Hearing on report submitted by Ombudsman for Devaswoms

A Division Bench of the Kerala High Court on Thursday directed the State government to address the court on the issue of initiating action to prevent pollution in and around Sabarimala. The Bench comprising Justice Thottathil B. Radhakrishnan and Justice K. Vinod Chandran issued the direction when a report submitted by the Ombudsman for Travancore and Cochin Devaswom Boards on pollution at Sabarimala came up for hearing.

A new water reuse approach being taken by the Coca-Cola Company could save as much as 100bn litres of water annually if implemented across its global bottling plants, says the company.

The consumption of bottled water in India has shown a jump of 21 per cent in the last fiscal but the country is still far behind as compared to global average, according to a research recently conducted by leading marketing firm IKON.

The per capita consumption of bottled water in India was at 16.20 litres during 2010-11 and jumped almost 21 per cent to 19.60 litres in 2011-12, IKON said in its report 'The Indian bottled water market, unveiling its thirst'.

Even though the Indian Railways has taken over the catering service it has not been able to implement its policy on the desired lines and the problem of drinking water continues to be acute and a matter of concern in stations and moving trains.

The Parliamentary Standing Committee headed by T.R. Baalu in its report, which was tabled in the Rajya Sabha on Monday, expressed concern that during inspection, the committee found that normal tap water was being used for drinking at most stations.

Premachandran sees attempt to push through neoliberal reforms

A high-level consultative meeting and seminar on the draft National Water Policy 2012 here on Wednesday expressed concern over several of its features, calling for a cautious approach and serious thoughts on the actual objectives for amending the existing policy. The former Water Resources Minister N.K. Premachandran, delivering a special address at the event organised by the C. Achutha Menon Study Centre and Library and the Department of Environment and Climate Change

India, to put it euphemistically, is awash in its own ‘crap’ — a word derived from old Dutch to mean excrement.

Unauthorised manufacturing units mushroom as consumption goes up by 15%

Areas abutting the city are increasingly dotted with packaged drinking water industrial units. A minimum of 30 plants have come up over the last year in the neighbouring districts. The rising demand for water this summer has also paved the way for the sale of sub-standard quality of water and operation of unauthorised units.

With water crisis slowly taking on alarming proportions, substandard packaged drinking water, without proper labels and ISO certification and quality checks, are more freely available in the market, raising risks of contracting water-borne diseases.

With the Water Board failing to supply adequate safe drinking water, residents are forced to buy water from private companies. But water bottles or pouches of many companies are sold without proper labels or adequate quality checks, officials said.

The Pakistan Council Of Research In Water Resources (PCRWR) has said that drinking water quality is deteriorating continually due to biological contamination from human waste, chemical pollutants f