THE KING OF SMALL THINGS

'A small king, a small portfolio', was the popular reaction in 1985 when Digvijay Singh became irrigation minister of Madhya Pradesh (MP). For the next five years, the civil engineer-turned-politician advocated small dams in agriculture. "He was speaking the language of the villagers who traditionally irrigate their land through small dams," says Biren Tewari, a senior Congress leader.

A water harvest

in the hill-fort of Mandu, Madhya Pradesh, lie the ruins of a 1,400-year-old civilisation ruled by numerous dynasties, including the Mughals. Cocooned in these ruins, at 633.7 metres above sea level, is also a sophisticated and need-based water harvesting system. Devoid of groundwater, the hill-top town depended on rain for water supply throughout the year.

ACHIEVEMENTS IN JHABUA

• Some 22 per cent of the districts land area was brought under the Rajiv Gandhi Watershed Development Mission (RGWDM) by April 199& 374 villages have got involved In developing 249 micro- watersheds. • The foundation of any watershed programme is water and soil conservation. In JbidAw it means arresting the water that falls on the hilklopes Instead of allowing it to run away, carrying away with It the precious ppsoil. The water is so trained that It percolates into

LEARNING THE VALUE OF T R E E S

This is the visiting card of an Indian tribal who has witnessed the travails of living in an environmentally-ravaged land. His story is by no means isolated. It probably resembles the story of millions of other tribals. Mangilal remembers when there were lots of trees in the forest near his village. Slowly, those trees disappeared - people hacked them down and sold them off in the nearby markets of

Fodder for victory

LIKE the blades of grass which grew silently to clothe the brown hills of Jhabua, the hold of the Congress party strengthened unnoticed in the state of Madhya Pradesh (MP). Even as the grass imparted strength to the denuded slopes, so did the Congress grow in strength. The party in power had decided to give power to the people in the state. A stake in their natural resources. This worked in more ways than one. People do not - cannot - throw themselves out of power.

Performance pays

THE recent election results in Madhya Pradesh (MP) have surprised not just the leading political parties, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress, but also the media and other election observers.

IN TUNE WITH THE MASSES

IT WAS unexpected. A sudden increase in tribal voter turnout and the impact of Panchayati Raj programmes swung the scale in favour of the Congress in Madhya Pradesh's (mp's) Legislative Assembly elections. Vikram Verma, opposition leader in the last mp Assembly, was projected as the next chief minister (cm). Digvijay Singh, a close friend of his, had advised him not to contest from a tribal and minority

Nowhere to go

THE Central Zoo Authority of India has asked the officials of the Madhav National Park at Shivpuri in Madhya Pradesh to wind up their "tiger safari". The park is home to eight tigers, all offspring of tigress Tara and tiger Petu. The pair was brought to the park from Bhopal Van Vihar and kept within a 140hectare section of the park. Because the animals were kept in captivity, they have not developed the skills to survive in the wild. As a result, they cannot be released into the national park or set free in tiger reserves in other parts of the country.

"Women know how to manage better"

Involvement of women is on your priority list. Why? The women in the villages are involved in three basic things - water, fuel and fodder. Along with agriculture, one of the basic goals of watershed development programmes is to help in improving the life of women in villages. It is essential to involve them in something which is a part of their every day life... empowerment of women is necessary to build up their confidence and give them a sense of financial security. Also, I feel women know how to manage better with minimum resources. Interviewee:  Smita Ghate

Pre-history revisited

IT is time to rewrite the history of life on Earth. A Calcutta-based geologist, Pradip Bose, has found convincing evidence from a site close to Churhat, Madhya Pradesh: The first multi-celled animals evolved about 1.1 billion years ago. This finding will stretch back the chronology of animal life by about 500 million years. So far, findings in China had shown that multi-celled animals had evolved nearly 600 million years ago. But now, with Bose's discovery, scientists may begin to question Darwin's theory of evolution.