-The Times of India   CHITALIYA (RAJKOT): In the villages of Jasdan taluka in drought-hit Saurashtra, dalit women prefer to remain silent. That's for the fear of the upper castes in a state whose chief minister Narendra Modi is busy trying to conjure up an eclectic image to subserve his perceived prime ministerial ambitions for 2014 polls. "Those people (upper castes) will abuse us again if we speak," mumbled one of the women,...

-The Business Standard Politics means sugarcane gets Maharashtra's scarce water The drought in a large part of Maharashtra, said to be the worst since 1972, may have been triggered by poor rainfall in the last monsoon season - but it has been compounded by mismanagement of the available water. Nearly one-third of the state's population living in the 15 drought-hit districts in and around the Marathwada region is facing a severe scarcity...

-The Hindu   The water markets of Marathwada are booming. In the town of Jalna alone, tanker owners transact between Rs.6 million and Rs.7.5 million in water sales each day Thirst is Marathwada's greatest crop this season. Forget sugarcane. Thirst, human and industrial, eclipses anything else. Those harvesting it reap tens of millions of rupees each day across the region. The van loads of dried-out cane you see on the roads could end...

-The Hindustan Times A UN report has described India’s water pollution situation as a “time-bomb” while praising social activist Anna Hazare’s village Ralegan Siddhi for using the scarce commodity in a rationale manner. In a stinging remark on water administration in India, the report says India is able to treat just 10 % of its city sewage and industrial waste discharge, the most polluting source for rivers and water bodies. “Presently, only...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: Summer may still be a couple of months away but in 3,905 villages in 12 districts of Marathwada and western Maharashtra, faced with one of the worst droughts since 1972, people have started migrating to Mumbai and neighbouring Gujarat, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. A high-ranking bureaucrat said situation in five districts—Ahmednagar, Aurangabad, Jalna, Beed and Osmanbad—is so bad that the existing drinking water will last only till...