Society, Culture, Religion and History

In August 2016, the Karnataka government gave Abu Dhabi-based businessman B.R. Shetty permission to privatise the iconic Jog Falls to make it a perennial waterfall and to develop it into a tourism hotspot.

A severe crisis is plaguing the rivers in India.

Cauvery dispute: New Supreme Court bench constituted

No water to TN till a special state legislature session takes a call: Karnataka 

The union territory (UT) Of Puducherry is, for the most part, enveloped on three sides by the state of Tamil Nadu with the Bay of Bengal framing its eastern face. A total of 84 irrigation tanks--part of the Gingee and Pennaiyar river systems--dot the territory’s landscape. 

What makes a good fisherman? His tools like boats and intricate nets, the ability to make deep dives or the tenacity to stand the elements? For most of the fishers, it’s about having a deep understanding of the ecosystem and the wisdom to make it work for them. The fishing community at Palk Bay is a good example for this.

Women in Salmora area of Majuli, the world’s largest riverine island and India’s first island district, practise their traditional form of pottery--the one that does not use a wheel but is hand beaten to shape and uses a viscid kind of clay. As the Brahmaputra eats away huge swathes of land year after year, the clay that these potters use is being taken away by the river. 

Brahmaputra is the highest siltation-carrying river in the world, and controlling erosion is not easy. Because of its characteristics, it does not have a parallel with any other river in the world. Mythologically also, the Brahmaputra has always been a disturbed river, highly meandering, says Gunajeet Kashyap (ACS), Election Officer, Majuli.

“My mother used to head out with a basket full of ash every day. She would visit dry latrines in the area one by one, sprinkle the ash on the night soil, scoop it up and carry the excreta-filled basket on her head to dump the contents into a small tanker. This was almost 40 years back in our 'Singara (beautiful) Chennai',” recounts Ravanaiah.

Guwahati, one of the fastest growing cities in India, is thousands of years old. Once known as Pragjyotishpura or the city of eastern light, Guwahati has many ancient stories attached to it. This beautiful city finds mention in epics such as Ramayana, Mahabharata and the Puranas.