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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
Decoding budget 2020
Is the budget a bummer? Experts speak at a panel discussion organised by CBGA. Posted on 10 Feb, 2020 04:35 PM

“Every single number in the budget, be it receipts or expenditure is a lie. The budget numbers can no longer be trusted, as the difference between actual expenditure and budget estimates are off by around 25 percent.

Woman farmer sifting grain (Image: Ray Witlin/World Bank CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Managing commons: Need and challenges
How can technology, knowledge and capacity creation help in management of commons? Posted on 06 Feb, 2020 07:17 PM

Common pool resources, popularly known as “commons”, are those resources which are accessible to the whole community or village and to which no individual has exclusive ownership or property rights. Commons have two essential characteristics: non-excludability and high-subtractability.

Plantation in Gomala (Image: Foundation for Ecological Security)
Mountain women bear the brunt of climate change
There is a need to enable a conducive action oriented environment to address entrenched gendered vulnerabilities. Posted on 01 Feb, 2020 09:02 AM

Climate change impacts are disproportionate and influence lives and livelihoods variedly. One crucial determinant of these disproportionate impacts is gender. Existing social norms determine roles and responsibilities, entitlements and capabilities, thereby influencing the individual perceptions of shocks and susceptibility which vary across gender groups.

Women stand to be highly vulnerable in most cases to the changes in the climate and its extremes. (Image: Bo Nielson, Flickr Commons, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Rubber monoculture: Death knell for agrobiodiversity
A study looks at the subjective well-being of an indigenous community of Tripura amidst the transition from shifting cultivation to monoculture of natural rubber. Posted on 29 Jan, 2020 04:44 PM

People tend to be happier and reinvigorated in green spaces. Agrobiodiversity - the number and abundance of different species in particular systems is known to promote happiness. It ensures the resilience of ecosystem services such as food production, climate regulation, and pest management that in turn underpin human wellbeing.

Tripura had the highest rate of growth of rubber plantation during the first decade of the millennium as compared to any other state (Image: Flickr Commons)
Climatic shocks wreak havoc on the Mahanadi delta
Much of the Mahanadi's deltaic coast is experiencing varying degree of erosion, a situation which is expected to worsen by 2050. Posted on 24 Jan, 2020 05:06 PM

The Mahanadi delta in Odisha is a composite delta fed by water, sediments and nutrients from a network of three major rivers: Mahanadi, Brahmani and Baitarini. The coastline of the delta is approximately 200 km long, extending from the Chilika lagoon in the south to the Dhamara river in the north.

The people living in the Mahanadi delta are forced to cope with frequent disasters, but recent progress in warnings, evacuation and shelters seems to have reduced losses. Urban areas in the delta are expanding and there is rural to urban migration which can be expected to continue. These urban areas will have important implications for the future of the delta. (Image: Helmer, Flickr Commons)
Neeru and the Nilgiris
Conserving springs, small hill wetlands and their catchment in the Nilgiris. Posted on 24 Jan, 2020 11:36 AM

Locally called Neeru, water of the Nilgiris in its springs and wetlands has been the fountainhead for two main rivers systems of South India. Today, with growing anthropogenic influences, there is a water crisis in the hills that needs our attention more than ever before.

A view of the Nilgiris (Image credits: Golkul Halan)
India’s food systems in transition
A recent book looks at solutions to the various obstacles that impede India’s various food sub-systems. Posted on 22 Jan, 2020 11:45 AM

A recent book ‘Transforming Food Systems for a Rising India’ by the Tata-Cornell Institute for Agriculture and Nutrition (TCI) at Cornell University provides a detailed assessment of the major paradoxes of the Indian growth story.

Organic food (Image: P L Tandon, Flickr Commons, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
A climate change wake-up call
Climate change can lead to large-scale economic knock-on effects, says a McKinsey Global Institute report. Posted on 21 Jan, 2020 06:53 AM

A new McKinsey Global Institute report, ‘Climate risk and response: Physical hazards and socioeconomic impacts’, suggests that many assumptions about the pote

Heat-exposed work has produced about half of India’s GDP, and employs about 75 percent of the labor force. There will be a need to shift working hours for outdoor workers and undertake heat management efforts (Image: Ian D Keating, Flickr Commons, CC BY 2.0)
The Karnataka State Water Policy 2019
The Karnataka Jnana Aayoga (KJA) set up a Task Group to draft a new water policy for Karnataka in December 2017 and the report is now in public domain. What are the suggestions that the report makes? Posted on 20 Jan, 2020 11:42 AM

The water crisis in Karnataka has not only led to severe agrarian distress in the eastern plains region but also created an acute shortage of domestic water, in both rural and urban areas. The 21st century has seen significant changes in demography, economy and agriculture, increasing the demand for water in the state.

Groundwater depletion, a growing challenge (Image Source: India Water Portal)
Water-related crime doubles in India: Report
News this week Posted on 16 Jan, 2020 08:28 AM

Number of water-related crimes double in India: Report

Water-related crime doubles in India (Image Source: Sourabh Phadke)
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