Society, Culture, Religion and History

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January 13, 2022 The water structures constructed during the Gond period continue to survive the test of time and provide evidence of the water wisdom of our ancestors.
Kundeshwar lake, Kundam in Jabalpur (Image Source: K G Vyas)
January 2, 2021 Lack of community ownership and local governance are spelling doom for the once royal and resilient traditional water harvesting structures of Rajasthan.
Toorji Ka Jhalara, Jodhpur (Image Source: Rituja Mitra)
December 7, 2020 The new farm related bills will spell doom for women workers who form the bulk of small and marginal sections of Indian agriculture, warns Mahila Kisan Adhikaar Manch (MAKAAM).
Farm women, overworked and underpaid (Image Source: India Water Portal)
December 11, 2019 Dry toilets have long been hailed as a sustainable solution to the sanitation and waste management crisis facing India today, but have been overshadowed by more modern toilet designs.
A traditional dry toilet. Image: India Science Wire
December 4, 2019 To adapt well & build resilience, climate change strategies need to factor in efforts towards water security, writes Vanita Suneja, Regional Advocacy Manager (South Asia), WaterAid.
Image credit: WaterAid/Prashanth Vishwanathan
December 2, 2019 Water stewardship is an approach predicated on the concept that water is a shared resource and so water risks are also shared risks that everyone in a catchment will face
Picture credit: Romit Sen
Covid-19: The road back home
A rapid study highlights the plight of homebound migrant workers of Mirzapur and Prayagraj districts of Uttar Pradesh after Lockdown 1.0 Posted on 29 Apr, 2020 09:30 AM

Raj Kumar, 32, a daily wager employed at a factory in Delhi had barely a thousand rupees in his wallet when he readied to rush back to his village in Halia block of Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh. On a normal April afternoon, he took the highway that leads to his district hearing about the 21-day lockdown.

Millions of migrants rushed to return to their villages amid the lockdown (Image: Pixabay/balouriarajesh. Pixabay licence)
Covid-19: Oxfam India responding with relief in 14 states
Oxfam India along with its partners is striving to broaden its humanitarian relief response to fight coronavirus. Posted on 27 Apr, 2020 12:58 AM

In the last one week of starting its humanitarian relief response to fight coronavirus, Oxfam India along with its partners have provided dry ration to around 40,000 poor people, cooked meals served to nearly 40,000 migrant labourers, distributed 2660 safety kits to frontline workers and reached 4.5 million people through awareness initiatives in India.

Oxfam India is concerned about the impact Covid-19 could have on the most vulnerable communities (Image: Oxfam India)
Covid-19 and water security in India: Magnifying inequities in an unequal world
The "heal as one" narrative is a false one as the poorest are the most vulnerable to the disease. Posted on 25 Apr, 2020 01:44 PM

 

In the absence of piped water access, poor households will find it exceedingly difficult to practice regular handwashing (Image: UNICEF, Flickr Commons)
Springing back to life
Jal Jeevan Mission can go a long way to promote springshed management and ensure source sustainability of spring based piped water supply. Posted on 20 Apr, 2020 11:45 PM

Springs are the key source of water for rural households in Uttarakhand, yet they have seen an overall neglect over the decades with discharge from many springs declining bit by bit. The depletion of aquifers, changes in land use and ecological degradation have led to several initiatives to address springshed management in the state. We speak to Dr.

Image: Flickr Commons
We are all fools
Nature has now sent a stern message calling out our foolishness. Posted on 19 Apr, 2020 04:05 PM

Which industry has seen phenomenal growth since World War II? It is food. People have been encouraged to eat more and more as part of the general consumerist thrust to increase consumption. So, the moment people's incomes have gone up they have begun consuming more food along with other things. The economy can grow only if we consume more. This is why we also have to eat more.

On January 31st 2020, the WHO declared the COVID 19 crisis to be a public health emergency of international concern. (Image: Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation)
WASH in the times of COVID-19
Government of Maharashtra and UNICEF Mumbai are training frontline workers to tackle the spread of COVID-19. Posted on 17 Apr, 2020 10:08 PM

Maharashtra has the highest COVID-19 cases in the country and the government is taking a slew of measures to flatten the curve. We speak to Mr.

Students handwashing with soap (Image: World Bank, Flickr Commons; CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Covid-19: Implications for watershed management
Watershed work needs to be stepped up to ensure that the lockdown does not impact the livelihoods of the rural poor. Posted on 16 Apr, 2020 04:47 PM

Over the last four decades, watershed management has emerged as one of the most decentralised, integrated, persisting, innovative and effective programs to enhance natural resources such as water, soil and the vegetative cover as well as to provide means of livelihood to marginalised sections in rural areas.

COVID-19 has adversely affected this year's watershed management work (Image: ILO South Asia-Pacific; Flickr Commons, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
COVID-19: Preparedness and Responsiveness of PRIs in Dealing with Reverse Migration
PRIA International Academy (PIA) is hosting a webinar on “COVID-19: Preparedness and Responsiveness of PRIs in Dealing with Reverse Migration”
Posted on 12 Apr, 2020 07:42 PM

This webinar will explore the following questions:

Combating Covid-19 collectively: DHAN’s way
DHAN Foundation has been responding to the crisis, reaching out to the most vulnerable communities. Posted on 10 Apr, 2020 12:21 PM

As the Covid-19 pandemic reaches new corners of the country, the NGO community in India has been preparing itself to respond to the unexpected needs that the crisis is producing. DHAN Foundation, a professional development organisation working in several states of India with the communities has begun to develop a strategy.

Creating awareness about the pandemic as well as about the measures essential to be safe (Image: DHAN Foundation)
Advisory on how to prevent Covid-19
Those who need to work to survive cannot stay home. What can they do during such times? Posted on 02 Apr, 2020 06:50 PM

COVID-19 (novel coronavirus disease), an acute respiratory disease emerged in late 2019 and has been spreading rapidly across the globe. The World Health Organization has declared COVID-19 a pandemic. It is marked by respiratory problems that are usually mild (coughing, fever) but can be severe (pneumonia, trouble breathing).

The fear is that Covid-19 would almost certainly spread within communities in India, just as it had started to do in Italy, South Korea, and Iran. (Image: Trinity Care Foundation)
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