Sustainability

This paper by Ajit Seshadri, Vigyan Vijay Foundation highlights the poor sanitation situation in India and argues that centralized approaches to wastewater treatment have had limited success and there is a need to make wastwater treatment people centric and effective through the use of decentralized systems such as DEWATS (Decentralized Wastewater Treatment Systems). DEWATS are locally organized and people driven systems that typically comprise a settler, anaerobic baffled tanks, filter beds of gravel and sand, and an open pond. The open pond or the polishing tank recreates a living environment for the wastewater to clean itself, naturally.

This document presents the proceedings of the annual review meeting by India Meteorological Department (IMD) on “Forecasting Agricultural Output Using Space, Agrometeorology and Land Based Observations” (FASAL) organized at YASHADA, Pune during 1-2 August 2011.

This report by the Centre for Media Studies, New Delhi presents an assessment of the Jalamani programme of the Department of Drinking Water Supply, Government of India. The centrally sponsored programme commenced in 2008-09 aimed at installing simple Stand Alone Water Purification Systems (SAWPS) in rural schools to enable school children to have access to safe and clean water. The focus was on tackling bacteriological contamination and turbidity in ongoing rural drinking water supply programme.

The assessment study used both qualitative and quantitative techniques such as focus group discussions and in-depth interviews besides structured questionnaire for a variety of stakeholders and research questions. Another important aspect of the quantitative tools was testing of the raw and treated water samples. The study was undertaken in 320 schools spread across 20 districts and six states.

This draft report by the Planning Commission, which presents an approach to the twelfth five year plan among other things outlines some of the challenges related to agriculture, natural resources management and water resources management.

For the last few decades and more particularly since 1990’s the issue of human rights-violation of rights to life and livelihood of tribal peoples’ is a central concern. Therefore, the discourse on tribal movements and issues of tribal livelihood revolved around securing their well-defined rights on land and forest resources.