Letters

Honey, set the limit

Bengaluru lakes to get facelift

Bengaluru now has an actionplan to restore its waterbodies after the Karnataka High Court accepted the report of a committee appointed to prepare a framework for the preservation of the city's lakes. The court had appointed the committee headed by Justice NK Patil in November last year to examine the ground realities while formulating a framework for restoration of lakes.

Drought hit

Villages in Jharkhand could go dry by March. The state is facing acute water crisis because of two consecutive drought years.

Injustice gets nastier

Water scarcity accentuates discrimination against the socially backward

Rice intensification for increasing productivity

Jai Sri is a common greeting in the Koraput countryside these days. A Paraja tribal woman working in her fields, a passing motorcyclist driving through the rutted lanes, a teacher heading for his school, they all greet each other and visitors with a Jai Sri. It has nothing to do with religious revivalism, but is the new buzzword sweeping the farmlands of Odisha—and large patches of India. SRI is the acronym for System of Rice Intensification, a new technique to grow rice more efficiently using much less water and seeds but yielding far greater quantities of rice.

How women seized NREGA

Unique features of the public wage programme turn it into a magnet for women

Watertight

Tapasya Mohan, a 29-year-old executive in a telecom company, recently purchased a refrigerator. She did not go by looks but the five-star label on the fridge for energy efficiency. She did not mind paying more; the salesman convinced her she would save more in the long run on her electricity bills.

Water pricing can drive demand

R K SOMANY, chairperson of Hindustan Sanitaryware and Industries Ltd that controls 40 per cent of branded sanitary ware market in India, spoke on promoting water efficiency. Excerpts

Ponds for strongmen

He is a former MLA, a khandani landlord and owns more than 121 hectare (ha) apart from many local businesses. Known as the ‘sarkar’ of Sonkachch tehsil of the dry Dewas district of Madhya Pradesh (MP), Rajendhra Singh Baghel met natural farming guru Subhash Palekar about 10 years ago. Today, Baghel campaigns for water conservation, natural farming and promotes local crops in 32 villages in his tehsil. On his own land, he grows traditional crops and a variety of fruits.

Experiments in budgeting water

The million-odd users of groundwater in Andhra Pradesh need a new form of regulation, everybody agrees. The system based on permits—under WALTA—only adds to the transaction cost of farmers. The fact is there is a desperation to dig and then dig deeper.