The apex court of India has given the go ahead for the controversial inter-linking river project, seeking to transfer water from surplus to water deficit areas in the country. In its final judgement dated February 27, 2012, a three-member bench, headed by the chief justice of India, expressed the “pious hope of speedy implementation” to bring the project to a success.

Conflict over Krishna

Third floor of Trikoot Bhawan in Delhi’s Bhikaji Cama Place, which houses the second Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal, will turn into a war zone by February-end. A battery of lawyers, technical staff and irrigation department officials from Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh will fight hard to win the maximum allocation of the Krishna river water for their respective states.

The Union Ministry of Water Resources recently uploaded the draft of the new national water policy on its website, inviting comments and objections from the public. Water resources minister Pawan Kumar Bansal said the policy, under preparation since 2010, is being framed with a “participatory approach”.

A tremor ran through the cutting- edge electric car industry last month. Mathieu Tenenbaum, working with French automaker Renault, was just another faceless name till then. But one espionage story that hit the newsstands made him infamous in a single stroke.

Although the five-member Empowered Committee appointed by the Supreme Court is yet to compile its report on the safety of the Mullaperiyar dam structure, sources say that its two-member technical team has said there is no need to decommission the existing dam.

Indra Pal Singh fondly recalls drinking sweet water of the river Ami as a child. Elders of the village where Pal Singh grew up say the river gets it name from aam (mango) or amrit (nectar). Today, Pal Singh, pradhan of Adilapar village in Uttar Pradesh’s Gorakhpur district, says the 136 km river has become a nuisance. A drain that carries untreated industrial effluent from the Gorakhpur Industrial Development Area (GIDA) has reduced it to a filthy water body. Residents of more than 100 habitations downstream of the drain often complain of colds, mystery fevers, nausea and high blood pressure. They find it hard to breathe at night as the stench from the drain rises with the increase in the volume of the wastewater. The residents say the effluent level rises by half a metre at sunset.

TAKING stock of its water operations, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has set guidelines for an investment of US $2-2.5 billion annually in the water sector for the next 10 years. The guidelines, called Water Operation Plan, however, do not define the exact approach to water operations.

The Central Water Commission has compiled and averaged a decade (2001-2011) of water quality data, collected from 371 monitoring stations located at all major, medium and minor rivers in India. The report, made available recently, but published in August this year, has identified hot spots or stretches of rivers where certain water quality parameters have been found to exceed permissible limits (see map).

It is often said that if you see someone in the Lion City (Singa-pura) with oriental features and in good humour, he or she must be either a Filipino or a Filipina. The average Singaporean does not emote freely. They ensure their intentions are not misinterpreted; rarely do they smile, or acknowledge an unknown person. And often they are accused of being staid and boring, yet envied the world over as they strive for perfection on all counts. This clinical obsession is deep-rooted in their psyche and extends to how they look at water.

Each year, floods, to greater or lesser degree, affect about 7.5 million hectares in India, a little over two per cent of the country's surface area. What's more, over five times this area is considered prone to floods, caused when rivers breach their banks.

How much water should flow in Indian rivers? Hydrologists have been discussing minimum river flows for over four decades now. The churning has resulted in the concept of environmental flow, or e-flow. This implies strategically releasing water downstream of dams and reservoirs to protect the services a river provides.

AFTER two years, voices of more than a thousand fisher families along the Mundra coast in Gujarat have been heard. A grievance mechanism of the World Bank has accepted their complaint that a soon-to-be commissioned coal power plant funded by the bank will affect the environment and their livelihood. The World Bank is extending a loan of US $450 million to the project, which is 25 km from the port in Kachchh district.

The film begins with images of a gushing stream, birds chirping and a typical audio overlay of the santoor that captures any pristine environment.

