Large promises
Prime Minister Vajpayee is terribly interested in rural development these days. On his birthday he inaugurated Swajaldhara, a nation-wide water …
Rain check
The column width dedicated to rain in the mainstream print media has hit an all-time high. A few days ago, television news reporters with that …
The water bearer
ANNA HAZARE bids a heavy-hearted farewell to the late Vilasrao Salunkhe, better known as 'pani baba'. Salunkhe's revolutionary concept of '…
Keeper of the nation's water kitty
MADHAV Chitale, former secretary in the ministry of water resources, is a recipient of The Stockholm Water Award, given by the Stockholm Water …
Where are the panchayats?
Of the three farm water conservation programmes currently under way in Karnataka, the Jal Samvardhene Yojana (jsy) has completed a year of …
Chronicle of a journey foretold
Water trains aren't a strange sight anymore. Not the least in the parched areas of Gujarat. But while many villages await their erratic supply, …
A midsummer dream
Anyone will tell you that follow-ups are not a story. Journalism is not about following stories of specific villages and how they fare year after …
Andhra's groundwater crisis & a trail of suicides
Groundwater has failed Andhra Pradesh’s farmers. Between 1997 and 2006, about 4,500 farmers committed suicide, unable to repay loans they …
A watershed plan
Recurrent droughts and floods coupled with mass poverty, chronic unemployment and pervasive malnutrition are the major challenges before India. …
Is the joyride over ?
There was fear in the 1960s. Would India continue to wait for food imports to feed itself? The scientific community came up with an answer that …
Saga of two villages
Sukhomajri was a dirt-poor village in Haryana. It started pulling itself out of its hole in the late 1970s, making a dizzying ascent to …
Hiware Bazar - A village with 54 millionaires
Hiware Bazar, a village in Maharashtra's drought-prone Ahmednagar district, was sliding into an abyss after degrading its environment. But in …
How green is your building?
The building's green credentials have been recognised internationally, most notably by the us Green Business Council (usgbc). The Washington-…
MGNREGA: 15 years of moving from crisis to solutions
How the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme been used by India
World Water Day: How Indian villages used 15 years of MGNREGA
A look at how the world’s largest public wage programme has helped fight water shortage and revive India’s agrarian economy
This green oasis is a drought-proof village in Rajasthan
The miracle was brought about mostly through the revival of traditional water-harvesting structures
Stepwells in Gujarat are a lesson on community-based water harvesting
Gujarat can find solace in its traditional water monuments. For that, it first needs to restore them
India’s new hydro map
The blue represents the spread of the 30 million water-related structures built under MGNREGA. The darker the shade, the higher the number of …
A model to emulate
Involve all stakeholders and train worksite supervisors and labourers to make MGNREGA benefit everyone
This indigenous tribe of Kenya needs the world’s attention
The Sengwer hunter-gatherer people of the Embobut forest are being criminalised and dispossessed of their ancestral lands by the Kenyan State
Water level in reservoirs now at 25% of live storage capacity; southern, central regions worst affected
Reservoirs in central India saw the biggest drop in water levels to 29 per cent from 43 per cent in 2017
Book notice: Farmer-led Participatory Research - Cases from Western India
Centralised models of development don't work; local knowledge and traditional methods do, especially in the realms of farming and water …
How DTE covered World Water Day 2023
A national workshop held in Lucknow by CSE on ‘Sustainable and Inclusive Sanitation and Water for All’ highlighted the steps Uttar …
With half a million new farm ponds, should farmers be worried about deficit monsoon?
In the last 12 years, the MGNREGA has created at least 46 new water harvesting structures in every village
Telangana requests central aid for tank restoration
Mission Kakatiya is a flagship programme aimed at restoring tanks and water bodies in the state. This will help small and marginal farmers …