International Land grab in the name of food security

In the era of Food insecurity and crisis and more importantly, the growing pressure on farmland the corporate world and extortionist economic barons have found a new solution, grabbing lands of poorer and unsecured countries. Governments of some of the over spending countries are also in the race. Another crisis of much higher magnitude and impact is in offing for the poor and unsecured countries.
Following are the links for detailed reading.
‘Land grabbing’ must be disciplined: UN expert on food
@ http://abbaymedia.com/News/?p=2581


Seized: The 2008 landgrab for food and financial security
@ http://www.grain.org/briefings_files/landgrab-2008-en.pdf

Oppose approval of Marketing of GM Corn

Monsanto's Bt Cotton has failed in India and it failed the cotton growing farmers as well. The evergrowing production costs and indebtness caused by these GM seeds have pushed the farmers in such a condition that they are left with no other option but to kill themselves. Now the company (Monsanto) has applied for an approval for marketing its GM Corn in India. This will further hit the agrarian economy of the country which is already in a very bad shape.

Read the following articles
1. Bt cotton has failed in Vidarbha: study + YouTube video | Science/Nature |Axisoflogic.com
Source: axisoflogic.com
2. Monsanto India seeks approval to sell genetically modified corn - Economy and Politics - livemint.co
http://www.livemint.com/2009/06/15224315/Monsanto-India-seeks-approval.html

We should oppose such approvals to save our food security and sovereignty with our full strength.

LIFE WITH SAND AND UNCERTAINTY

By Ishteyaque Ahmad

It’s around 10 – 10.30 at night in Saharsa Railway Station. The place is teaming with more than 2000 young people - youth without youthfulness- jostling for space, rushing to stock up Moorhi (rice puff) and dalmoth for the long journey. This has been the regular phenomenon since the 2008 Bihar floods receded. Every month more than 100000 youth leave their homes from districts such as Supaul, Saharsa and Madhepura of Bihar in search of livelihood.

The young men travel to all corners in the country. Punjab and Haryana are the favored destinations where they find work in the farms for 2 – 3 months during the Rabi season. They work for 12 to 16 hours a day and are paid about Rs. 150 / day. During this period they manage to save about Rs. 6000 -8000, to come back for Kharif cultivations.

But this year their story is very different. The young migrants are not sure of coming back. The raging flood-waters of the Kosi in 2008 swallowed and destroyed the agricultural fields in Supaul and Madhepura Districts. They are are now covered with dunes of sand which are as deep as 3 – 5 ft and stretch for miles over the fields, at times rising as high as 10 – 12 ft above the ground.

The floods due to the breach in the afflux bund of Kosi Barrage at Kushaha in Nepal on 18th August 2008 have ravaged the houses, roads, the sources of life and livelihoods. More than 50 lakh people were effected by the floods. The younger ones opted to move to safer places along with children and valuables. The elders remained there for looking after the assets and houses. Around 30-35 lakh affected families were compelled to leave their homes to take shelter in relief camps situated far away from their original dwellings. The majority of humanitarian agencies wound up their relief and rehabilitation programmes after serving the flood victims for 3 to 4 months after the floods.

The laxity of the government in conducting relief and rehabilitation work is revealed by its own data and reports. In its press note dated 6th November 2008, the government declared that flood victims have started to return to their respective villages. This was a completely false claim. We met a large number of people from flood effected areas of Supaul and Saharsa district and all of them said that they had no option but to return because the relief camps being run by government were closed. But the state government decided that the people no longer needed its support and it closed down its flagship relief programme “Mega Camps”. Twenty two such camps were run by the government for not more than a thirty days for a population of at least 35 lakh ( Give the figure higher up) in the four of the flood-affected districts such as Supaul, Saharsa, Madhepura and Araria. ( give this important information higher up in the article). This is when the government had itself announced that the most of the flood-affected areas remained submerged under water for more than five months which means till the end of January in 2009. On 3rd November there were only 49 relief camps operational including two Mega Camps. Just two months earlier in September there were 290 camps functional in the four flood ravaged districts.

