Revised National Food Security Bill 2013: A summary
The revised national security bill, 2013, seeks to provide for food and nutritional security in the human life cycle approach, by ensuring access to adequate quantity of quality food at affordable prices so people can live a life with dignity. Its 3 schedules include prescribed issue prices, nutritional standards and various provisions for advancing food security. The bill gives legal entitlement to 67 per cent population (including 75 per cent rural and 50 per cent urban) for subsidised grains under the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS)
Tamil Nadu moves Supreme Court for directions
The State government moved the Supreme Court for a direction to the Ministry of Water Resources to constitute the Cauvery Management Board (CMB) and the Cauvery Water Regulation Committee (CWRC) before the last week of April to effectively implement the final Order of the Cauvery Tribunal during the ensuing irrigation season.
Debate on water privatization
Water privatization is against the constitution, says Justice Rajinder Sachar at a conference, criticizing the Delhi Government’s move to undertake three public-private partnership projects in the city. However the Delhi Jal Board vehemently opposes the use of the word privatization, saying that since it will retain control of water treatment plants and other infrastructure, it is only outsourcing work that is necessary to bring efficiency into the system.
Review of the National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP), 2013
States & Union territories physical & finanacial performance under the NRDWP in 2013 and the good practices they adopted were reviewed during a national consultaion by the Ministry of Drinking Water & Sanitation.
Water scarcity to hit Bangalore in a big way
The supply of drinking water in Mysore, Mandya, Ramanagaram and Bangalore is expected to worsen in the coming weeks as the water-level at the Krishnaraja Sagar Reservoir (KRS) near Srirangapatna has reached ‘dead storage’ level.
Wall of water: A public art event creates awareness in Odhisa
Hundreds of people including eminent artists and students, painted their concerns on the dwindling valuable resource of water on a 500-feet-long wall in Bhubaneshwar in Odisha.The event stressed on the possibility of a war-like situation between individuals, families, states and countries if water scarcity is not stemmed in the near future.
Giving water back to the earth
An organic farmer in Rampur taluk, Kolar, has refilled a dried borewell in his farm with harvested rainwater instead of depending on groundwater for irrigation. His farm has a pit to collect water at one end, while a dried-up borewell connected through a pipe that helps refill the ground water is on the other end.