-TheThirdPole.net Between wasteful flood irrigation, free electricity to farmers, and skewed market incentives, agriculture is a mess; while lack of accountability creates urban water problems in South Asia The 2019 South Asian summer monsoon is late, slow and inadequate so far. If it makes up somewhat for lost time, those 55% of Indian farmers who do not get irrigation water will still suffer, but there is a chance that reservoirs may fill...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: Mumbaikars can now drink water straight from the tap, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC’s) hydraulic engineer Ashok Tawadia said. According to BMC, an average 0.7% of water samples collected daily across Mumbai between April 2018 and March 2019 tested positive for Coliform bacteria, a group of microorganisms present in water bodies that indicate water may not be fit for drinking. This is far better than the WHO...

-Down to Earth The tribunal has asked UP chief secretary to immediately act on the mismanaged solid waste from the pilgrimage Both the governments, at the Centre and Uttar Pradesh, claimed to have organised a 'swachh' — clean — Kumbh in the winter of 2018-19, but the National Green Tribunal seems to differ. In fact, the quasi judicial body rang alarm bells on Aprill 22, 2019 about host city Allahabad being on...

-Down to Earth In the 1990s, non-profits and farmers themselves built check dams; today, the government does it, without proper research or site selection Fifty-four-year old Dineshbhai Babariya has just harvested a 20 quintal cotton crop, his second harvest in the last one year in his four bigha (1.6 acre) farm in the Jasapar village of Gujarat’s Saurashtra region. August 2018 was the last time the village in Rajkot district received around 228...

-IndiaWaterPortal.org Calculating water availability and crop budgeting can prevent over-extraction of groundwater and mounting farm debt. At 42 years, Bhagwat Ghagare seems young. But he is old enough to have seen his village prosper and decline many times. Farming had traditionally been small and distress migration rampant at Kumbharwadi in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra. Between 1998 and 2002, a non-profit organisation, Watershed Organisation Trust (WOTR), initiated a work related to rainwater harvesting...