During his election campaign Nitish Kumar proudly claims that people will vote for him because of the excellent work his government did for the flood victims. The truth however is reflected in the data published by his own government. The government statistics clearly indicate that out of over 35 lakh flood victims, looking out for shelter, only around 3.5 lakh found shelters in the government-run camps. It means that government was able to take the responsibility of providing relief to only 10% of the population. There have been numerous reports that government relief did not reach those who could not attend to the government-run camps. So, we can say that 90% of flood effected people were not on the government's priority list. ( evidence?) However, during the same period state government generously distributed money for celebrating Chhath Puja to gain cheap political mileage amongst one section of the population. ( not essential para)

In its guidelines for relief works, the government has given strict instructions that 'anyone wanting to donate money should do so through cheque/ demand draft drawn in favour of the Chief Minister's Relief Fund.' On its website (http://www.disastermgmt.bih.nic.in/) the state government has published that Rs 5.14 crore were distributed till 28th November 2008 under Chief Minister Relief Fund. But there is no mention about how much money this fund received. The central government sanctioned Rs 1010 crore after declaring the floods as 'National Disaster'. The state government again asked for Rs 14808 crore for reconstruction and rehabilitation. A civil society group Humlog Trust asked the government through RTI about the rationale of asking Rs 14808 crore and demanded the details of the budget.

The Trust also asked for the district-wise data of the damages caused by the floods to the private and public property like houses, schools, panchayat buildings and hospitals. The head of the organisation Parveen Amanullah got the reply in January 2009 which gave no information that was demanded in the RTI. The reply stated that her request is being forwarded to the districts and concerned departments. It clearly means that the state government did not have any concrete information and data about the devastation. In absence of concrete details of the damages and requirements, how did the government arrive at the figure of Rs 14808 crores? The same organisation filed another RTI asking for the total amount the Chief Minister Relief Fund received and how they spent Rs 1010 crores given by the central government. The response was that since CMRF is a trust, RTI cannot be used in the case. This shows that government does not want to be accountable and transparent about the funds its has received. This then begs the question, why should people donate their hard earned money to such trusts which grossly fail to share their accounts with their donors?

Now the humanitarian agencies have wound up their work, the government has closed down its relief camps and people have been forced to return to their villages but without any infrastructure or support systems in place. The political barons have echoed their concerns by declaring the floods as the National Calamity, exchanging unworthy words, making policies for rehabilitation and resettlement. And that is all. Till now no compensation has reached to any of the family in lieu with the Calamity Relief Fund (CRF) and National Calamity Contingency Funds (NCCF) norms.

Some of the families have earned, after hectic efforts at block development offices and officers, some pieces of paper resembling Bank Cheques with some numbers in the amount section. This is supposed to be the compensation for the loss of their crops at the rate of Rs.100 per Kattha or Rs. 2000 per Bigha. However people are unable to cash these cheques without bribing the bank officers. The cheques that are above the amount of Rs. 2500 are crossed and can be deposited in the bank accounts only. The bank officials demand a cut of 20-25 per cent from victims to deposit the compensation amount in bank. The application form for opening a bank account are being sold for Rs. 100 per form. The government officials employs canes and throws abuses to manage crowds of people outside the banks.

The experts of Planning Commission at the Centre had a point when they said that NREGA could be creatively used for rebuilding the lives and infrastructure of the flood effected region. These words did not make any sense to the flood affected people. Till now the administration has completely failed in engaging the people in NREGS works. And there is no possibility in the near future as well, at least till May 15th due to the general elections and the model code of conduct. This means that works under NREGS can be implemented only for a month between 15th May and 15th June. After that the works will again be officially closed till October 15th. In January-February it will be the turn of the rich farmer's and landowner lobbies to subvert the NREGS works so that the labours can work on their fields. (NOT CLEAR)

The model code of conduct is unable to correct Varun Gandhi's or Advani's or Lalu-Rabri's words, neither it could stop several dozens of chargesheeters from getting tickets from all the major parties and contesting election. I was in Jehanabad when the sitting MLA from Ghosi, Jagdeesh Sharma was going to file his nomination with more than 500 Jeeps and cars. Interestingly, I was in Supaul when some other candidates were filing their nomination papers, again with hundreds of big vehicles. But the election commission was blind and silent enough to ignore all that. But if a work got sanctioned under NREGS, ensuring a few days work for unemployed youth during the election period, the democracy and the democratic processes will be disturbed and devastated. ( Delete para,)

(VERY POWERFUL QUOTE. Bring it up front) An old farmer at Balbhadrapur village of Basantpur Block of Supaul District says, “Wait for few more months and there will be nobody to claim the compensations. The farmers are about to commit suicides in a big way, youth and landless farmers have started shifting to other places, young girls are being sold off for all purposes. So, who will remain there to collect the compensations and what for?” One can ignore Montek Singh Ahuluwallia or Nitish or Lalu's words, but ignoring this old man's words will be leading to a society with no civilisational evidences or footprints.

