India Water Portal

February 2 is observed as the World Wetlands Day. The day marks the date of adoption of the Convention on Wetlands in the Iranian city of Ramsar in 1971. This year, the theme of the World Wetlands Day is Wetlands for Disaster Risk Reduction. It aims to raise awareness and highlight the vital roles of healthy wetlands in reducing the impacts of extreme events such as floods, droughts and cyclones on communities and to help build resilience against these events. 

The small town of Navalgund of Dharwad district in Karnataka with a population of 25,000 has been the epicenter of farmers’ protest demanding water from the west-flowing river, Mahadayi. On July 30, 2016, the state of Karnataka woke up to the shocking news of police brutality on farmers, including women and children, who had gathered to demand their share of water.

Water sustains lives and livelihoods. It is a precious and finite resource that, in future years, is likely to become the main bone of contention between peoples, states and nations. Water – like every other finite resource – needs sustainable and equitable management, with equal focus on reducing demand, recycling and finding alternatives, as well as the usual emphasis on supply solutions.

Rohini Nilekani Founder-Chairperson, Arghyam

High food Inflation has been pinching Indians for the last few months and with the current monsoon not being very generous to farmers, the situation is only expected to worsen. As of August 29th, rainfall deficiency in the country was 18 per cent, a much improved figure from the 41 per cent deviation recorded at the start of monsoon. This was all thanks to heavy showers, which also led to floods in Odisha, Assam and Bihar.

Aldo Leopold’s ‘Land Ethic’ defines the relationship between people and nature, and simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soil, water, plants and animals, or collectively: the land. Instead of regarding it as a commodity belonging to us, we need to see land as a community to which we belong. 

At the India Water Portal, we are blessed with some very

Fascism of the beginning of the twenty first century is the articulation and translation of racism and ethnicity into politics. Political developments in the nineteen nineties and the first years of the twenty first century demonstrate the determination to control the peripheries and the 'third world'. The specific feature of the contemporary form of fascism is that it does not overthrow forms of parliamentary democracy. It finds a convenient place within global capitalism displaying old and new forms of fascist consciousness.

Day 1: Introduction to wetlands, their functions, values & importance