Voluntary Citizen or Civil Society Sector

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.

Image and Content Courtesy: Excella Orbit

Excella Orbit, a division of Sambodhi Research & Communications Pvt. Ltd. is conducting a bouquet of trainings during the month of July, August & September, 2009 and January-March, 2010

July 28-31, 2009 - Basic & Advanced Analysis using SPSS, Hyderabad August 10-13, 2009 - Basic & Advanced Analysis using SPSS, New Delhi August 25-28, 2009 - Design & Development of Management Information System, New Delhi

Arghyam’s Grants Team is inviting applications from dedicated and talented students for their internship programme. Positions are open for data analysis, water writing and documentation. Both these positions are for 2 months. Only Bangalore based candidates or candidates willing to relocate to Bangalore for the duration of this project need apply.

Arghyam's Grants Team is inviting applications from dedicated and talented students for their internship programme. Intern (Data and Analysis)

From Rohini Nilekani's "Uncommon Ground" column in Livemint

As always, the monsoon may or may not come in time and in adequate quantity across the country. As always, again, people who live in the dry areas of the country, especially in the western desert districts of Rajasthan and Gujarat, with less than 250mm of average annual rainfall, will have to cope with scarcity, as they do year on year. Last week, I was in the Kutch region, on work, with soaring temperatures and no promise of rain despite an unusual cloud cover. We travelled a couple of hundred kilometres in the clay desert, despairing at the spread of Prosopis juliflora which—like so many other foreign species brought in by the forest department with all good intentions—has now overpowered large tracts of the countryscape, to the detriment of useful, hardy local species. We also marvelled at the raw beauty of the dry landscape, which yielded sudden delights such as a male nilgai in his prime and slender green bee-eaters diving gracefully in search of prey. Arid districts such as Kutch in Gujarat, and Barmer and Jaisalmer in Rajasthan mainly have livestock economies and it is not unusual to see thousands of animals—goats, cows, sheep, buffaloes and camels—moving amiably along in search of the next watering hole. It seems counter-intuitive that areas with such low rainfall should provide neighbouring states with meat and milk. IWMI (the International Water Management Institute) has done unique research to show how there is a massive export of virtual water from dry regions to wet through the sale of these products, leaving open some interesting questions on policy.

National Water Academy (Khadakwasla, Pune, India) will conduct a three day “Introductory Program” for NGOs and media persons active in water and environment sector, from 28 to 30 July 2009.

"Right to Water and Sanitation", is a briefing paper (draft) written in March 2009, by Indira Khurana and Richard Mahapatra of WaterAid India, based on secondary research.

The purpose of the consultation was also to identify areas of collaboration in advocacy, capacity building and working with people at the grassroot levels and simultaneously influence policy-making at the local, regional and international levels. The objectives of the workshop were -

Water Initiatives Orissa (WIO) and the Indian River Network (IRN) organised the Odisha River Conference during 18 - 20 April 2009 at Sambalpur Odisha, in which about 75 participants including activists, environmentalists, journalists, academicians, researchers and civil society representatives from across the country participated.