Photos, Illustrations and other Images

Ramesh Mali, a farmer in his late thirties, looks at his farmland nervously. It has been 13 days since the Simhastha Maha Kumbh festival, 2016, concluded. The district administration had acquired his four bigha land (approximately 0.64 hectares) for the festival. The barricades and the concrete left on his land give us the idea that the land is not fit for farming this season. He does not know what to do with his farmland when the monsoon arrives.

“The earth, the air, the land and the water are not an inheritance from our forefathers but on loan from our children. So we have to hand over to them at least as it was handed over to us.” This famous quote of Mahatma Gandhi aptly forms the basis of today’s ever-growing focus on sustainable development and inclusive growth. Every day 190 million people in India go to bed hungry, on the other hand privileged Indians waste one third of their food daily. Every day 350 million people in India do not get access to water, and yet privileged Indians over-use water by 1.5 times.

The Madhya Simhastha Maha Kumbh festival, the religious extravaganza that happens once in every 12 years, was held in Ujjain from April 22-May 21, 2016. This year around, the cost to conduct the festival escalated to Rs 5000 crores; more than 15 times the cost incurred for the previous Simhastha held in 2004. 

The legend has it that in the year 1321-22, mystic and 14th century Sufi saint Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya began digging a stepwell or

The Red Fort, located along the western banks of the Yamuna, was built by Mughal emperor Shahjahan when he moved his capital to Delhi from Agra and laid the foundations of Shahjahanabad, the seventh city of Delhi. Since then, the river has changed course but it’s proximity to the fort ensured that there was abundant water supply as well as protection for the city. A world heritage site, it was previously known as ‘Qila-e-Mubarak’ or the Blessed Fort. 

The Ujjain Simhastha (Kumbh Mela) in Madhya Pradesh will begin on April 22, 2016 and go on for a month. The event, held once every 12 years, holds religious significance to Hindus, and throngs of people--approximately 5 crore over the month--take a holy dip in the Kshipra river during this time.

Forest guards in India have fought many things over time in the course of their daily work--poachers, irate citizens, even animals at times! But they are now facing a threat that may well be beyond their capacity to overcome. A threat that is not just responsible for the death of individual animals, but for the destruction of entire groups of species--climate change.

Today's rural poor operate in highly risky and uncertain environments. Grappling with multiple stresses like eroding natural resources, poor assets and increasing climate variability, they are constantly adjusting their lives and livelihoods--changing a crop grown, digging another well, or migrating to a nearby town. To understand how livelihoods are changing in semi-arid India and what this implies for people's vulnerability to current and future impacts of climate change, we visited the semi-arid regions of the Moyar Bhavani river basin in Tamil Nadu.

Erstwhile undivided Andhra Pradesh, like its neighbours Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, is a land of tanks. The ‘Cheruvus’, ‘Eris’ and ‘Keres’, as they are known in the respective regional languages, are irrigation tanks dug centuries ago by kings and philanthropists to feed thousands of acres of thirsty paddy fields. 

Rachenahalli is one of the few living lakes in north Bangalore. It is connected to water bodies upstream and downstream, particularly Jakkur Lake on the north-east. Both these lakes have been rejuvenated at substantial costs by the Bangalore Development Authority over the last decade. A sewage treatment plant (STP) with a capacity to treat 10 million litres a day was set up north of Jakkur Lake by the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB). Water from the STP flows into Rachenahalli Lake when Jakkur Lake overflows during monsoon.