We boast, we host, and we are lost! It sounds the legacy of mighty Himalaya and its people. Here, agencies seem boasting the urgency and the welfare of mountain ecosystem (!), while people in the region are hosting their dialogues with utmost care, and then they are lost somewhere. The remains of show become reports […]
May 17, 2011
With over 1.3 billion people living in extremely fragile ecosystem of Himalaya, its mountains provide sustenance, livelihoods and prosperity to millions of people downstream. Given the scenario of lifestyle of various communities living in far-flung areas of Himalayan Mountains, the process of development is taking its own course, which is also happening with agro-pastoral communities […]
April 4, 2011
The Chapter 13 of Agenda 21 of Rio in 1992, which emphasized upon two programme areas and we could see them on broader perspective where we were entrusted to work upon: Knowledge generation on Ecology and SD aspects in Mountain Ecosystem (Environment) while strengthening it (internalizing and communicating-Social) and working upon integrated watershed development (working […]
March 25, 2011
Since over last few months the Black Carbon issue is being highlighted in the Himalayan region by various international and region agencies, with the viewpoint that it will have adverse impact on the human health, air quality and on various ecosystem functions. It is said that, there is urgent need through various local and international […]
March 18, 2011
Worldwide 214 river basins host 40 percent of world’s population and Himalayas with huge stocks of water in the form of snow and ice, are biggest source of surface fresh water in frozen form, after Polar ice caps. Himalayan region consist of extremely fragile ecosystem, and source to 10 major Asian river systems, on which […]
March 16, 2011
One of the most interesting paradoxes of city planning in Himalayan region is that, in spite of being ecologically rich and heritage rich countries, major cities in the region are most neglected. It is evident that the cities in the mountainous part of Himalayan region have grown rapidly in terms of their population sizes, but […]
March 11, 2011
There are two important components of the Nirmal Gram Puruskar (NGP) process, where a Panchayat (Local government) in India gets award for keeping its surrounding environment neat and clean on all sanitation and hygiene parameters. The first one is selection or proposing a gram panchayat for NGP and another one is the process of NGP […]
January 27, 2011
The city development planning and judicious resource allocation in most of the cities in South Asian countries is a big challenge. Among the basic amenities, water and sanitation remained the core concern that lead to health problems, livelihood losses and an impediment to economic growth. Given the population growth and rapid migration from rural to […]
January 25, 2011
You might have come across, as I, the ‘social values’ and ‘environmental ethics’, while your interaction with people in various organizations and institutions across development sector (d-sector) i.e. social and environmental domains. I am talking about our public sector organizations, civil society groups, research institutions, think tanks, corporate led societies, international bodies, to name a […]
December 22, 2010
The vision of India’s National Disaster Management Authority-NDMA http://ndma.gov.in/ndma/index.htm is ‘to build a safer and disaster resilient India by developing a holistic, pro-active, multi-disaster and technology-driven strategy for disaster management through collective efforts of all Government Agencies and Non-Governmental Organisations’. Sometime one wonders on the disaster preparedness of our national level authority and its actions […]
December 14, 2010
In the recent Regional Climate Change Adaptation Knowledge Platform (http://bit.ly/9rCs7C ) 21-22 October 2010 in Bangkok, a civil society representative from Bangladesh highlighted that, “the NGOs in Bangladesh are flooded with Climate Adaptation Funds”. This statement is an indication that availability and access to adaptation funds is less of an issue for this country and […]
December 11, 2010
Many of us celebrated Mountain Day on 11 December 2010. Our congratulations to all of you on this occasion, with the hope that we all could highlight the vital and omni-connectedness of Mountains around the world. We feel that, mountains and its communities will be recognized important as well as vulnerable on various fronts. We […]
November 10, 2010
One of the most interesting paradoxes of city planning in India is that, in spite of being one of the most heritage rich countries of the world, India’s major historic cities are most neglected. It is evident that the larger cities have grown rapidly in terms of their population sizes, but not proportionately in terms […]
June 5, 2010
Unlike other parts of the World, the Himalayan Mountains remain neglected in many ways by various national and international agencies. In this region, the governance system is dysfunctional and various leading government, inter government and research institutions are not playing their role effectively. Empirical evidences have shown that the region is already in the state […]
April 10, 2010
In an effort to encourage a move towards more sustainable approaches to water development and management, the World Summit on Sustainable Development-WSSD in 2002 called for all countries to draft IWRM and water efficiency strategies by the end of 2005. The recommendation of Government of India’s 10th working group on drinking water (Five Year Plan […]
August 1, 2011
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