Society, Culture, Religion and History

The last month has been one of great activity around the illegal construction of the Kanhar dam in Sonebhadra district of Uttar Pradesh.

When Satya was asked by the Sarpanch to opt for the position of a worksite supervisor as a Mate, she was thrilled at the prospect of a better life. Brought up in Murayur village in Sivagangai district, Tamil Nadu, she knew how tough agricultural wage labour work was. While her mother left her with grandparents, her father also took on menial jobs and errands from big farmers.

Sixty eight percent of India's population lives in rural areas but when it comes to facilities -- including the availability of safe drinking water -- cities and towns corner most of them.

After Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand also bids goodbye to Coca Cola

If Babasaheb Ambedkar had been alive today -- April 14, 2015 -- he would have been 125 years old. In the predominantly tribal and dalit district of Sonbhadra, it was natural that Gambhira Prasad, President of the Kanhar Bandh Virodhi Sangharsh Samiti (KBVSS), decided to mark the day.

The Niyamagiri hills in the Eastern Ghats is peopled by indigenous groups such as the Dongria and Kutia Kondhs -- or 'primitive tribal groups’ in official phrasing. For them, these hills which spread over 300 sq kms in Rayagada and Kalahandi districts in southwestern Orissa, is the sacred abode of Niyamraja, their God.

The mere presence of toilets does very little to change sanitation behaviour in the absence of community ownership and participation. A decade ago, this was more or less the story of Tiruchirapalli, one of the least hygienic cities in the country then.

India's water availability in the future is predicted to be bleak if proper steps are not undertaken to deal with the management of the available water resources in the country. The report titled 'Watershed development in India

Please provide us some background on the hydrogeology of Maharashtra and its special features, which make it stand out as compared to the other parts of the country.

One of the stated Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations is to improve access to safe drinking water and sanitation and to halve the proportion of population left without the same by 2015.