The relief materials distributed by NGOs, corporate houses and religious institutions have been utilised long back. A quintal of grains and Rs 4250 distributed from the block offices among those who were present in the relief camps and some cash for crop destruction received by a very few number of people are evaporating with the increasing temperatures. Nobody knows what the future holds for them. Young men have an option of migrating in search of livlihood, but what about the women, elders, children and disabled, where can they escape from the desert-like situations and with no food, shelter and any hope?

We were in Sitapur village, near Balua, the home village of former CM of Bihar Jagannath Mishra and veteran Congress leader Late Lalit Narayan Mishra. One of the farmers took us to his farm. The PUSA vice chancellor had promised him and his 70-plus father that they will be able to grow pumpkins, cucumbers and watermelon. And they delivered their promises, providing hybrid seeds. The Brahmin farmer invested around Rs 3600 from his pocket and planted those seeds which never germinated. When the farmer gave another look to the packets of the seed, he found that the expiry date has lapsed long back. The PUSA experts positively took back the seeds and supplied new set of seeds with a stronger promises that these will make the required change. Another Rs 4200 were spent by the farmer's family. And fortunately plants came out, but the speed of growth is so slow that till 10th April, when the market is flooded with cucumber and water melon, the farmer has not seen any flower in his farm. The farmer was not complaining when he was sharing that he has spent all the money his family had and there are very bleak chances that he will be able to harvest anything. The PUSA experts should be congratulated that they thought of helping out the farmers from siltation problem and reached them and helped them experimenting with their luck. But the experiment did cost dearly to the already impoverished farmer. ( delete para)

It was the election season and all the tea stalls and public places were full of discussions about the elections, which was scheduled to be held on 30th April ( give past tense, since article will be coming out after the elections) . People were talking about caste equations in the constituency, the rise of the Yadav power during the Lalu era and Nitish's 'sushasan' (good administration) but not a single word was heard about the failure in the disbursal of compensation to the flood victims, the present economic condition of the region and large number of men migrating from this region. These are not in the peoples' agenda who themselves are the victims of apathy and negligence of the governments. This clearly shows the success of the political parties and their leaders in diverting and subverting the issues which directly impact the lives of several million people. It also substantiates Einstein's statement that the oppressive system convinces the oppressed to imbibe the symbols of oppressions as their own and start believing the norms set by the system are correct.

The author is working with Aman Public Charitable Trust, New Delhi

Ignorance, arrogance make for good flood

This year, for once, the devastating floods of Bihar seem to have touched us. Last year, when the same region was reeling under what was said to be the worst floods in living history, we simply did not know. Media had flashed a few images, but it was more of the same: rivers flood this region every year, so what's new? What's there to say?

This year there are some differences: first, the breach in the Kosi's protection system of embankments and barrages took place in Nepal, not in India. As maintenance of the embankments was our responsibility, we could not blame Nepal for the floods. We had to look within.

Second, the area, drowned under the flood, was massive and millions were marooned in remote villages. This was partly because this time the river breached upstream of the Kosi barrage and spilled over the land, forgetting that it even had a course to run before it flowed into the Ganga. Remember, this is a river, which has changed its course by 120 km in the past 250 years-satellite images show 12 distinct channels of how the river has moved.

Third, and most important, the flood captured our attention, because of the scale of the human tragedy. It was made clear that in spite of all our big talk and even bigger institutions for disaster management, we remain unprepared, under-staffed and unequipped for a crisis, when it hits. Even as people waited to be rescued we had few boats to bring them to safe places; we had little food, water and shelter to provide for them in the relief camps; and worse, we had no authority to ensure that empty homes would not be ransacked. As a result, people refused to leave. They preferred the swirling water to relief camps. What an indictment of our efforts.