The people of Chepdu village in Pindar valley treasure the fair held every June in memory of an army man from the region who was posthumously awarded the Ashok Chakra. This year, however, his widow Bimla Joshi has cancelled it. She cannot accept Rs 3 lakh that the Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam Limited (SJVNL) offered for arrangements. The public sector undertaking plans to build a 252-MW hydel project and a dam on the river Pindar in Uttarakhand’s Chamoli district.

IN THE first week of April, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) oversaw an experiment to monitor, minute to minute, the water quality of the river Yamuna. The two-week trial at the water intake point of the Wazirabad water treatment plant in north-east Delhi was conducted by a private firm to ascertain the feasibility of monitoring water quality real time.

WATER resources and planning may shift from the State to the Concurrent List of the Constitution. The Ashok Chawla committee will make this suggestion when it tables its report before the Cabinet in June this year, sources say.

RESIDENTS of a village in Wankaner taluka of Rajkot district in Gujarat are celebrating a March 16 high court order directing release of water into a canal, that is their sole source of irrigation. The canal had dried up two years ago when Ajanta Infrastructure of Orpat group of companies started construction around a pond that fed the canal. The company is setting up a tourist resort spread over 40 hectares (ha).

THERE is a good chance the leafy vegetables that make it to your salad bowls were irrigated using untreated or partially treated sewage. Each day an estimated 20,000 million litres of sewage is used for irrigation—five times what Delhi generates each day—but more than half of it is untreated.

NOW a novel technique speedily kills pathogens in water. The water filter created by scientists from Stanford university, uses electrically treated cotton fabric to deactivate bacteria instead of just filtering the water. The fabric combines carbon nanotubes and silver nanowires, which are good conductors of electricity.

Nirbhai Singh, an undertrial, wrote a letter from Ludhiana’s Central Jail five years ago and stirred industry and government into action. Addressed to the High Court of Punjab and Haryana, the letter expressed concern over pollution in the city. The court then began to look into the state of environment, in particular the Buddha Nallah. The government took up the matter in earnest and as a result, Ludhiana now has a Rs 650 crore remedial action plan. It aims to treat all its wastewater by March 2012.

Manoj Lodhiwal is the head salesperson at a household appliance store in south Delhi. Every morning as the storeowner performs puja, he examines how and where to display products. “The facade must remain stacked with home water purifiers; they are the hottest items,” Lodhiwal said. His store is in Mohan Singh market, an electronics and household appliance hub in Delhi. The frontage of most shops here display water purifiers—from low-cost variants priced at Rs 999 to the ones with more attractive features, worth Rs 50,000.

GROUNDWATER is becoming important to sustain agriculture, industry and drinking water. But as we exploit aquifers, more water becomes part of the hydrological cycle. A recent study shows evaporation and precipitation of groundwater is responsible for a fourth of the annual sea level rise of 3.1 mm.

This book about lessons from dismantling of dams in the US comes at a time when Indian government has been forced to cancel a few dam projects on the river Ganga.

MARSH India, an insurance brokerage firm, has announced policy cover for water utilities against water contamination like the one witnessed in Doda district of Jammu and Kashmir in August. Over 1,000 persons suffered from gastroenteritis after drinking contaminated water; heavy rains and flash floods had damaged the supply network.

Every year, during monsoon, it is the same story for roads across India. Potholes, potholes and more potholes. It requires a small intervention to not only help reduce costs incurred in repairing a damaged stretch but also increase groundwater levels. Yet, the government has failed to do so.

On the genesis of the scheme

Our target is to ensure not a single milk producer in Anand and Khera districts of Gujarat defecates in the open. This is the region where the milk movement began in 1946, where we strive to improve the quality of the milk chain— from keeping cow udders clean to transporting milk.

TELUGU Desam Party chief Chandrababu Naidu reignited the Godavari river water sharing controversy when he was arrested last month on his way to the Babhali barrage in Maharashtra’s Nanded district.

AN EIGHT-MEMBER expert committee has recommended a thorough review and redesign of the 115-metre high dam on the Subansiri river, a tributary of the Brahmaputra.

