<p>Order of the National Green Tribunal (Southern Zone, Chennai) in the matter of Yelahanka Puttenahalli Lake and Bird Conservation Trust Vs State of Karnataka & Others dated 02/05/2025.</p> <p>Pursuant
Question of distribution has to be decided by CRA
Three hundred ground water samples were collected from (North, South, East and West) zones wells and bore wells of Mysore city during pre monsoon, monsoon and post monsoon seasons of 2002-03.
Expansion of NREGA and Tribals Act to be highlighted The Congress will hold farmers' conventions and rallies in all States during this month and April.
The purge of slums to free up real estate in cities began in 1994, through
Pelicans and painted storks have been found dead in Hemmanahalli lake near here under mysterious circumstances.
"At the current pace, on each day of the year, 290 habitations are provided with drinking water,' announced the government in the Budget session to showcase the "impressive progress' made under the UPA's flagship Rajiv Gandhi Drinking Water Mission (RGDWM) meant to provide "safe and sustainable drinking water sources' to villages. What the Government glossed over is the official reality check
M. Rajivlochan Towards Water Wisdom: Limits, Justice, Harmony by Ramaswamy R. Iyer. Sage. Pages 270. Rs 350. Towards Water Wisdom: Limits, Justice, HarmonyOUR pot of water woes is brimming over. That does not seem surprising, according to Ramaswamy R. Iyer, since even though India is one of the few countries in the world which is blessed with an adequate quantity of water, there is a tremendous amount of mismanagement of water resources. While the country has over 4,000 billion cubic meters (bcm) of annual rainfall and almost 2000 bcm of river flow, the reality remains that we have had constant lamentations about the shortage of water and the destruction of fertile soil because of the overuse of water. According to experts, we have already poisoned most of our major rivers to the extent that their waters are not fit for drinking any more and very soon would be unfit for irrigation as well. Under such circumstances, Iyer suggests, it is important to remove ourselves from the hurly-burly of water conflicts, mull over our relationship with water a little more than it has been possible till now and then, serendipitously think of a constructive way out. That calls for wisdom which has been lacking till now in our management of water resources. In this thought-provoking book, Iyer quickly takes us through the various conflicts that have marked the use and misuse of water since Independence. He looks at the various demand-driven policies made by the government for the management of water. However, fulfilling the demand does not necessarily result in an efficient use of water. For a long time, the main focus of the government was to increase the amount of water for irrigation to increase food grain production. Today, over 80 per cent of the total water used in India is for agriculture. However, of the water available for irrigation, more than 60 per cent is wasted. India is one of the few countries in the world where the cities provide as much as 200 litres per capita per day of water. It goes without saying that most of it is wasted, used for cleaning toilets, washing cars and maintaining gardens. No wonder our fields and cities constantly starve for water and our states busy fighting over it. Karnataka battles Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra fights with Karnataka, Punjab has its sword drawn against Haryana and Madhya Pradesh is getting ready to battle both Utter Pradesh and Gujarat. The fights have become so intense that today even the Supreme Court is wary of pronouncing firmly on the judicious distribution of water resources lest it be drawn into an irresolvable conflict. While the state governments battle each other for water, they find it increasingly difficult to manage the supply to their own citizens. Hence they are trying to palm off the management of water resources to private parties in the hope that private ownership of water would ensure market rates being charged for the water use and correspondingly less wastage. Whether this would generate even more inequalities is a matter that the states are not willing to consider at the moment. All this suggests that we are completely lacking in water wisdom, insists Iyer. Hitherto we have left the matter of planning for water in the hands of experts. Engineers, planners and economists may be very well in providing suggestions on how best to go about using our water resources, but for every expert there seems to be an equal and opposite expert who under political pressure is willing to provide contrary advice equally strongly backed by scientific evidence. Hence, Iyer suggests, the need of the hour is to get out of the conundrums created by experts and apply some Gandhian thinking. First and foremost this means restraining our greed for more water and bringing about a change in the way that we think about water as a resource. The state needs to play the role of a trustee over this resource and the people have to be involved in preserving it and encouraged to live in harmony with nature and each other.
The Chamarajanagara Zilla Abhivriddhi Horata Samiti and Hogenakal Jalapata Ulisi Zilla Samiti has urged the Governor to seek the immediate intervention of the President for stalling the Tamil Nadu Government's "unethical' attempts to build a reservoir across the Cauvery in the vicinity of Hogenakal Falls. It has clarified that the ongoing works on the reservoir should be stalled until a joint survey by Karnataka and Tamil Nadu Government was conducted and the Supreme Court pronounced its stand on the Cauvery Waters Dispute Tribunal's final report. Office-bearers The office-bearers of the samitis, Ashwathnarayana, Puttaraje Urs, Simeon D'Silva and K. Veerabhadraswamy, told presspersons here on Friday that it was not clear on what grounds work orders for the reservoir in the forest area had been issued. The Tamil Nadu Government had approved the drinking water project contradicting its own stand. It was know that Karnataka wanted to launch a drinking water project to Male Mahadeshwara Hills. But the then Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu J. Jayalalithaa objected to it, they said. Encroachment They alleged that encroachment of the Karnataka lands, illegal sand mining from Gopinatham, black stone mining from Palar Munji tank, increasing illegal structures at Hogenakal Island, Atnakampatti, Jambutapatti and Alambadi villages had reflected the "connivance' of the Karnataka Forest Department officials with the Tamil Nadu at the cost of agricultural production.
An assessment of land quality was carried out for coffee growing areas of Karnataka using satellite image, toposheets and soil studies.
In the long shadow of the now defunct Kolar Gold Fields, a small revolution is slowly sweeping the desolate countryside: a revolution to take world class science education to village schools and open