Now the waters are finally receding and before our attention also moves on, let us learn, for once, the hard message of the Kosi floods of 2008. Let us learn because this disaster may not be the first or the last but it tells us of a situation getting out of control. It tells us that we have done so much wrong in the way we have managed our environment. It tells us that we know so little about how climate change and its manifestation of changing intensities of rainfall will exacerbate floods in the future. It also tells that we cannot 'adapt' to these changes, unless we do things differently.

Let's unpack this lesson. For long, we have believed that we can 'conquer' nature, control the flood and emasculate our rivers. In Kosi and its tributaries, we worked this engineering to perfection, by building barrages to hold the river, accompanied with miles of embankments to tie the river down.

It was as far back as 1991, that environmentalist Anil Agarwal published the book, Floods, flood plains and environmental myths. He explained how the engineering solution was in fact increasing both the incidence and intensity of floods. The reason was simple. The rivers brought down huge quantities of silt each year. The Kosi, in particular, was known to bring coarse sediments, which would add to the rate of siltation. Wherever embankments were built, silt got deposited in the river. We forgot that the extraordinary fertility of this region was because of this same alluvial silt, which was spread over the land by the inundating waters. With silt in its bed, the flow was reduced and floods increased. When the embankments broke or breached, flood duration increased because the water could not drain away.

Worse, the engineering walls led people to believe that they were protected from floods. As a result, low lying areas got populated. Then when the wall broke, the flood hit hard.

In doing all this, explained Anil Agarwal, we messed up the drainage system of the region. We merrily filled up the water bodies, which were the sponges for its floodwater and forgot the 'dead' channels of the river, through which the water gushed away. We believed these were unnecessary. We forgot how the wetlands provided food in the flood season-from fish to plant biodiversity. We forgot because first, we were hungry for land. Then, we were greedy for the money we would make from these engineering marvels, which were repaired on paper and half built, for full money. Corruption became the way of life. In all this, we forgot that we had once learnt to 'live' with floods.

But when he wrote this, Anil Agarwal was pilloried and mocked; the environmental lobby even accused him of playing into the timber contractor's hand. All because he said that we should stop blaming the mountains for the floods in the plains. It was time we understood that the forests of the Himalayas were needed for the people who lived there. But the forests in this fragile and extremely young and erosion-prone region would not stop the floods in the plains.

To 'stop' the floods, we had to re-learn the science and art of water management.

The water engineers rubbished this saying they knew better. They had the answers.

All I can say, we wish they were right.

We have to now understand that we are faced with a double whammy-floods will increase also because the pattern of rainfall is going on a twist. Climate change is making rain more unseasonal, erratic and intense in many parts of the country. 'Coping' with floods will become even more difficult now.

So what we can do without is the deadly combination of arrogance and ignorance. Instead, we can do with some learning. And a lot of doing.

Sunita Narain, Writer is Director, Centre for Science and Environment

Fury of Floods in Bihar

Wednesday 10 September 2008, by Subodh Kumar

The census 2001 and the growth indicators portray Bihar as one of the poorest States in India, with a highly underdeveloped economic structure and the lowest per capita income. What makes its situation unique is that Bihar is the only State in India where poverty has been uniformly at the highest level. This is primarily because the third most populous State in the country with approximately 83 million people suffer from natural calamity. With the onset of the monsoon, rivers come down from the Himalayan hills in Nepal, the river current has enormous force, this leads to rivers like Ghagra, Kamla, Kosi, Bagmati, Gandak, Ganga, Falgu, Karamhasar, Mahanadi rising above the danger level and posing a threat to North Bihar. Young Kosi, “the sorrow of Bihar”, has not yet matured enough to settle on a course, and has changed its course 15 times. There is hardly an inch of land in Mithilanchal through which the untamed river has not passed. Hence, taming young Kosi has so far appeared impossible, mainly because of financial, legal, administrative, political, environmental and construction approach constraints. The Bhimnagar barrage, which falls in Nepal, was constructed by India in 1956. The life-span of the barrage expired in 1986 but till now no concrete step has been taken to restore the safety of the Bhimnagar barrage; as a result Kosi has breached the embankment seven times and the breaking of the barrage side near Kusaha is the eighth instance and a unique one as it has led to a national calamity.