The Pushkar lake dried after dredging last summer. The dredging was part of a lake conservation project funded by the Centre and the Rajasthan government.

The Rs 48-crore project aims to spruce up the catchment and concretize existing channels that carry the run-off. The latter is to curb losses through evaporation and seepage when water flows from the catchment to the lake through feeder channels after rains. The four-metre-deep dredging was done to accommodate the water that might flow into the lake.

Uttar pradesh chief minister Mayawati reportedly complained recently of foul odour from an open drain with sewage near her Kautilya Marg residence in New Delhi. There was no formal complaint, just her word. The New Delhi Municipal Council had to act. On November 14, at Rs 8.5 lakh annually, it set in motion a remedy: a tank that releases microbes to treat sewage.

A survey by the Union Ministry of Urban Development to rate cities for their hygiene revealed what most people already know—urban areas across India are weighed down by their own waste. Not one of the 423 cities surveyed got the ‘healthy and clean’ tag.

On the outskirts of Kathmandu, Siddhipur village has rediscovered the value of urine. More than 100 toilets in the village divert urine to farms, where it is used as fertilizer. It is not a new practice, though. The village was recycling urine before modern fertilizers were introduced. “In the past, people would urinate in a pit of ash and rice husk under their staircase. They would then use the composted material as fertilizer,” said Jiban Maharjan of Siddhipur.

Property tax defaulters of Tiruchirapally city in Tamil Nadu have been asked to clear their dues by March 31 or go without water.

the Madhya Pradesh government has not rehabilitated the majority of the villagers who will be displaced by the controversial Maheshwar dam on the river Narmada in Khargone district. Construction of the dam is nearly complete but only a few families have been given alternative land.

THE Tamil Nadu government is acquiring land for setting up special economic zones (sezs) at breakneck speed. Much of this land is being acquired by intimidating farmers or by preventing them from selling their land through a freeze on land registration.

Rural water supply scheme for Andhra has no room for public opinion; price may be hiked later

villagers in Andhra Pradesh will soon get their drinking water supply in 20-litre plastic containers. The government
has shortlisted five companies that would treat raw water and sell it to villagers. The government thinks this is the best way to supply safe drinking

Australian city taps drain water, supplies to households

On April 23, Orange city in Australia crossed a major milestone. The city, 260 km west of Sydney, became the first in the country to commission a
stormwater harvesting system that uses rainwater runoff to augment its drinking water supply.

Adelaide's wealthy don't mind paying fines

people living in Adelaide's wealthiest suburbs top the list of those flouting water use restrictions in South Australia (SA). Violators are prepared to risk fines imposed by water conservation officers deployed to check water abuse. The number of violators rose from seven in 2006-07 to 220 in 2008-09.

Ahmedabad companies found selling contaminated drinking water

bottled water in Ahmedabad may not be safe. The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation has found faecal bacteria in samples of water from three bottling plants last month. No action has been taken against the erring firms yet.

Until a decade ago, Kim Li Loi, Canton and Hot Wok, restaurants in the Chinatown locality of eastern Kolkata's Tangra district, collectively served as
a tannery among scores of others run by Chinese immigrants. But a December 19, 1996, Supreme Court order directed these and other inner city

Vishnubhai Patel was an operator-cum-fitter with Green Environment Services Co-operative Society Ltd. He claims he was sacked in August 2006, a little over a year after exposing the society's fraudulent effluent treatment practices. Society officials, however, say he was relieved off his duties because he stole imported machine parts worth Rs 9,000.

Energy Australia (ea), electricity and gas supplier to over 1.4 million families in Australia, brought out in late October that people spend more time in showers, which adds to their annual power bill by almost Australian $100. Their research found that 4.21 minutes is the average time for each shower. But it increased significantly when the shower included activities such as singing or even listening to music (see graph: Slippery when wet).