South Asia’s water problems can be significantly reduced through improved water governance of its major trans-boundary rivers which support the lives of about one billion people, writes Dr. Arvind Kumar. With more than 21 percent of the world’s population, the South Asia region has access to just over eight percent of global water resources. Average water availability per capita across the region has declined by 70 percent since the 1950s, and continues to decrease. Increasing population, intensified ag ricultural practices and irrigation, multiplying energy demand from greater industrial activity and economic growth, urbanisation, complex environmental consequences of climate change, deteriorating…
Author: oiop
The Bhopal Gas tragedy in 1984 rendered tens of thousands of people living near the guilty, but not convicted factory, orphans. Sonam Saigal narrates the ordeal of people living their fate by consuming the long declared ‘unfit for consumption’ water. At five past midnight on 2 December 1984, the Indian pesticide plant of the Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) in Bhopal, leaked 27 tons of the deadly gas methyl isocyanate (MIC). Half a million people living in the vicinity were exposed to the gas that night and 10,000 are believed to have died within 72 hours. Up to 25,000 people exposed…
Sudhir Prasad and Kallol Saha explain how the north eastern state of Jharkhand has successfully made optimum use of water and ensured sustainable water supply without burdening its people. Jharkhand one of the least-urbanised states in India with a population of 32 million, is aided with good forest cover (22 percent) and rainfall (1200 MM). But undulating topography and underlain crystalline hard rock offers little porosity and permeability for rainfall to stay. Due to paucity of surface sources and shallow aquifer, drinking water supply in present times primarily depends on ground water. As on 1 April 2012, 29,615 villages in…
Shoma Chatterjee tells us about an interesting documentary made by an FTII alumnus on Ellis Roderick Dungan, an American who lived in India for 15 years and made some blockbuster films in Tamil and Telugu, in a very challenging scenario. Few Indians, including film buffs across the country know that once upon a time, there was a full-blooded American who made blockbuster films in South India. He came for a short while but stayed on for 15 years and directed 11 successful feature films in Tamil, one in Telugu without knowing a word of either language. Karan Bali, a FTII…
Highlighting the role of water in entertainment and politics, V. Gangadhar says that the daily television soaps have not only added to the gallons of water in the country but also managed to make it to the Guinness Book of World Records. Water, water everywhere, not a drop to drink’ sang the poet S T Coleridge and one need not be surprised because water has this kind of impact on most people, including poets and creative personalities. Water has influenced producers and directors to make outstanding and successful films. Mandakini was an unknown starlet, till film maker Raj Kapoor made…
A feminist crusader (1933-2014) In the passing away of Prof. Ila Pathak, due to breast cancer on 9 January 2014 in Ahmedabad, Gujarat lost a dedicated social activist who fought for the socially excluded sections of society, especially brutalised women. Ilaben Pathak tirelessly supported women survivors of dowry harassment, rape victims, women whose noses were cut as punishment for being ‘adulteress’ by their husbands and inlaws), and campaigned against abortions of female foetuses since 1980s. Ilaben attended the first national conference of women’s studies at the SNDT Women’s university’s in 1981, which led to the formation of the Indian Association…
B.M.N. Murthy explores the navigation expertise in ancient India and says that the social taboo that existed against crossing seven seas raised from a myth without any scriptural sanction. There has been a general belief in the West that ancient Indians were mostly other-worldly and that the average Hindu was mostly enchanted with the idea of an ascetic, all-renouncing and empty philosophical life. They think that the ancient Hindu only believed in the doctrine of Karma and that he had no intention to live and enjoy the comforts of a pleasant mundane life. The basis of this misconceived notion is…
Advocate Varsha Deshpande has been striving to save and protect the girl child. She founded the ‘Lek Laadki Abhiyaan’ that upholds the mantra ‘Eliminate Inequality not Women, Destroy Dowry not Daughters’. Advocate Varsha Deshpande has been actively and courageously striving for judicious implementation of Pre-Conception and Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT) Act, 2002. Undeterred by threats to her life and attempts to buy her over by medical mafia, she has built a sustained campaign against doctors providing illegal service of pre natal sex selection to identify sex of foetus resulting into discriminatory abortion of female fetuses. She is a crusader for…
Notable actor Farooque Shaikh passed away on December 27 in Dubai. Whether he was the most popular boy on campus or enacting the affable hero on the big screen, Farooque Shaikh was forever the gentleman actor. He was admired by his colleagues for his cool and polite demeanour. During the 1970s, movie-goers relished his performances, relating to his onscreen ‘aam aadmi’ persona. Farooque Shaikh was born in Vadodara, Gujarat on March 25, 1948. He graduated from Mumbai’s St Xavier’s College and then studied law. Throughout his college years, he was active in theatre. Together with Shabana Azmi, his classmate, he…
Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was in jail many times during the freedom movement. In one particular jail, the food was very bad and one day Panditji complained to the jailer about the large quantities of stones in the rice. “What’s food to a freedom fighter?” said the warden. “I thought you were here because you loved your land.” “I am,” replied Panditji, “but not in order to eat it.”