There has been hardly a year when Bihar was not exposed to the vagaries of these natural calamities. The cultural heritage of Bihar (Mithilanchal) is facing one of the most devastating floods of recent times: 20 districts and over 40 lakh population spread over 15 thousand villages of Bihar have been affected by the Kosi changing its course. The estimated death toll might cross 1000. The affected people need humanitarian assistance, and the need of the hour is to bring international, national, technical, economic and administrative power and expertise to combat the devastation caused by floods. Loss of life from floods in other parts of world has been reduced in recent years by a combination of improved forecasting, warning and planned responses. But in Bihar, if we see the past performance of the State Government, we find that, in the name of flood control, negative politics and corruption are involved. The recent flood relief scam in Bihar exposed the involvement of civil servants, contractors and politicians. Hence, hundreds of crores spent on flood relief have been siphoned away. This shows that the mechanism of good governance, which is associated with efficient and effective administration, presence of the rule of law, safeguarding of human life and property, presence of honest and efficient government, accountability and transparency and openness, is absent. Moreover, the Bihar Government’s effort is constrained by the fact that the catchments of most rivers and their tributaries which flood the Bihar plains are located outside Bihar. As the rivers originate from outside the State, their management is beyond the competence of the Government of Bihar. Long-term flood control measures like afforestation, construction of reservoirs on tributaries, groundwater storage through large-capacity artesian wells in the Terai areas, which can be operational in the dry season and allow to recharge during monsoon so on, needs the cooperation of the Nepal Government. Moreover, India must start fresh bilateral diplomacy with Nepal since Nepal has an elected government. This will reduce the suffering of millions of the population living in Mithilanchal, which is one of the most densely populated regions of the world. Attempts must be made to engage multilateral institutions so that Nepal produces 3000 MW of electricity, of which a substantial part can be sold to India to bring improvement in the real income of the Nepalese and meet the energy deficiencies of the eastern region of India.

♦

THE National Commission on Flood identified Bihar as one of the most flood affected States in India. After independence 25 lakh hectares of land were flood prone, but now the figure is 50 lakh hectares. Moreover, Bihar alone faces about 22.8 per cent of devastation caused by floods in India, where the food affected area is only 16.5 per cent. This implies maximum devastation occurs in a small flood affected area. In Uttar Pradesh the flood affected area is 25.1 per cent, but only 14.7 per cent area is devastated. In West Bengal the flood affected area is 11.5 per cent, but only 9.7 per cent land is devastated, whereas in Orissa 6.8 per cent land is flood-affected but only 4.8 per cent of land is destroyed.

In 1928, writing about the floods in Bihar, the Chairman of the Flood Committee, Adams Williams noted that the problem is not how to prevent floods, but how to pass them as quickly as possible to the sea. And the solution lies in removing all the obstacles which militate against this result. Moreover, flooding is ecologically necessary for sustainable development. Human activity should be made compatible with flooding, so that floods do not cause great distress and losses. In the 1992 Rio Summit there was a realisation that floods are important dimensions of the sustainability of the communities. The Ganga Flood Control Commission reports can serve as an useful aid to the government for flood relief. In Bihar, faulty land use, which results in blocking the drainage of rivers or its large tributaries, has caused severe damage.

After independence, embankments were one of the important means to control floods. The embankments fundamentally undermine natural drainage by interfering with its flow circuits. It also prevents water from draining back into the rivers. In a nutshell, embankments either end up making the rivers more volatile or transfer the fury of the flood to non-embanked areas.

Another way of controlling floods is to opt for rainwater harvesting. Attempts should be made to create water bodies which would store the water, either under the ground or in talaavs. During the Bangladesh floods, one US presidential committee under Harvard’s Roger Reveille calculated that millions of feet of water could be stored under the ground during floods. Though dams are important, there should be a better understanding of the frequency of water that floods the plains. The classic case is the Mekong River Agreement which provides for the minimum reverse flow of water in the monsoon into the Tonle Sap, a lake in Cambodia. In the same way, after the floods of 1998 China built the three Gorges Water Conservancy Project in Hubei province. The project consists of a water conservancy project, a reservoir construction and resettlement project, and a power transmission and transforming project. It is a massive project, millions of people have been rehabilitated before 2008, the year of the Olympics.

