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 …
Australia’s overseas development aid assistance is set to increase substantially over the next four years. This much welcomed increase could be stretched in multiple directions to satisfy multiple needs. This paper is a contribution to the debate on how best to direct Australia’s investments to meet the objective of reducing …
This book introduces to the reader all aspects of ground water i.e., its assessment, development, utilisation and management. Practical application of different formulate for field conditions, data collection and processing, test procedures and principles of design are worked out to illustrate the theory and design procedure. It includes case studies …
A number of dimensions and resources need to be converged for preparing a roadmap to sustainability. The most critical among these are technical know-how, human capital and financial resources. This document is an effort towards presenting a basic framework for the mobilization of these resources and dimensions. The document has …
people from about 104 villages of Thane district near Mumbai have threatened to break valves of the pipeline supplying water to the metropolis and bring the city's water supply to a halt. The reason: all their water sources have been completely diverted to Mumbai and they are facing acute drinking …
This year, Chandra Nagar village in Savli tehsil of Vadodara district got water from the SSP. It received water for the third year in succession. And for the third consecutive year, water did not reach the village service area as promised. The plan was: each water users' association at the …
Conditions of water scarcity have been aggravated in Vadali village of Gujarat due to the persisting differences between higher castes, chiefly the ahirs, and those lower in the hierarchy such as the kolis and other dalit castes. Power relations are linked to social and economic hierarchy and the issue of …
India is making good progress in increasing access to Water Supply and Sanitation (WSS) infrastructure in both urban and rural areas, but is lagging behind expanding access to service that is reliable, sustainable and affordable. This report analyses the main reasons for the gap between infrastructure and service and presents …
This report provides estimates of drinking water and sanitation coverage in 2004, by country and MDG region. It shows how many people have gained access since the MDG baseline year (1990) and identifies the challenges to meet the MDG drinking water and sanitation target over the coming decade. It compares …
This article looks at the emerging policy context on irrigation and drinking water supply in Jharkhand, the position of water rights in state legislation, the importance of water user groups, the critical issues of access to water for both the rural and the urban poor and the legal implications.
I travelled in Kerala last fortnight, seeking answers. I wanted to know what government was doing to meet the drinking water needs of people in this wet-drought state. Searching in villages and academic papers, an anomalous statistic caught my eye. According to 1999 estimations of the National Sample Survey Organisation …
function map_table() { var popurl="html/20040531_cover.htm" winpops=window.open(popurl,"","width=780,height=500,scrollbars=yes") } In Kerala, land of 44 rivers and backwaters and a state with over 3,000 mm of annual rainfall there was a drought this February and March
Living amidst rivers and lakes and blessed by bountiful rain, the people of Kerala are yet to realise that they face a water crisis. Droughts come, but are treated as aberrations. On the one hand water usage is shooting up, on the other rains are playing truant. Unless it gets …
All places in Kerala, except a few in Palakkad, got more rainfall this summer than the national average. “Considering that India receives only 1,100 mm of rainfall as long period average, isn’t it absurd to say that Kerala suffered acute water scarcity even after getting 2,270 mm of rain in …
In Kerala’s Kozhikode district, there exists a village that doesn’t depend on government dole: Olavanna’s panchayat has been successfully running its own drinking water project since the 1990s. This is completely unlike the way the United Democratic Front (UDF) government functions. The Kerala Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Agency (KRWSSA), …
Wherever they exist India's urban elite splash on subsidies B Ashok a regime of pro-rich subsidies have ensured India's urban elites happilly benefit from organised water supply and sewage treatment services, wherever they exist. Water tariffs in India are among the lowest. Let us compare. In the us
nepal's multimillion-dollar project for supplying drinking water to the parched Kathmandu valley has left residents of Melamchi valley fuming. The reason: water will be diverted from the latter region to benefit the former. Activists of the Melamchi Local Concern Group (mlcg) have locked horns with the Melamchi Water Supply Project …
The Swajaldhara and similar schemes focus on constructing water supply installations before ensuring that there is somebody to manage them and pay for their operation. The urgency to provide safe drinking water most often leads to bypassing existing local institutions of resource management. The result is well known: the expected …
Last fortnight I wrote about the different models of water privatisation. Questions continue to haunt me, but let me try and work towards some resolution. Firstly, there is the issue of pricing of water for the relatively rich of the developing world. It is evident that urban and industrial sectors …
Oscar Olivera of Bolivia is something of a mascot for anti-globalisation movements across the world. During the recent Asian Social Forum meeting in Hyderabad, Olivera spoke in Spanish. And in spite of the tediousness of translated messages, his dozen-odd speeches found eager listeners in the 15,000 participants at the meeting. …
