-Down to Earth The treated water recharges aquifers It is a common sight that greets those visiting the villages in the semi-arid Mewat district of Haryana—streams of waste water emerging from doorsteps of homes, running through streets, and forming puddles here and there. Village Rawli is one such village. It has no sanitation facilities or sewers. Children play in these puddles while their parents watch them without any sign of concern. They...

-The Economic Times It has never happened since Independence. May be not even in the last 1,000 years what happened during October 2011-September 2012. India exported 10 million tonnes of rice, valued at around $6 billion, becoming the largest exporter of rice, replacing Thailand and Vietnam, generally the two largest exporters of rice. This is now known to many in rice circles. But what is little known is that in 2011-12, India also emerged...

-Down to Earth Rice cultivation has led to waterlogging and soil salinity in Haryana’s Jhajjar district CASTE-BASED khap panchayats of Haryana are usually in the news for passing regressive and, often, controversial orders in the name of honouring social customs. But this year in January, the Jhakkar khap panchayat of Jhajjar district gave a rather unusual order in the larger interest of the farming community. It ordered that all the 36...

-IANS WASHINGTON: The sea level is rising faster than expected and may cross one metre mark by the end of this century -- double that of the estimates made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007, says a study. "What's missing from the models used to forecast sea-level rise are critical feedbacks that speed everything up," says Bill Hay, a geologist at the University of Colorado, US. The feedbacks include...

-The Hindu ‘Vision document mooted to designate them as ‘separate urban natural resources’ The Urban Development Ministry has constituted a working group to suggest ways to preserve water bodies. Rapid disappearance of water bodies from the urban landscape has sounded an alarm vis-à-vis water shortfall and has also put a considerable strain on States’ spending to meet the demand for water. A case in point is Bangalore. Despite having a Lake Development Authority that...