In 2007 and at the time of 60 years of independence devastating floods came and threatened the life of 20 per cent of the total population spread over 22 districts. The official death toll was 1200, the Government of Bihar appointed N. Sanyal to head the Committee on Bihar Floods. The report recommended that the possibility of procuring the equipment Hungary uses be explored as Hungary has embankments along the Danube. The report was submitted to the government early this year. The government is yet to go through its recommendations.

Thus, the time has come to analyse the various reports of the National Commission on Floods and analyse the success of flood control measures in other countries so that a long-term strategy can be drawn to control floods. This calls for a massive investment which Bihar cannot afford by itself. If the National Commission on Floods considers these problems and formulates policy, then with their human resources, Bihar will start growing to become one of the ideal States for all time to come and the politics of social justice will transform into the politics of the market.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Barker, Sophie, Caste at Home in Hindu India, Jonathan Cape, London, 1990.

2. Prasad, K.N., Dimensions of Development; Analysis of an Underdeveloped State, Vol.1, Concept Publishing Company, New Delhi, 1998.

3. Alagh, K. Yogender, “With Floods Comes the Gravy Train”, Indian Express, Delhi, June 2005.

4. Hindustan, Patna, July 3, 2003.

5. Krishna Gopal, Living with the Politics of Floods, The Indus Telegraph, April 30, 2005.

6. Mishra, Dinesh Kumar, Above the Danger Mark, World Commission on Dam, 1999, Vol.12 No.(I), January 1999.

7. Varma, Subodh, “Bihar Devastating Katrina”, The Times of India, August 26, 2008.

8. Shaibal, Gupta, Conversation (Discussion), Asian Development Research Institute (ADRI), Patna, Bihar.

Dr Subodh Kumar is a Lecturer, Department of Political Science, Maharaja Agrasen College, University of Delhi.

Stand now! In solidarity with the Bihar flood victims

Dear Friends and Co-citizens,
The floods, a tragedy that has engulfed the lives and livelihoods of uncountable number of people has severely affected 15 districts of Bihar. Media reports say around 3 millions or 30 lakh people have lost their houses, livelihoods and the right to life with dignity, which is commonly not considered a basic human right. The activists and experts who are working for the rescue or relief among the marooned people believe that the magnitude is much beyond the reported numbers. One of the reports states that over 1 lakh hectare or 247 thousand acres of agricultural land is destroyed ensuring that the future of food security and livelihoods is not so bright even after the floodwater recedes.
Dear friends, the floodwater is receding, creating space for epidemics, sanitation-related diseases and wide-scale corruption in implementation of relief works. The already delayed response from the media is rapidly withdrawing itself from the national calamity in Bihar.
The cry of the time is to ensure successful rescue of all the trapped people, irrespective of their castes, religion or any other considerations, as there are reports that 'fittest' compelling the rescue teams for caste-selective evacuations. There is a dire need of relief materials, rehabilitation and reconstruction-rebuilding strategies and initiatives and most importantly, strict monitoring of all such interventions.
The civil society, state governments and many others responded to the unprecedented disaster spontaneously and have offered relief material for the victims. The local government recklessly handled the situation before and after the breach of Kosi Embankment. The rescues and relief works offered by the government are also not so promising or convincing that the state machinery could be trusted.
It is suspected that the rescue and temporary relief will vanish with the receding water and subsiding media reports. The scars of the fury will remain for long, in the memories, and on the economy of millions of people. There will be the need of a timely and long-term rehabilitation of the livelihoods of affected people otherwise mass exodus is going to crush the already ill-paid workers and labourers in the small and big cities. Another reign of violation of labour rights and human rights is in offing, if we fail to act now, effectively.
Bihar Flood Relief Network, a forum of activists, civil society groups, concerned citizens and students has taken up the task and is engaged in creating a data-base of sincere groups and individuals working among the flood victims, actually the victims of ill-conceived and implemented government policies on handling the rivers of Bihar and everywhere else.

