Water may scotch India's chances of being an economic powerhouse. India, just in case you hadn't noticed, stands on the brink of a water crisis. That isn't scare mongering: between 1951 and 2001 India's per capita availability of fresh water fell from 5177 cubic metres to 1869 cu.m. The United Nations say anything below 170 cu.m. constitutes a 'water-stress' situation where a country doesn't have enough water to satisfy the food, household, and industrial needs of its populace. More recent figures of per capita availability aren't well, available, but chances are, it is parlously close to that 1700 cu.m mark. Attribute this turn of things to India's water management and the 13.3 million people the country added to its population, on average, every year between 1951 and 2001.