Manufactured Chaos

As governance formally surrendered the administration of Delhi to chaos on All Fools' Day, April 1, 2001, the fate of its citizens' health and public transport continued to hang in balance. Ministers and politicians had a field day blaming each other for the chaos and rioting that broke out on April 3.

A belief in tradition

Rajasthan pollution board issues directives on waste disposal a second time

With the municipal corporations in Rajasthan failing to submit reports on compliance with the rules relating to disposing biomedical and municipal waste, the state's pollution control board has again issued directives to them.

Solar lighting systems successful in Rajasthan

It is a simple device but it has shrunk the nights in Rajasthan's countryside. Over the past decade, thousands of families in the state's remote villages, unconnected with the grid, have installed solar lighting systems at their homes, which harness solar energy to generate electricity.

Human touch in credit

They are a force to reckon with, the Meo-Muslim women of Chandoli village in Alwar district of Rajasthan. Despite using the same ingredients for developing self-help groups (shg), the village-based shg and its government-run counterpart produced totally contrary results.

Snippets

• Anyone with a personal computer can now take part in an online experiment (Climateprediction.net) to generate a probable forecast of the climate of the 21st century. A collaborative effort of Britain's meteorological department, universities and other institutions, it would be the world's biggest climate science project ever. About two million people from around the world are expected to take part in this experiment , which would enable each user to conduct a unique version of the climate model.

Lava-ka-Baas: The blame game

WHEN one contests the dominant, it is of utmost importance that all actions and their outcome be above doubt. There isn't the faintest margin of error. There cannot be misfortune. The villages of Alwar district have known this for a long time. For about two decades now, they have got help from Tarun Bharat Sangh (TBS), a voluntary group. TBS learnt in its salad days in the villages that the region had a rich tradition of building earthen check-dams called johads to harvest rainwater.

Split wide open

in the wee hours of July 10, the johad (earthen check-dam) in Rajasthan's Lava-ka-Baas village, which had irrigated at least seven villages during two successive droughts, burst. The water that flowed fiercely through the embankment saw the villagers' hopes being washed away. They had constructed the structure in 2001 in the face of strong objection by the government.

Vindicated

For the villagers of Lava ka Baas in Alwar district of Rajasthan, the Ramon Magsaysay award for Rajendra Singh, secretary of the Alwar-based Tarun Bharat Sangh could not have come at a more opportune time. After their face off with the irrigation department, who questioned the safety and the legality of the johad that the villagers had constructed on a nalla that feeds into the Ruparel river, the award has silenced, at least for the time being, critics of community-based water harvesting.

Rainwater rights