We request all those who are concerned with such annual tragedies and with the present Bihar flood in particular to join the struggle to defeat the ill affects of the calamity. Stand out with generous donations, moral and emotional supports for the victims and relief workers, volunteering for reconstruction of human lives and building constructive pressure on the concerned authorities, governments and media.

For further details please contact
Rakesh Singh, Phone: 91-9811972872, email: rakeshjee@gmail.com
Vinay Kumar, Phone: 91-9810361918, email: kumarvinaysingh@gmail.com
Ishteyaque Ahmad, Phone: 91-9968329198, muktigami@gmail.com

Following is the list of articles/services required in the flood-affected area
1. Doctors, besides, medicine experts the gynecologists are on high demand
2. Baby foods: milk powder and other processed food items
3. Plates & glasses
4. Cloths: unstitched – Cotton Saris, Dhoti, Lungi, Towels
5. Stitched - undergarments, cloths for kids, t-shirts and knickers
6. Soap: Lifebuoy
7. Food items: biscuits, namkeen, oils, pulses, sattu, gram, salt, sugar
8. Slippers
9. Tents, Dari, plastic sheets
10. Candles, torch, match box
11. Buckets (15 litres) with mugs
12. Mosquito nets
13. Blankets

List of required Medicines
1. Ciprofloxacin tablets and infusion
2. Chlorine tablets (Halogen tablets)
3. Levofloxacin tablets
4. Chloromyecetin capsules and injections
5. Ceftriaxone Injections
6. Chloroquine tablets and injections
7. Metronidazole Chloroquine tablets, suspension
8. Paracetamal tablets and suspension
9. B Complex tablets and syrup
10. Phensedyl DM cough syrup
11. Ranitidine tablets and injection
12. Antacids tablets and suspension
13. Cetrizine tablets and syrup
14. Ibuprofen tablets
15. Dexamethasone injections
16. Hydrocortisone injections
17. Deriphyllin injections
18. Electrol, Glucose and ORS Powder
19. Sanitary napkins/pads

World Water Crisis Underlies World Food Crisis

STOCKHOLM, Sweden, August 18, 2008 (ENS) - The world's supplies of clean, fresh water cannot sustain today's "profligate" use and inadequate management, which have brought shrinking food supplies and rising food costs to most countries, WWF Director General James Leape told the opening session of World Water Week in Stockholm today.

"Behind the world food crisis is a global freshwater crisis, expected to rapidly worsen as climate change impacts intensify," Leape said. "Irrigation-fed agriculture provides 45 percent of the world's food supplies, and without it, we could not feed our planet's population of six billion people."

Leape warns that many of the world's irrigation areas are highly stressed and drawing more water than rivers and groundwater reserves can sustain, especially in view of climate change. At the same time, he said, freshwater food reserves are declining in the face of the quickening pace of dam construction and unsustainable water extractions from rivers.

At a time when billions of people live without access to safe drinking water or suffer ill health due to poor sanitation, when food producers battle biofuel producers for land and water resources, and when global climate change is altering the overall water balance, 2,500 water experts are gathered this week at the Stockholm International Fairs and Congress Center to craft solutions to these problems.

World Water Week is an annual event co-ordinated by the Stockholm International Water Institute. This year's conference has the overall theme of “Progress and Prospects on Water: For A Clean and Healthy World with Special Focus on Sanitation" in keeping with the UN declaration of 2008 as the International Year of Sanitation.

Prince Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands had good news for the delegates in his opening speech today.

The Prince of Orange, who chairs the UN Secretary General's Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation during this special year, announced, "The number of people living without a supply of improved drinking water has now dropped well below one billion!"

"More than half the global population now have water piped to their homes and the number of people using unimproved water supplies continues to decline," he said, praising the delegates for this accomplishment.

This year, the prince said, progress towards adequate sanitation has begun on international, regional, national and local levels. "The regional sanitation conferences for example, such as LatinoSan, AfricaSan, EaSan and SacoSan, produced unprecedented declarations that provide a strong foundation for developing the water and sanitation sector in these regions," he said.

In June, the African Union Summit on Water and Sanitation in Sharm El Sheikh, attended by 52 heads of state and government, unanimously adopted a declaration on water and sanitation that shows that African leaders are giving top priority to water and sanitation, the prince said. "It also provides a solid basis for further developing the sector in Africa. I personally consider this result to be an enormous leap forward."

