The key issue is not availability or resources but last mile delivery: how to reach foodgrains to people. In ancient Greece, the punishment given to Tantalus was to tie a cup around his neck and fill it with water. Every time he bent to take a sip, the cup would drop further and he would never get a drop into his parched mouth. From this comes the word “tantalizing”. Something like...

The northern region of Gujarat State in western India is semi-arid and prone to droughts, receiving almost all of its rain during the monsoon season between June and September. But for the past three decades, many crop and dairy farms have remained green—even during the dry season. That's because farmers have invested in wells and pumps, using massive amounts of electricity to extract water from deep aquifers. The government has artificially propped...

-IANS A Right to Information (RTI) activist was assaulted by government officials in Bihar's Rohtas district after he sought information about illegal mining, police said on Thursday.  Nabi Ahmad, in his mid-60s, was assaulted by an executive engineer, assistant engineer and three contractors of the water resources department in Dehri-On-Sone, a town in Rohtas, about 150 km from here.   "I was attacked and assaulted. My crime was that I sought information from the...

Experts agree that the economic and environmental costs of interlinking India's rivers far outweigh its projected benefits. Some people believe it is the one-stop solution to prevent floods and droughts, reduce water scarcity, raise irrigation potential and increase foodgrain production in the country. But others say it is just another grandiose scheme involving huge costs and leading to long-term ecological consequences. The contentious idea of interlinking India's rivers has come...

Ramaswamy R. Iyer, former Secretary, Union Ministry of water resources, has been a consistent critic of the idea of interlinking rivers (ILR). In this interview, he shares his concerns about the Supreme Court's judgment directing the government to implement the project, and explains why it is deeply flawed. Excerpts In your article in “The Hindu”, you have claimed that the government's stand on the project is ambiguous. The amicus curiae has,...