Water & Sanitation

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Women forced to bathe in the open in Odisha villages

A village-level analysis of availability of bathrooms in Odisha shows that not enough attention is paid to the clear and urgent need for secluded bathing spaces for women in rural areas

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Rural men must realize women need secluded bathing spaces

Women taking a bath in the open is a common enough sight in the countryside, which needs to change. For that to happen, it is important to change the mindset of men and their insensitivity towards the issue

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Remote village in Karbi Anglong sets cleanliness benchmark

The young people of Shikdamakha in Assam didn’t wait for the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan to set standards in sanitation, which has today resulted in the village being one of the cleanest in the entire country

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Arsenic contamination in groundwater killing villagers in Ballia

High levels of arsenic in the water supply is afflicting many villages in eastern Uttar Pradesh but the government hasn’t been able to design and implement any program to contain the menace

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Chronic water scarcity has turned Kulappadi’s toilets into goat sheds

Rapid deforestation and soil erosion in Attapadi Forest Reserve has led to a crippling water shortage in Kerala’s only tribal block and the Irula forest tribe has suffered the most

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It’s much better to dig than to build for water

Learning from some exemplary instances in drought-prone Marathwada, it makes sense for government programs to dig tanks and deepen streams for water sufficiency instead of building expensive structures

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Kerala fights drought with recharged wells

For a region that does not want for water, Kerala is extending a rainwater harvesting programme in the central district of Thrissur to all parts of the state following the recent droughts

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A tale of two women and a watershed

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Two unlearned women in a remote area of Bihar have broken gender stereotypes to emerge as community leaders and manage the construction of a watershed that now benefits 12 villages

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Faulty farm ponds pockmark tribal villages in Palghar

Constructed under the Maharashtra government’s Jalyukt Shivar scheme to end water scarcity in the state, these structures hold no water. Some were washed away in the first rains, making a mockery of the implementation

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Tamil Nadu fishermen leverage smartphone technology to boost fish yields

For fishing communities in coastal Tamil Nadu, the uncertainties of finding richer fishing areas in sea has been significantly reduced through a phone app called Fisher Friendly Mobile Application that also provides safety alerts

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Women are leading the sanitation campaign in Bihar villages

Although Bihar has been a laggard in implementing the Swachh Bharat program, there is heartening progress in places such as Rohtas, Sitamarhi and Khagaria, where women are driving the change for health and sanitation

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Cardamom hills of Kerala face daunting drought

After the failure of both the South West and North East monsoons, cardamom farmers of Idukki in Kerala are staring at massive losses

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Community initiative recharges water table in Kumbharwalan village

Collective action through a pani panchayat (water council) has enabled a remote village in Pune district of Maharashtra to provide for adequate irrigation in this rain shadow area prone to droughts

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Gorang Valley battles water woes as perennial springs retreat

Drying streams in this region of Pithoragarh district in Uttarakhand have made life difficult for women as they wait for efforts at watershed management to bear fruit in a couple of years

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Can this crisis in the heart of India be allowed to continue?

The economic exploitation and developmental neglect of the core tribal areas of India’s eastern plateau and hills across Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand have to be tackled through practical solutions unhindered by ideological blinkers

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Solapur’s example holds key to chronically water-stressed Marathwada

The patchy soil and water conservation efforts of the Maharashtra government seem to have learnt nothing from the exemplary measures undertaken in Solapur district

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Kuthambakkam charts a course to prosperity through community action

Kuthambakkam village in Tamil Nadu has overcome caste hostility and poverty to emerge as a national model of participatory governance that has boosted the village economy