But Prince Willem said much more must be done to meet the UN's Millenium Development Goal to halve the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015 from the year 2000 baseline.

Citing a report by the World Health Organization and UNICEF, he said, "The report's worrying conclusion is that, at the current rate, the world will miss its MDG sanitation target by more than 700 million people. If we are to reach the target we now need to provide at least 173 million people per year with access to improved sanitation."

A consistent supporter of World Water Week, the prince told the delegates he finds it "unthinkable" to let a year go by without visiting the conference, although he is supposed to be in Beijing observing the Olympic Games in his capacity as a member of the International Organizing Committee.

"I see similarities between these athletes and yourselves," said the prince. "You show the same commitment and willpower. And the Olympic Dream is also your dream: to strive for a bright future of mankind. ‘One world, one dream.' A world in which everyone can lead a healthy life in dignity. A world that offers the chance of personal development for all. This is our common dream."

The delegates will need all the inspiration they can get to overcome the problems they face.

As developing countries confront the first global food crisis since the 1970s as well as unprecedented water scarcity, a new 53 city survey presented at the conference by the International Water Management Institute indicates that 80 percent of those studied are using untreated or partially treated wastewater for agriculture.

In over 70 percent of the cities studied, more than half of urban agricultural land is irrigated with wastewater that is either raw or diluted in streams.

"Irrigating with wastewater isn't a rare practice limited to a few of the poorest countries," said IWMI researcher Liqa Raschid-Sally and lead author of a report on the survey results. "It's a widespread phenomenon, occurring on 20 million hectares across the developing world, especially in Asian countries, like China, India and Vietnam, but also around nearly every city of sub-Saharan Africa and in many Latin American cities as well."

Wastewater is most commonly used to produce vegetables and cereals, especially rice, according to this and other IWMI reports, raising concerns about health risks for consumers, particularly when they eat uncooked vegetables.

In Accra, Ghana's capital city, for instance, an estimated one-tenth of the city's two million inhabitants daily purchase vegetables produced on just 100 hectares of urban agricultural land irrigated with wastewater, says the IWMI report. "That gives you an idea," said Raschid-Sally, "of the large potential of wastewater agriculture for both helping and hurting great numbers of urban consumers."

"And it isn't just affluent consumers of exotic vegetables whose welfare is at stake," she added. "Poor consumers of inexpensive street food also depend on urban agriculture."

Consumers across the 53 cities said they would prefer to avoid wastewater produce. But most of the time, they have no way of knowing the origin of the products they buy. Farmers, too, are aware that irrigating with wastewater may pose health risks both for themselves and the consumers of their produce, but they have little choice, since safe groundwater is seldom an accessible alternative, according to the IWMI report.

Few developing countries have official, enforceable guidelines for the use of wastewater in agriculture. As a result, though the practice may be theoretically forbidden or controlled, it is in fact "unofficially tolerated," the IWMI found.

The report highlights indigenous practices that can reduce the health risks from wastewater agriculture. In Indonesia, Nepal, Ghana and Vietnam, for example, farmers store wastewater in ponds to allow suspended solids to settle out.

Countries lacking the means for adequate wastewater treatment can still reduce health risks through low-cost interventions, such as the use of drip irrigation and washing of fresh produce in clean water.

Of the world's total water resources, 97.5 percent is salty and of the remaining but mainly frozen freshwater, only one percent is available for human use, said Leape, the WWF chief.

"Even this tiny proportion, however, would be enough for humans to live on Earth if the water cycle was properly functioning and if we managed our water use wisely," he said.

But Leape warned the conference delegates that the world is a long way from being ready for a worsening water crisis in part because of climate change and lack of an ecosystem approach to freshwater management.

"Water management for human needs alone is damaging the natural systems we all depend on," Leape said. "No management is even worse."

"We are also concerned that the world continues to mainly discuss adaption to climate change rather than doing it," Leape said. "We have been doing it, all over the world, and we have found that that improving the health of freshwater ecosystems now makes a great contribution to improving their resilience to climate impacts in the future."

Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2008. All rights reserved