Sustainability

The Andhra Pradesh State of the Environment Report is available at the Environmental Information System (ENVIS) cell of the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) here. 

This paper on Bundelkhand from their Water and Sanitation Perspective series of WaterAid presents how ecological degradation and faulty policies make drinking water scarce and less accessible.

Information may be out of date

Arghyam has supported a Campaign for popularizing Rooftop Rainwater Harvesting (RWH) in a flood prone region in North Bihar. The second phase of the Abhiyan has been designed based on the experiences from the first phase.

Queries, request for information & additional clarifications can be sought via the comments section.

Download here: Rapid assessment report - Tilak Tajpur Panchayat

Forwarded to the Portal by: WinrockWater Yahoo Group Image and Content Courtesy: IWA Congress The IWA World Water Congress & Exhibition is a high-profile international event attracting thousands of water professionals and organizations from across the globe. It is a biennial event organised by the International Water Association and previously hosted by Vienna, Beijing, Marrakech, Melbourne, Berlin and Paris. Montreal will be hosting the upcoming session from the 19^th to 24^th of September 2010. The IWA World Water Congress & Exhibition, the Associations main biennial event, is a valuable and unique opportunity for the community of world-leading water professionals to meet, exchange ideas, explore the state of the art and debate the key issues underlying the science and practice of water. It is also where the entire water community congregates and in particular IWA specialist groups showcase their work and plan for future activities.

This article is about an experiment taken up by Sambhaav Trust with communities in Barmer (district of Rajasthan), which tells us about the development of the rural area and how to bring about self sustainability to rural society. Readers may kindly write in with their feedback in the comments or to portal@arghyam.org. Comments & emails will be forwarded to Sambhaav Trust by the India Water Portal.

Introduction

The word rural is synonymous with backwardness in the eyes of the upper urban community. A general impression that has been created is that people living in rural areas are economically poor, uneducated, do not have any sense of business, are not hardworking and hence they are much below those who live in urban areas who are monetarily rich. This perception is a biased one. We have never asked ourselves - what are the indicators that make a man backward or advanced? We have measured everything in terms of monetary advancement. In our experience there are a number of indicators one can associate with development like social, political, value system etc. It is therefore important that we check our perception before we talk of rural development. We are not debating on the urban-rural divide. However, from our experience in the rural field we believe that if we are interested in national development and not just sectoral development, then it is essential to assess the potentiality of the rural sector to move forward. Our contention is that this potentiality has not been probed into. On the contrary, a policy to downgrade this sector continues year after year. We have to broaden our perception if we truly want a just state.

Time: 1:46 minutes

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December this year in Copenhagen the countries of the world are going to sign a treaty that will change our life as we know it. Their commitments today will affect our quality of life tomorrow.