I grew up in the Konkan, drinking water from a well that was filled by rainwater, filtered through the area's laterite aquifers and “fortified” by the leaves shed by the jackfruit tree above it. And then I moved to Pune, where I came across a cloudy, salty, heavy liquid that passed for water.