Society, Culture, Religion and History

The Forum has instituted an internship programme for students in its present phase of work. In the past many students – both from India and abroad – had approached the Forum to work as interns on water and more specifically on water conflict issues.

The Brahmaputra, one of the mightiest rivers in the world, has many stories to tell as it journeys from Tibet through India and finally finds its way to the Bay of Bengal. Sadly, many of these tales are not happy. Known for its disastrous flooding, the monsoon season is play time for the river.

By Shobhana Radhakrishna

The rights and needs of the fairer sex being overlooked by a male dominated society is not something that is unheard of. Access to education, health services and sanitation are given a cold shoulder when it concerns women.

Water is probably the worst medium to treat or transport human refuse. And that is exactly what we use when we flush our poo and pee with buckets full of water. Water only increases the size of the problem - bowl sized refuse gets converted into bucket sizes – and offers absolutely no help to treat the waste.

2008 saw the coming together of various missions that coordinated and monitored sanitation projects in Kerala’s rural and urban areas. The Suchitwa Mission was conceived to aid and advice local self government institutions in matters relating to sanitation and also to monitor the implementation and progress of the Total Sanitation Campaign in the state.

With empty fields as far as eyes can perceive and perpetual water shortage, introducing flush toilets sure seemed the biggest challenge in the predominantly dry state of Rajasthan. A total of 321 Gram Panchayats have won the Nirmal Gram Puraskar in the state, but in India’s largest state, this amounts to less than 4% of the total number of Gram Panchayats present.

Despite the launch of the Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) in 2002, Hamirpur district in Himachal Pradesh remained almost cut off from the toilet frenzy until 2006-07. Nearly 56% of households had no individual toilets when the campaign was initially launched. Five years into the campaign, less than 1% of the set target was achieved.

Recent news has been flooded with reports of the severe drought situation in the Marathwada and Vidarbha regions of Maharashtra. Even more shocking are the reports of large-scale suicides by farmers due to crop losses.