Society, Culture, Religion and History

Ariticle Courtesy: National Alliance of Peoples' Movements

Dear Saaathis,

You all must have got the word by now ...Narmada is in serious crisis ...Not just the people and the environemnt, but the very project itself today...And unjust politics is also at its peak again ...This is the last and critical leg of the SSP battle...

Thousands of us are to embark on an indefinite mass action of Narmada from April 11th and sit before the Narmada Control Authority from the 13th at Indore. The situation is very serious and highly politicized, since even as there are 2 lakh adiavasis, farmers, fish workers, labourers yet to be rehabilitated in the submergence area, only corruption has increased ten-fold and gross environmental non-compliance has been exposed by the latest Devender Pandey Committee.

Institute of Rural Research and Development (IRRAD) organised "Jal Chetna Yatra" where three groups started the yatra from three different blocks of Mewat on 19th March, sensitizing the community towards water issues and collect at the district headquarters on 22nd March, World Water Day.

Click on the attachment to read the entire report.

The Story of Bottled Water: How "Manufactured Demand" pushes what we don’t need and destroys what we need most

On March 22nd – World Water Day – The Story of Stuff Project released The Story of Bottled Water, a 7-minute animated film, that takes a provacative, humorous look at bottled water. Hosted by Annie Leonard, the creator of the internet hit The Story of Stuff, the film was co-produced with five leading sustainability advocacy organizations: Corporate Accountability International, Environmental Working Group, Food & Water Watch, Polaris Institute and Pacific Institute.

The Story of Bottled Water employs the Story of Stuff style to tell the story of manufactured demand, specifically how Americans are influenced to buy more than half a billion bottles of water every week, when they can get it almost free from a tap.

This paper presents and explores the efforts of the Government of Rajasthan, in tackling the problem of fluorosis and in ensuring that the Rajasthan Integrated Fluorosis Mitigation Programme (RIFMP) impacts all segments of the target population, including dalits. 

Rajasthan has almost half of the total villages, with the highest levels of fluoride in the country. After the success of the UNICEF pilot project using Domestic De-fluoridation Units (DDUs) at household levels, the Government of Rajasthan in 2005 adopted this technology and implemented the Rajasthan Integrated Fluorosis Mitigation Programme (RIFMP), across the state.

• New bill to penalize those wasting drinking water-Deccan Herald, Bangalore March 9
• Privatisation no solution to tackle water shortage in city- Deccan Herald March 9
• Water Crisis to worsen in city- Deccan Herald March 12
• City is the second highest water waster in country at 50.9% New Delhi top the list at 52.4%- Deccan Herald March 13

While all these questions remain unanswered and new ones add

The city gets thirstier under the scorching summer sun and the water vendors make fast buck in some instances as much as Rs 1000 for a tank load of water, a consortium of concerned organisations and institutions working on water and environment issues invite you to a panel discussion and film screenings on the use and abuse of water on March 22nd & 23rd 2010 at Ashirvad, 30 St. Mark Road Cross, Opp. State Bank of India at 5.45pm.

Venue: Mumbai

Organizer's: TISS, SaciWATERs, SOPPECOM, GWA

The Fifth South Asian Gender, Water & Equity Workshop

Theme:"Gender, Water and Equity"

Forum for Policy Dialogue on Water Conflicts (Forum) in India, in collaboration with the Chalakudi Puzha Samrakshan Samiti and Kerala State Resource Centre of the Forum, is organizing a Training Programme on Understanding and Resolving Water Conflicts from 5 to 8 April 2010 in Kerala (the exact location in Kerala would be announced later).

In 2010, theatre continues to be one of our core areas of intervention – trainings, workshops, working with groups and communities, performances, post-performance discussions… The performing media initiative of media matters now has a repertoire of plays being performed by its youth theatre groups, the most recent being Main, Asha... (on sex selection) and Kataar! (on right to information).

Consolidating these experiences, we organize our annual six-day residential workshop – an opportunity to interact and work with both, 'development actors' and 'theatre activists'.

Our previous workshops have been attended by participants representing CBOs, NGOs, Government departments, theatre groups and educational institutions from across states – Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.

Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship

The Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship are designed to support and celebrate social entrepreneurs whose work has the potential for large-scale positive influence in important areas often burdened by intractable imbalances -- tolerance and human rights, health, environmental sustainability, peace and security, institutional responsibility, and economic and social equity.