Till the cows no longer come home
by P. Sainath, Aug 19, 2009, The Hindu
The distress sale of cattle is one of the most sensitive indicators of crisis in the countryside.
“Truckloads of cattle have left this village,” says Maruti Yadavrao Panghate in Devdhari village of Yavatmal. “Many more will go. There is no fodder or water for them.” Panghate, who owns five acres, feels he has lost “80 per cent of my soybean, 70 per cent of cotton and 50 per cent of all the jowar I’ve sown. Late rains even at this point will retrieve something, though not much. However, it could help with fodder and some water. Without that, the rest of the cattle will go, too. Already bullocks worth Rs.10,000 are selling at Rs. 4,000. It’s the same in other villages.”
Rivers are in stress and dying. Odisha is no exception. All of its rivers including major rivers Mahanadi, Brahmani are dying of quantitative and qualitative degradation and decrease. Water salinity in the lower Brahmani has gone up as river flow has almost stopped in crucial summer months. Water flow in the Mahanadi River too is decreasing at a rapid rate. A comparison between second half of the post Hirakud dam period with the first half shows about 15 percent of decrease in average annual flow. Other rivers like Baitarani, Subarnarekha, Vanshadhara, Rushikulya and Nagabali etc. are also suffering the same fate. The problems are manifold. Unsustainable growth of population; industrialization led pollution; climate change and many other problems have virtually wrecked havoc on the fate of the rivers. The rivers are dying and are surely spelling doom for the civilizations around them.
Orissa River Conference
by , Indian River Network, 18 April, 2009
Orissa River Conference
by , Indian River Network, 18 April, 2009 A depleting water table and an unsure monsoon brings any agricultural activity to a grinding halt. “Especially, when changes in the regular seasons are a common occurrence today, future agriculture depends much on water conservation and usage,” says Mr. Ostwald Quintal, Director, Kudumbam (an organisation for rural development), Tiruchi , Tamil Nadu. A visit to Kongathiraiyanpatti village (40 km from Pudukottai in Tamil Nadu) shows how water conservation along with tree planting helped prevent farmers from migrating to towns and rebuild their lives. Basically a rainfed area, the farmers grew paddy and groundnut. Around 35 wells in the village catered to both drinking and irrigation needs.
Where there is a will, there is a way, says a Tiruchi voluntary organisation
by M.J. PRABU, The Hindu, 12 February, 2009
Where there is a will, there is a way, says a Tiruchi voluntary organisation
by M.J. PRABU, The Hindu, 12 February, 2009 Departing from the traditional way of building katta using mud and stones, Krishna Moorthy used sandbags and UV stabilised ‘silpaulin’ sheets to build 35 meter-long katta across the river. This helped to store water for a length of 1.5 kms besides turning the attention of the local people towards this slowly dying art of water harvesting.In the later years, this technique was simplified and many more kattas came up on the same river as well as in other places.Now Krishna Moorthy’s katta technique that makes use of sand and plastic sheets is famously known as Varanashi katta and is being adopted at many places both in Karnataka and Kerala.In association with renowned expert on water harvesting Shree Padre, he has also brought out a book entitled Kattagalu on various aspects of this wonderful method of storing water by building barrages across seasonal rivers and streams. Rainwater harvesting is also done at Varanashi Farms through catch pits, percolation pits and recharging of borewells all of which have made Varanashi Farms an important model for water harvesting in the district.
This one\'s for green thumbs
by Sushma Mohan, Deccan Herald, 24 February, 2009
This one\'s for green thumbs
by Sushma Mohan, Deccan Herald, 24 February, 2009 “China banned river sand mining in Poyang, the country’s largest freshwater lake to protect its aquatic environment. The ban is considered significant in protecting nearly one million migratory birds that make their habitat there,” according to recent reports. In India too, such bans have often been imposed on sand mining at ecologically endangered river basins. The big difference, however, ban or no ban, is that from most of the river beds, dredging is done relentlessly because of high demand for construction sand in recent years. River sand mining has been a critical environmental issue in India over the years as it seriously affects the eco-system of riparian regions surrounding major and minor rivers.
