Proceedings of the International Seminar on 'Water Crisis in the Indian Subcontinent : Issues and Challenges', held at North-Eastern Hill University during 23-25 November 2009.

Water is a prime natural resource and a basic necessity for sustaining life on earth. Supplying adequate amount of potable water to the global population is a gigantic task in the wake of growing industrial and domestic needs. The threat of climate change and global warming which has aggravated the problem of water shortage is of particular concern to India as we are largely dependent on glaciers and rainfall for water supply. The United Nations World Water Development Report, Water: A Shared Responsibility emphasizes the need for good governance to meet the ever-increasing demand for water. The report asserts that mismanagement, corruption, lack of appropriate institutions, bureaucratic inertia and paucity of investment in human and physical sources mar water management today. The situation calls for right policy decisions and adoption of sustainable practices. The problem is acute in India because of its high population density, space and time variability of rainfall and increasing depletion and contamination of its surface and groundwater resources. Most water resources in India are contaminated by sewage and agricultural run-off. Besides, overuse of pesticides and chemicals in agriculture is the primary cause of groundwater pollution in India. Further, uneven water distribution across the country is another aspect of water problem. A large area of the country is water deficit whereas a small part is bestowed with abundance of water. This has led to inter-state conflicts. The present anthology contains well researched articles by eminent scholars who have deeply analysed the problem and its various implications. Major factors responsible for the problem have been studied in detail and some measures have been suggested to retrieve the situation. The book will serve as a reference source for students, researchers and policymakers and all those concerned with an ensured supply of water across the country.

Few people actively engaged in India's water sector would deny that the Indian subcontinent faces serious problems in the sustainable use and management of water resources. Water resources in India have been subjected to tremendous pressures from increasing population, urbanization, industrialization, and modern agricultural methods. The inadequate access to clean drinking water, increase in water related disasters such as floods and droughts, vulnerability to climate change and competition for the resource amongst different sectors and the region poses immense pressures for sustainability of water systems and humanity. Water Security in India addresses these issues head on, analyzing the challenges that contemporary India faces if it is to create a water-secure world, and providing a hopeful, though guarded, road-map to a future in which India's life-giving and life-sustaining fresh water resources are safe, clean, plentiful, and available to all, secured for the people in a peaceful and ecologically sustainable manner.

A part of the Water Resources Management series, this book is divided in three sections. The section on Nepal discusses how its water resources could be utilized to benefit people of the Ganga basin. The section on India talks about the development and management of water resources at the beginning of the third millennium. The section on Bangladesh talks about how water resources management is a major challenge in the country.

One journalist's account of her 7-year journey through the Ganges river basin to explore the revered, yet highly polluted, rivers of South Asia.

The Himalaya-Hindu Kush mountain range and the Tibetan Plateau birth ten of Asia's most prominent rivers providing irrigation, energy, and drinking water to over two billion people across several countries today. Therefore, transboundary water sharing is a constant source of conflict for several South Asian countries that rely on rivers to support their primarily agrarian economies. In recent years, climate change has drastically increased global temperatures. As a result, the Indian subcontinent has been plagued with extreme riverine flood and drought events. Climate change-related events like riverine floods and drought, exacerbate the politicization of conflict between nations that share natural resources like water. This politicization is visible in the media coverage of conflict, and the way water-sharing issues are linked with other transboundary conflicts, especially those pertaining to national security. This paper explores the relationship between climate change and water-sharing conflicts in three South Asian nations: India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Through a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the national media coverage of transboundary river systems, Indus and Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna, this honors thesis explores how climate change affects the politicization of water-sharing conflicts between these three nations.

Few people actively engaged in India''s water sector would deny that the Indian subcontinent faces serious problems in the sustainable use and management of water resources. Water resources in India have been subjected to tremendous pressures from increasing population, urbanization, industrialization, and modern agricultural methods. The inadequate access to clean drinking water, increase in water related disasters such as floods and droughts, vulnerability to climate change and competition for the resource amongst different sectors and the region poses immense pressures for sustainability of.