Society, Culture, Religion and History

While climate activists and world leaders were gathering in Paris in the first week of December 2015 to discuss the impact of climate change, the metropolis Chennai in the southern corner of India was inundated with floods. The worst flood to hit the region in over 100 years took the lives of more than 300 people. And at the same time, access to clean water eluded millions in the city.  

Water, its use, availability, and impact on people has been on the public policy debate centerstage for the past several years. In India, a growing water crisis driven by climate change, inefficiency, and water pollution is slowly moving to a near-permanent state that will harm the country’s people, economy and environment.  

MoU signed for groundwater management through community intervention

Development and its impact on the environment has long been a contentious issue in India, where lack of adequate monitoring and control mechanisms have led to severe degradation of land, water and forest resources. Mining activities in Goa have not only poisoned its land and water, but also affected livelihoods by negatively impacting agriculture, fisheries and forests.

Manual scavenging still prevails in India thanks to weak laws, says study

“It is a lack of (institutional) capacity which is leading to public woes on water. We are not in a position to give you quality services because of two things – one, manpower, and two, finances,” said BWSSB Chairman Tushar Girinath, speaking at a panel discussion on ‘Sustainable, Equitable Access to Water’.

NGT pushes MoEF to issue notification to ban unnecessary use of RO purifiers

Socially constructed notions of the different roles and responsibilities of men and women have a huge bearing on access to and control over resources, and subsequently on their vulnerabilities. More often than not, this leads to vulnerabilities that are skewed towards women, more than men. Gender mainstreaming entails re-organising formal structures of decision making and institutional processes to acknowledge gender as a centrality, rather than as an add-on.

A new research study by Climate Central, a US-based non-profit research group has projected that 300 million people could face annual coastal flooding triggered by climate change by 2050. Scott A Kulp and Benjamin H Strauss, the authors of the study suggest that the choices made today will likely determine whether our planet’s coastlines will even be recognizable, by the middle of the twenty first century.