A lot has been said and written about the visit of Barack Obama, the President of USA to India. The corporate media was in the usual over-enthusiastic drive to bring to its readers and viewers all minute details about his visit from where he stayed and what he ate to how many warships, planes and cars accompanied him and how a whopping $200 million was spent per day for the...

The country’s attention may be focused on an ever-increasing energy needs, but water is a much bigger issue, says a key policymaker in the government. “Water crisis is a more serious issue than energy crisis,” said Montek Singh Ahluwalia , deputy chairman of Planning commission, at the World Economic Forum on Sunday. Speaking at a session on ‘How will India avert a Water Crisis?’ Mr Ahluwalia said that that the government...

Two walls of extremes are closing in fast on mankind. The spectre of climate change threatens agriculture, especially in developing countries where farming is dominated by smallscale farmers heavily relying on rainfall. Along with this, is the scourge of burgeoning population, which is likely swell to 9 billion in the next 40 years. According to the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), about 14% of the 6.5-billion world population are affected by...

Chief minister Arjun Munda today chaired his first all-party meeting that resolved to meet the Prime Minister and request him for a package to help the state execute drought relief measures, signalling an effort to build consensus among his allies and the Opposition on serious and contentious issues facing Jharkhand. Attended by all ministers, except deputy chief minister Sudesh Mahto, who is away at Vaishno Devi for a pilgrimage — Chandra...

In our frantic search for solutions to our water crisis, we tend to overlook the self-evident relationship between water, food, and energy. It is still not too late. As my colleague Tony Allan, a Stockholm Water Prize laureate says so pithily, the three are the corners of a triangle with politics and emotion at its center. About 80 percent of accessible freshwater in Asia is used for agriculture; the rest...