News and Articles

An alternative perspective: Sabarmati Riverfront Development
A critical review of the Sabarmati Riverfront Development project, Ahmedabad, from an environmental perspective. Posted on 20 Feb, 2014 01:09 PM

The Sabarmati Riverfront Development has been hailed as a project towards urban regeneration & environmental improvement, which will transform the river to a focal point of leisure and recreation.

Sabarmati Riverfront Development
My experience with e-learning courses
Online courses have opened up a world of possibilities for learning while working from virtually anywhere. Explore some of these courses. Posted on 20 Feb, 2014 12:55 PM

The Internet and mobile revolutions have combined to give birth to whole new generations of tools that put skills that were squarely in the domain of specialists a decade ago, in the hands of laypersons and amateurs.

Massive Open Online Courses
New law to save the Ganga
Policy matters this week: PMO orders framing of draft legislation to protect the Ganga; Narmada-Kshipra river linking scheme passes the test; World Bank to support low-income states. Posted on 17 Feb, 2014 02:22 PM

PMO approves law to protect Ganga river

Ganga river in Haridwar (Source: Anoop Negi)
Sikkim achieves 100% sanitation under Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan scheme
News this week: Sikkim achieves 100% sanitation; Govt has only 2 months to cover 54.4% of rural India in its drinking water scheme; Maharashtra village gets community rights over dam reservoir. Posted on 17 Feb, 2014 02:21 PM

Sikkim achieves 100% sanitation

Sustainable sanitation
The great Indian toilet tracker!
Does rural India have enough toilets? Which state has built the most toilets and which state is still backed up? Our visualisations of the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan's data demystify it all! Posted on 16 Feb, 2014 10:57 PM

Women patiently wait for the sun to go down, to squat in open fields. Young children do so unabashedly on the roads under the open skies. Well into our 67th year of independence, the sanitation situation hasn't changed much in villages and towns across the nation.

Rural sanitation scheme - Progress & Performance
A new vision for Himalayan streams
Fish found in streams and rivers are a source of food to about 40% of the households in parts of the Himalayas. Including fisheries in local watershed management is crucial. Posted on 16 Feb, 2014 10:54 PM

Watershed management, which is an integrated set of soil and water conservation techniques that retain runoff and so increase water availability, can provide an environment for fisheries development for food or trade.

Fish harvested from a pond in Doon Valley
If you don't clean our shit, then who will?
Manual scavenging continues to exist in India even 67 years after Independence. Is it due to the lack of laws, lack of alternatives or lack of will? Posted on 16 Feb, 2014 10:53 PM

"Swaraj is a meaningless term, if we desire to keep a fifth of India under perpetual subjection, and deliberately deny to them the fruits of national culture". - Mahatma Gandhi

A manual scavenger at work (Source:Flickr Commons)
New crop insurance scheme for Pudukottai, TN
Policy matters this week: Crop scheme for Pudukottai gets govt. approval; Delhi govt. plans to revive defunct RWH system in schools; NGT orders vigil against illegal coastal sand mining. Posted on 10 Feb, 2014 07:06 PM

Pudukottai gets crop insurance scheme to mitigate nature's fury

Villagers planting paddy crops (Source: Wikipedia)
Red Hills reservoir leaks Chennai's water supply!
News this week: Chennai's Red Hills reservoir is leaking water; quantum of uranium in 'Thummalapalle' groundwater poses no threat to people; Kerala has the cleanest Anganwadi toilets. Posted on 10 Feb, 2014 04:49 PM

Chennai's drinking water seeps down the drain

A reservoir in Tamil Nadu (Source: Wikipedia)
Farm like the rishis!
Raju and Shalini Titus have been engaged in no-till farming for over 23 years. Contrary to pop wisdom, their net income has gone up because of increased yields and a reduction in input costs. Posted on 09 Feb, 2014 08:20 PM

It all started in the eighties when Friends Rural Centre, a group of Gandhian Quakers in Rasuliya village, near Hoshanagabad, Madhya Pradesh came in contact with Masanobu Fukuoka.

Results of no till farming; Image: Titus
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