In the just concluded June 2021, the first month of India’s South West 2021 monsoon, India received 182.9 mm rainfall, 10.96% or about 11% more than the normal June rainfall of 166.9 mm as per India Meteorological department. In June 2020, the rainfall was 196.9 mm, or about 18% above normal and in June 2019 it was 33% below normal.
Continue reading “June 2021: District wise rainfall in India’s SW Monsoon”Month: June 2021
DRP NB 28 June 2021: Where is the impact of lessons of the water conservation efforts that Modi praises, on his government’s water projects and policies?
When the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi Mentioned some exemplary water conservation efforts in his Mann ki Baat on June 27, 2021, it was not for the first time he was doing it. These are certainly most welcome.
However, these mentions raise a number of questions. If the Prime Minister considers these local water options as exemplary, which they indeed are, where do we see the reflection of the lessons from such efforts in government programs and policies? In fact why there is no reflection of such lessons in what the government does in water sector? How can the government justify the destruction of Panna Tiger Reserve, over 9000 ha of forests, some 46 lakh trees, the catchment of Ken river and large part of Bundelkhand in the name of Ken Betwa Link Project, in the same Bundelkhand. How can his government justify the destructive projects like the Char Dham Highway, the big hydro projects and so on in the same Uttarakhand where Sachidanand Bharati (who was incidentally recipient of the Bhagirath Prayas Samman of India Rivers Week) works, whose efforts the PM praised? One hope the PM and his government will be awake to the implications and lessons of the works that PM praises.
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घराट: सामाजिक देखभाल, सरकारी सहयोग की राह देखती लुप्त होती धरोहर
पनचक्कियां सदियों से उत्तराखंड के पर्वतीय समाज का अटूट हिस्सा रही हैं। स्थानीय तौर पर इन्हें घट, घराट आदि अनेक नामों से जाना जाता है। कुछ दशक पहले तक ये घराट अनाजों को पीसकर आटा बनाने का प्रमुख साधन रहे हैं। परन्तु कालांतर में अनेक कारणों से यह परम्परागत तकनीक, समाज और सरकार की अनदेखी का शिकार होकर विलुप्त होती जा रही है। ऐसा ही कुछ पौड़ी गढ़वाल स्थित चौथान पट्टी में देखने को मिल रहा है। यह लेख चौथान क्षेत्र में घराट संस्कृति के क्रमिक परित्याग की वजहों के पड़ताल की दिशा में एक प्रयास है।
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Gharat: Traditional wisdom seeking community care, govt support
Water mills, also known as gharat have been serving native communities in hills of Uttarakhand possibly for hundreds of years. Till a few decades back, the indigenously developed technique was only source of crushing variety of grains to produce flour. The symbols of ancient wisdom have been mostly lying in ruins in Chauthan patti (belt). This account explores reasons behind the gradual desertion of gharat culture which was once indispensable part of the local community there.
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DRP NB 21 June 2021: MGNREGS ALSO helps carbon sequestration
A new study by the researchers at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, the works undertaken under the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme captured 102 Million Tonnes of Carbon Dioxide in 2017-18 through plantation and soil quality improvement works. The MGNREGS has proved remarkable for other reasons, including it being the World’s largest anti-poverty program and also helping improve the local livelihoods, food, employment and water security on a massive scale. If the program is taken up with necessary commitment, priority, planning and participatory governance, it can achieve lot more. Unfortunately the NDA government has not been showing such commitment, priority or financial allocation even for its regular functioning. The IISc Study says that by 2030, the MGNREGS can create annual carbon dioxide sink equal to 249 MtCO2. One hopes our governments would, rather than denigrating the scheme would allocate sufficient financial, human and institutional resources for MGNREGS, rather than false solutions like the destructive projects like big hydropower projects.
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DRP NB 14 June 2021: IPCC-IPBES Scientists: Biodiversity protection & climate change action HAVE TO work together
In a remarkable new report, the 50 top scientists of Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) have come together to deliver the first ever joint collaboration report with the message that Biodiversity crisis and climate change crisis are not independent of each other. The message from scientists is clear: The claimed Climate “solutions” that hurt biodiversity or their habitat are false solutions.
By protecting and restoring nature, the report said, we can safeguard biodiversity, help limit warming, improve human well being and even find protection from the consequences of climate change, like intensified flooding and storms.
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My mother is the river. The river is my mother.
Guest Article by Nirmala Gowda
This is time of immense grief and loss for me. Unable to face the harsh reality of my mother gasping for each breath in the ICU, I was drowning myself in work. Co-incidentally or so I think, I was working on a report analysing asphyxiation of Vrishabhavathi, Arkavathi and Cauvery rivers and suffocation of aquatic lifeforms the rivers supported. As the dissolved oxygen graph took shape, I realized : The million times I had held the dissolved oxygen meter under water to measure oxygen saturation levels across rivers was no different from the million times we plugged the oximeter to my mother’s forefinger to check for oxygen saturation levels. The realization that the very element my mother was gasping for, is the very element the rivers have long been gasping for – Oxygen and this pushed me deeper into a state of despair.
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DRP NB 07 June 2021: Local Water Options Stories from Five states
(Feature image A big main pond that has been constructed in the Phular village, Damoh. (Pic: Shahroz Afridi, News 18))
This week we would like to highlight some remarkable local water option stories from five states spread across India: Madhya Pradesh from Central India, Punjab from North India, Karnataka from South India, Rajasthan & Maharashtra from western India. These are stories just from this week among many others that show that local water options exist, they are the cheapest, sustainable, equitable, democratic and with least impacts and most appropriate in the climate change context. In a country like India where groundwater has been India’s water lifeline for over four decades now, these options are best suited for ensuring optimum recharge of groundwater aquifers at local level and sustaining those lifelines. Particularly when South West Monsoon is on our doorstep to gift its annual bounty to India. As UN starts the International Decade for Ecosystems Restoration with the theme of preventing, halting, reversing the degradation of ecosystems, these become even more important.
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Water on Wheels to Dying Fishes in Ganga River Basin in Bhagalpur
Guest Blog by Dr. Ruchi Shree (TMBU, Bhagalpur-Bihar)
Last year, I wrote three stories on dying Champa river in Bhagalpur and challenges/ prospects of its rejuvenation[i]. That exercise helped me in exploring the city through a river which used be an important waterbody in this region but now at the verge of extinction. Situated at the banks of river Ganga, the Bhagalpur city faces three to four major problems related to water and sanitation, namely, arsenic contaminated groundwater, falling water level, recurrent floods, open drainage, etc. This year, I pedaled (cycling) in the local vicinity to make sense of ‘piped water’ and its limitations in the city. One more concern was to document the growing ecological crisis in the university area as captured and reflected in this blog. This photo essay is based on my observations over a period of last three months in Nathnagar block of Bhagalpur (south-west part of the city). Bhagalpur, a “smart city” of south Bihar is close to Jharkhand. I visited the ward no. 13 and ward no.17 of the Nathnagar block to write this story. Two pictures (near Ganga) towards the end of the blog were taken in a different part of the city i.e. in Adampur area of Bhagalpur.
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Uttarakhand: Cloud bursts in May 2021
From the beginning of May 2021, Uttarakhand has started witnessing excessive rainfall events termed as ‘cloud bursts’. Worryingly the intensity and frequency seems on higher side this time. So far there have been about 24 reported cases of ‘cloud bursts’ in the state but the monitoring, prediction and mitigation efforts are lagging far behind.
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SANDRP 