The collaborative study by National Dalit Watch of National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights & Society for Promotion of Wastelands Development reviews the exclusion of Dalit communities in climate change adaptation programmes and policies through case studies and desk review.

Land grabbing has today become a major issue across India and a central political faultline in Indian politics. Protests, resistance and conflicts have been growing as a result of attempts by people to assert their legal and customary rights in the face of state and corporate attempts to take over land.

The report looks at water governance in the Man basin, a medium sized sub-basin of the Narmada river basin in tribal dominated western Madhya Pradesh. It deals with problematic issues of water governance in the basin and generates insights and guidelines that are important for both grassroots and policy level interventions in future.

The paper reviews contentious issues related to water governance in the Narmada river basin like the riparian rights of States over apportionment of the use of the waters for large dam-centered canal irrigation and hydro-electric power development and the later disputes around the appropriateness of this model of development given the tremendous environmental and social costs associated with it.

Water governance in the Narmada river basin has been in the eye of a controversial storm from the time of independence.