River sand mining poses eco threat
by S V Upendra Charya, The Deccan Herald, 24 February, 2009
River sand mining poses eco threat
by S V Upendra Charya, The Deccan Herald, 24 February, 2009 Excessive withdrawal of natural mineral or spring water to produce bottled waterhas threatened local streams and groundwater, and the product consumessignificant amounts of energy in production and shipping. Millions of tons of oil-derived plastics, mostly polyethylene terephthalate (PET), are used to make thewater bottles, most of which are not recycled. Each year, about 2 million tons ofPET bottles end up in landfills in the United States; in 2005, the national recyclingrate for PET was only 23.1 percent, far below the 39.7 percent rate achieved adecade earlier.
Bottled Water Pricey in More Ways than One
by , World Watch Institute, 01 January, 2007
Bottled Water Pricey in More Ways than One
by , World Watch Institute, 01 January, 2007 FOR over 25 years, it has been on a slow,
painful but inexorable march to death.
For brief moments, this journey has
been stalled, with glimmers of hope.
Sometimes, these flickers have even created
the illusion of brightness, obliterating
the darkness of reality. Yet, death has been
overtaking it, slowly but surely.
Have you ever seen a river die? Not a
stream, not a rivulet, but a river as mighty as
the Narmada?
My first memories of the Narmada are
faint recollections of a river seen from the
train as it crossed the bridge at Bharuch.
But my real introduction to it was in the late
1980s when I shifted to stay near its banks.
As I moved from village to village, I remember
noting in my diary that it never looks
the same, that at every place its beauty is
unique. The tiny stream starting at Amarkantak,
the splendour of its vast spread at
Hoshangabad, the rapid, racing, restless
flow through the hills, rocks and sandy
banks of Jalsindhi — it is as if it had an
unlimited repertoire of appearances allure
and was determined never to repeat any. I
have spent many a captivated hour on its
banks, lost in its mesmerising presence.
Requiem for a river
by Shripad Dharmadhikary, The Hindu, 16 April, 2006
Requiem for a river
by Shripad Dharmadhikary, The Hindu, 16 April, 2006 When I wrote my earlier article
on the Sardar Sarovar Project
and Medha Patkar\'s fast
(The Hindu, April 13, 2006), I
thought I had said whatever needed to be
said on the subject. Now several more questions
have arisen and the situation has become
murkier. The Review Committee has
met but has been unable to come to an
agreed conclusion. The matter has gone to
the Prime Minister, but he seems disinclined
to act. The fast by three persons enters
the 18th day. Gujarat Chief Minister
Narendra Modi proposes to go on a retaliatory
fast. There seems to be a feeling that
the matter must be left to the Supreme
Court, which is going to hear the case on
April 17. The present article aims at putting
these matters in the proper perspective, in
the form of questions and answers:
Q: Why does the Narmada Bachao Andolan
not confine itself to talking about rehabilitation?
Why is it asking for stoppage of
construction?
A: The answer is that in terms of the
Narmada Tribunal\'s Award, the conditions
of clearance of the Project, and the Supreme
Court\'s judgments of October 2000 and
March 2005, construction is not allowed to
outpace rehabilitation work.
Narmada project: clearing the confusion
by Ramaswamy R. Iyer, The Hindu, 17 April, 2006
Narmada project: clearing the confusion
by Ramaswamy R. Iyer, The Hindu, 17 April, 2006 This is the text, obtained exclusively by The Hindu, of \"A Brief Note on the Assessment of Resettlement andRehabilitation (R & R) Sites and Submergence of Villages of the Sardar Sarovar Project.\" The note markedconfidential and dated April 9, 2006, was signed by Union Minister of Water Resources, Saifuddin Soz,Union Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment Meira Kumar, and Minister of State in the PrimeMinister\'s Office Prithviraj Chauhan.
