The World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Climate in Asia 2024 report warns that the region is warming nearly twice as fast as the global average, driving more extreme weather and posing serious threats to lives, ecosystems, and economies. In 2024, Asia experienced its warmest or second warmest year on …
This paper presents and discusses primary data from a survey of 1,070 households in four poor settlements in Mumbai comprising slum-and pavement-dwellers and squatters on the living environment and health conditions. The study attempts to examine the consequences of socio-economic and environmental factors in terms of income, literacy, sanitation and …
In India, there is an inextricable link between water and politics. This was very much in evidence recently when the opposition walked out in the Karnataka assembly over the proposed privatisation of Bangalore’s water supply system. Water tariff had earlier been hiked steeply in the city to pave the way …
"Don't flush." M K Malhotra, a resident of Delhi's Vasant Kunj, has put this instruction on his toilet. Six members of his family use this toilet at least three times a day and ten litres of water goes down the drain with every flush. In a water-scarce locality, Malhotra can …
IT IS time to go back to basics and examine what toilets and sewerage systems are supposed to do. The point of all these systems is the safe disposal of human waste matter. Flush toilets and sewerage transfer the problem elsewhere; they are complicated ways of spreading pathogens away from …
WHILE attending the Stockholm Water Symposium a few years ago, my colleague, Anil Agarwal, and I were invited to a banquet by the king of Sweden. But instead of dining in splendour we were checking out toilets in some remote parts of the city. I was not too convinced of …
This paper deals with how urban Indian households obtain water for their daily requirements. The link between economic status and access allows the analysis of issues such as water sharing, sole access, ability to pay, need for improvements, etc. The authors also put forth a strategy for levying user charges …
What have been your achievements in improving Delhi's environment ? I think the air quality in Delhi has improved in the last couple of months since we have banned the use of polluting vehicles. The Yamuna is getting a lesser load of pollutants. However, it is not as clean as …
maharashtra's urban and rural water supply policy has cost it overseas assistance to the tune of Rs 13,000 crore over the last two years. The situation is the culmination of the government's refusal to change the "ill-planned and contractor-based water schemes' which resulted in denial of aid by project managers …
At least three farmers, who died recently in Falla village 28 kilometres from Jamnagar town, felt this way. They were not alone. With them were almost half a thousand others. The farmers were unhappy because the authorities had taken a decision to tap a water source, in this case the …
This paper discusses the political circumstances which help explain why the insanitary living conditions of such a large section of India’s urban population have been ignored, and contrasts these with the circumstances which explain successful sanitary reform in Britain in the second half of the 19th century. In India, there …
DELHI already gets water from Beas Sutlej, Ganges and Yamuna rivers and the Yamuna canal after exploiting all its groundwater sources. Four large dams are waiting to begin supplying water to the city. There is even a proposal to bring water for Delhi from dams to be built in Nepal …
The Bhutanese government has set up a new system of rules to improve water and sanitation systems to further the cause of urban development. The idea behind the scheme was to "ensure accountability, equitable access to safe and reliable water supply, and a clean and healthy living environment which is …
A giant pipeline, 896- km long and 13 fit in diameter, has come to the rescue of the parched people of the Cyrenaica and Benghazi regions in north-eastern Libya. The "great humanmade river" has made the greening of the country's coastline a reality. The ambitious project, costing us $eight billion, …
BANGALORE'S perrenial problem of water shortage is now in need of urgent alleviation measures. Two gauging stations on upstream Cauvery have recently 'judged an availability of 300 cusecs of water for the city under average rainfall conditions. At an altitude of 840-940 m, Bangalore is located in the watershed area …
WHILE air pollution and smog are nothing new to them, Mexico City residents now have to contend with a disaster which could leave them literally dying of thirst. The aquifer, the main source of water for the capital city's nearly two million inhabitants, is running dry'. Says Alfonso Martinez Baca, …
RECENT years have witnessed rapid increases in the cost of investment in new irrigation projects, while at the same time, there has been a marked degradation in water quality, a slower growth in crop productivity in irrigated areas and increased competition for water for non-agricultural uses. These developments necessitate clear …
The growing problems in providing adequate drinking water to urban populations is a consequence of the lack of long-term planning and inefficient management of urban water usage.
KATHMANDU'S summer of discontent seems to have set in. As the residents of the capital city of Nepal faced an unprecedented drinking water shortage, Bimarsha, a Kathmandu weekly, reported that the World Bank had withdrawn its $60 million support from the rehabilitation of the urban drinking water supply in the …
"DELHI will not have to beg for water any more," was the preening claim of chief minister Madanlal Khurana on May 12, after his counterparts from Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh had put their signatures on an agreement that almost doubles the quantity of Yamuna water available to …
URBAN India faces a water crisis Madras to Jodhpur, most cities are already facing the crippling effects of scarcity. There is hardly any city in India that canboast of a 24-hour water supply. But much of this crisis may be totally bogus. And there is no better example than Delhi: …
