-TheWire.in In The Vanishing Stepwells of India, Victoria Lautman articulates how a traditional water conservation system was foolishly destroyed when the British took the reins. It is not difficult to comprehend the importance of water conservation. The resource is as precious and far more valuable than gold. Water will always be scarce and in arid, dry regions, the liquid is worshipped. It is an integral element in rituals that manifest faith. All...

-The Hindu Hundreds of government schools, especially in tribal-dominated districts, have been shut down over the past year. Elizabeth Kuruvilla reports on the closures, the mushrooming of private schools, and the battles waged by tribal villages to keep state-funded local schools open It’s a little past four in the afternoon, the time when schools ring their closing bells in the Hatsesikhal cluster of Odisha’s tribal-dominated Rayagada district. Just before Sekhal Primary School...

-Hindustan Times In 3 years, the Agarwals have prevented the land from being damaged five times Mumbai: Refraining from the usual practice of blaming authorities for destruction of mangroves and wetlands in Mumbai Metropolitan Region, this Navi Mumbai couple felt obligated to make a change. For the last three years, Sunil Agarwal, 55, and his wife Shruti, 50, residents of NRI Complex in Nerul, Navi Mumbai, have been guarding an 80-hectare wetland...

-The Asian Age The increase in the income has also halted migration of local people to other states in search of work. Bhubaneswar: Grappling with financial problems because of non-remunerative character of their age-old agricultural practices, villagers living in hilly areas of Odisha’s Gajapati district have suddenly found enough money coming to their pockets by adoption of traditional methods of irrigation. Sourcing water in the Diversion Based Irrigation (DBI) system from the streams...

-TheWire.in Doctors and activists found a higher than normal incidence of tuberculosis, mental illnesses and arthritis-like joint pains, even among people below the age of 30. Tired, ghoulish bodies moving around in a field of ash casting a blanket of sameness against vast, black mines, broken now and then by the bright yellow of scorching fires – this is what a coal mine looks like. Lighting up the nation comes at a...