Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of In Re: News Item titled "Nayar river is vanishing - a yatra reveals conservation goes beyond science and policy" appearing in ‘The Down To Earth’ dated 03.06.2025. The original application was registered suo-motu based on the news item titled "Nayar …
five months after the murder of two social activists, Maheshkant and Sarita, in Gaya district of Bihar due to a village conflict, a similar danger threatens another social worker. Chandrabhushan Singh, mukhiya (head) of the Rauniya village panchayat in Khijarsarai block, is facing the consequences of renovating a tank in …
A recent letter from a reader has disturbed me enormously. B P Radhakrishna, president of the Geological Society of India, in response to a story in Down To Earth about how drought was affecting the mango harvest in Andhra Pradesh, wrote that the problem was not the current failure of …
Residents of drought-hit Osmanabad district learn from an innovative programme on groundwater conservation that local involvement and schemes at the micro-level can go a long way in saving the precious resource. Surekha waits in a line for hours on end for the tanker that brings drinking water to her village. …
The government of India has for long considered watersheds as catalysts for development activities in rain-fed areas. In 1994, it developed guidelines for implementation of watershed programmes. These were subsequently revised, in 2001, by the department of land resources of the ministry of rural development and circulated as guidelines for …
Singapore may just have discovered a remedy to reduce water wastage at the household level. The city is known for its long-standing efforts at saving water through recycling water and promoting rainwater harvesting. Now, they have started the
When you hear about Latur, you remember earthquakes, drought, and disaster. But making beauty out of ashes is what the Kalpakala Industry deserves credit for. Over the last three decades, the ubiquitous handmade paper has seen a flourishing business in Latur. One would wonder what a drought-prone area has to …
R K Palhan, former general manager, Central Railways, has two innovations to his credit. One has already been implemented in most railway stations under Central Railways, and the other will take off next year. Media-shy, Palhan believes these small changes, if adopted with active government support, can usher in a …
organic reservoir: Spreading an ultra-thin layer of organic molecules on the surface of reservoirs could prevent millions of cubic metres of water evaporating each year, according to Flexible Solutions, a Canadian company. It is the first to commercialise the technique. Field tests of the technology conducted in several countries show …
In Kenya, where sixty per cent of all agriculturists are small farmers with less than 5 hectares (ha) of land, Peter Saku is an interesting case. A marginal farmer of Kifurusha village in Kenya's Machakos district, he grows 11 different kinds of produce on his meagre 0.5 ha. What makes …
Of the three farm water conservation programmes currently under way in Karnataka, the Jal Samvardhene Yojana (jsy) has comple ted a year of operation. The progra mme’s stated objective is to demonstrate the viability of community-based approaches to tank rehabilitation. For this purpose an Integrated Tank Development Plan has been …
what do cities like Mumbai, Karachi, Sao Paulo and Johannesburg have in common besides their high population? A strong reliance on forests for their drinking water, reveals Running Pure, a study by the World Bank and the World Wide Fund for Nature. Around a third of the world's top 105 …
A few days ago, most of India reeled under drought. Cities thirsted for water. Karnataka's chief minister S M Krishna - seeing water supply in his software capital reduced to once in three days - announced desperate measures, such as prayer. The entire country seemed to await the first emancipatory …
the column width dedicated to rain in the mainstream print media has hit an all-time high. A few days ago, tv news reporters with that special ability to capture (and re-create) frenzy planted themselves on Kerala's beaches, not chasing a vacationing prime minister but waiting for the monsoon. Urban India …
When residents of Mansingpura village in Madhya Pradesh's (mp) Betul district successfully cultivated wheat in the year 1996, it was the grand finale of their water conservation efforts. Thanks to the Rajiv Gandhi Watershed Development Mission, the village's groundwater level rose by over 30 feet. The mission was started by …
Parched koalas are roaming Australian towns in search of water. A long-drawn drought, that has been stretching for more than 11 months, has forced the koalas to abandon their babies and eucalyptus trees in the forest and head for household backyards, to drink water from taps and sprinklers. The lack …
The Union government's newly launched Rs 1000-crore Hariyali (greenery) programme is one of the biggest rainwater harvesting projects ever to be conceived in India. "The scheme has the dual objective of tackling water scarcity problems as well as augmenting the resources of panchayats in an attempt to strengthen them,' says …
a unique people's movement is gathering momentum in Pakistan. Local residents and politicians of a small town in central Punjab in Pakistan are resisting tooth and nail an attempt to siphon off their water resources to a bigger urban centre. The plan to install tubewells in the villages around Chiniot, …
Atal Behari Vajpayee, India's Prime Minister (pm), is terribly interested in rural development. On his birthday he inaugurated Swajaldhara, a nation-wide water conservation programme, and promised a drought-stricken rural populace that every village would have water by 2004. In December 2002 he addressed and heard out a rare gathering of …
Bathing daily is now a punishable offence in three gram panchayats of Andhra Pradesh. The village bodies in Mellacheruvu mandal of Nalgonda district have ruled that villagers will bathe once in four days and wash clothes once every 10 days to save water. Those who defy the diktat will be …
