Society, Culture, Religion and History

Sanitation/Wastewater

• India tops the list of nations lacking toilets
• India hunts for a Rural Toilet Design, 1000 Euros up for grabs
• 82% of rural India deprived of three basic necessities of life — tapped drinking water, electricity connection and sanitation
• There are 700 million cell phone connections in India, but only half this number of Indians have access to private toilets, says a UN study

Climate Change

• India to release climate change report on Tuesday

 Environment

• India proposes a new emission check system
• Call for declaring soil as national resource: Soil Conservation Society of India

Writing a good research paper is a challenge, but it is very vital for students & researchers looking forward to publish their results.

People contemplating to make R&D as a career need skills to write good Research papers. This workshop is designed to impart skills to students and researchers to write better research papers.

The paper argues that watershed management has to be fluid to take into consideration new realities like change in flow conditions, external realities like unintended impacts and the need to maintain minimum downstream flows for environmental and other purposes.

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has recently published the 20^th Anniversary edition of its Human Development Report (HDR) which presents the latest Human Development Index (HDI). The premise of the HDI reports is simple - national development should be measured not simply by national income nor should an individual’s well-being be evaluated by money alone, as had long been the practice, but also by life expectancy and literacy. 

Income is of course crucial - without resources, any progress is difficult. Yet there is a need to gauge whether people can lead long and healthy lives, whether they have the opportunity to be educated and whether they are free to use their knowledge and talents to shape their own destinies.

Recent news indicates extensive reports on the threat and destruction unleashed by cyclone Jal in the three states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, with the states of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka being affected the most. Cyclone Jal has led to heavy rainfall in both these states leading to floods and a heavy death toll in the coastal districts of both the states, besides reports of destruction of agricultural produce in the state of Karnataka.

South India

• 'Cyclone Jal' hits South India leaving nearly 30 dead and scores injured

Andhra Pradesh

• Administration on high alert with the threat of cyclone Jal approaching the Andhra Pradesh coastline
• Cyclone 'Jal' claims lives in Andhra Pradesh
• Cyclone 'Jal' claims five lives in Andhra Pradesh
• Cyclone threat in Andhra, rains kill 20
• Andhra rains cause havoc, death toll rises to 25
• Rain claims 4 lives in Vizag, 2 in East Godavari
• Rain fury continues in Andhra Pradesh's coastal districts
• Heavy rains wreak havoc in coastal Andhra Pradesh