River restoration is not just an ecological act
Despite decades of restoration efforts by a rich ensemble of state-development actors, cultural heritage votaries and rights activists, the …
The precarious geopolitics of phosphorous
Both nitrogen and phosphorous are essential to life. Lynchpins both to global food production, circulating through synthesis or export and then …
The lake colony
Call them the "lakers". Some 10,000 of them. Parts of the Dal (land and water) belong to them. And when they feel the need to make a …
The political economy of defecation
This is a story about Delhi and the Yamuna, about the relationship between one of India's richest cities and one of her most revered rivers. The …
Pollution pays
Whenever the issue of how to end pollution is raised, it hits a block: technology. Take the case of air pollution: among other things, the issue …
Ganga bazaar
The Modi government has invested hugely in its mission to clean the Ganga, inviting companies and countries to offer their technological expertise.…
NGT scraps 2017 ministry note easing sewage treatment norms
The standards were diluted by the notification that permitted more pollutants than what was allowed under the 2015 CPCB draft
Mainstreaming co-treatment of faecal sludge for reducing pollution in Ganga
Excreta of 73 per cent of UP’s population is not managed safely. Out of this, 48 per cent is dependent on on-site sanitation systems
`Industries easily find political protection whenever we are strict'
Uma Bharati, Union minister of water resources, river development and Ganga rejuvenation, speaks to Sushmita Sengupta on the challenges of …
Drinking water audit report by March 2011
In addition to conducting financial audits, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG), VINOD RAI, has decided to conduct a social and …
How an environmental engineer used faecal sludge management to make his Telangana town clean
Faecal sludge and septage management could be an opportunity to re-consider future strategies regarding treatment of faecal waste
Daily Court Digest: Major environment orders (August 5, 2022)
Down To Earth brings you top environmental cases heard in Supreme Court, high courts and National Green Tribunal
Swachh Bharat Mission: Need focus on citywide sanitation, clean Ganga
Safe and equitable access to sanitation and ensuring behavioural change necessary for sustenance
Muckraking
Calcutta comes up with the "most efficient and ecologically benign method" of re-using municipal waste and sewage
Court Digest: Major environment hearings of the week (August 3-7, 2020)
Down To Earth brings you the top environmental cases heard in the Supreme Court, the high courts and the National Green Tribunal through the week
A civilisational loss
For more than two decades, Huta Ram Baidya has led the Save Bagmati River campaign. An affable, octogenarian activist and Nepal’s first …
After NGT asks for stringent norms for STPs — a new dilemma
Switching to new norms for all existing and upcoming sewage treatment plants (STPs) is going to be a mammoth task
Manual scavenging: Non-existent for govt, yet people die 30-ft under ground
The recent deaths of five manual scavengers again raises the question of how far will India let this problem go
Sewage pond called Mansarovar
To restore Shahpura lake, also known as Mansarovar, Bhopal Municipal Corporation must innovate its sewage treatment system
A matter of costs
In a poor country, cost-effectiveness has to be the byword for municipal wastewater treatment. And the upward anaerobic sludge blanket …
Why UNESCO's 'natural solutions' to water problems won't work in Africa
Nature-based solutions to water can work in some places, but on the whole they face serious limitations
Will the Yamuna clean-up go the Ganga way?
Even though Ganga Action Plan-I, initiated seven years ago, has fallen short of expectations, work has already begun on the ambitious Yamuna …
Simple systems available to treat sewage
Planners should be made aware of easy techniques that can recycle waste water using little electricity.
After long denial, Haryana recognises Najafgarh lake as water body
The NGT has now directed Delhi government to take appropriate steps in accordance with law for revival of the lake
CSE alumnus impact: How a green entrepreneur helped restore Kham river
Principles of a decentralised wastewater treatment system was put to use to bring about transformation