Voluntary Citizen or Civil Society Sector

 In their rush to notify buffer areas, which the Court directs should be done within three weeks, state governments are bypassing and violating the processes laid out in the Wild Life Protection Act and the Forest Rights Act. The Amicus Curae (Raj Panjwani) does not seem to be adequately informing the Court on these violations.

Five months after the infamous Jarawa Video incident featuring scantily clad Jarawa tribal women allegedly dancing for tourists in return for food and money, the Central Government finally acted on the matter by approving the proposed amendments in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (Protection of Aboriginal Tribes) Regulation, 1956.

On 31st January 2012, the Ministry of Water Resources (MoWR) had released the draft of the National Water Policy 2012 and invited comments till 29 February. Following the meeting of the National Water Board on 7th June 2012, the MoWR has now put up a revised draft on their website.

Around 500 delegates from around 19 states and three neighboring countries Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal participated in the 4th National Conference on the Forum of forest people and forest workers organised in Dehradun on 26-28 May 2012. More than 80% delegates were from the forest communities. A summary report of this conference is presented in this article.

Residents of Delhi have been protesting against privatisation of water atleast since 2005.

The video by  WaterAid, India points at the lack of awareness, planning and the poor water management practices in the country that have led to this situation by highlighting that even though the rainfall in India is in surplus with 1170 mm of rainfall every year, we continue to face scarcity of water every year.

This thesis/report presents the findings of a study that was conducted for the fulfillment of the Masters degree at the School of Habitat Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences.

Solution Exchange is a knowledge management initiative of the United Nations in India, working with a mandate to facilitate the National Development Goals and the Millennium Development Goals. The initiative is a membership based online forum that brings together development practitioners from the grassroots, NGOs, multi-laterals and bi-laterals, private sector, academia, activists as well as the Government to share experiential knowledge and facilitate collaboration amongst them.

Providing usable water is one of the toughest challenges that most of the countries of the world are facing today. And in an era of liberalization and domination of capital centric policies commercialization of water is not a shocking step.