Group of Ministers report on Narmada
by , The Hindu, 17 April, 2006
Group of Ministers report on Narmada
by , The Hindu, 17 April, 2006 Any way forward has to start from knowing where you stand and where you wantto go. The Gujarat government, the Union government and even the PrimeMinister have been claiming that they need to increase the height of the SardarSarovar dam so that more benefits flow from the dam.
What is the way to proceed on the Narmada dam issue?
by Himanshu Thakkar, Financial Express, 24 April, 2006
What is the way to proceed on the Narmada dam issue?
by Himanshu Thakkar, Financial Express, 24 April, 2006 India has around 4500 large reservoirs and lakhs of smaller reservoirs. Government documents received through a Right to Information application recently indicate that an alarming proportion of the storage capacities of these reservoirs have been lost due to negligence, amounting to massive wastage of public funds using to construct the projects. Furthermore, it appears that little is being done about it, even as planning goes on.
ENVIRONMENT:Wake up call on reservoir siltation nationwide
by Himanshu Thakkar & Swarup Bhattacharyya, India Together, 26 October, 2006
ENVIRONMENT:Wake up call on reservoir siltation nationwide
by Himanshu Thakkar & Swarup Bhattacharyya, India Together, 26 October, 2006 An independent regulator is the cornerstone of the \'reforms\' agenda that the World Bank is pushing in several sectors. The \'reforms\' in sectors like water and power are advocated based on the view that the ills of these sectors are wholly due to their lack of financial self-sufficiency. The reasoning goes that since water and power are supplied at subsidised rates and the costs not recovered fully, there isn\'t enough money for maintenance and investments in expansion. As a result, service is poor. The key to change all this is to recover the full costs of service from all consumers, i.e. eliminate subsidies. The reforms program in essence involves transforming the water sector (and others) to operate like a market.
Water sector reforms: Time for a new model
by Shripad Dharmadhikary, Indiatogether.org, 10 November, 2008
Water sector reforms: Time for a new model
by Shripad Dharmadhikary, Indiatogether.org, 10 November, 2008 It’s hard to imagine why humans would have chosen the achingly arid stone desert of Wadi Faynan for their first settlement. But water would have been one important reason, says archaeologist Steven Mithen. When Neolithic men and women arrived 11,500 years ago, things were very different: the climate was cooler and wetter; the landscape was covered in vegetation including wild figs, legumes and cereals, and there would have been wild goats and ibex for meat.
Scarcity: Is water becoming the new oil?
by Juliette Jowit, The Deccan Herald, 13 November, 2008
Scarcity: Is water becoming the new oil?
by Juliette Jowit, The Deccan Herald, 13 November, 2008 Inaugurating the workshop on the morning of January 3, 2009, Shri L C Jain, former member, planning commission of India (and many other important posts), expressed his pain and anguish on the state of India\'s Rivers, \"It is very disturbing that the acts of commissions and omissions of the authorities have ruthlessly, blindly, heartlessly lead to destruction of almost every major rivers of India. The hearts of the officials and ministers should throb for the millions depending for their needs and livelihoods on the rivers, but it seems that the stones of the South and North block buildings have entered their hearts.\" Quoting Gandhiji\'s agenda for the economic independence of India from what he wrote in the Young India on November 29, 1929, Jain said, Land, Water and Air cannot be subject of commerce, but the planners lock up the pain, hunger, malnutrition in the paragraphs of their five year plan documents and do not ensure their inclusion in their actual plans and programmes. He expressed his deep anguish that even the recommendations of the official policies and committees on ensuring freshwater flows in the rivers remain unimplemented.
Why do our governments have No Value for Rivers?
by , Indiawaterportal.org, 08 January, 2009
Why do our governments have No Value for Rivers?
by , Indiawaterportal.org, 08 January, 2009 Page 1 of 2
