After scripting a turnaround in the fortunes of the Indian Railways, union minister Lalu Prasad has now envisioned the prospect of utilising surplus water from various rivers using large pipes for the country's 24,000-km railway tracks. "The railways is like an empire, it is a league apart, its vast network criss-crossing across the country can help the government in water management," said the minister, who was in Malaysia to witness the signing of a railway double track contract awarded to public sector company IRCON by the Malaysian government.

Scientists, environmentalists and experts will deliberate on Goa's water woes at a one-day workshop organised by the Mhadei Bachao Abhiyan at Old Goa on May 17 in the premises of Kunkolienkar Higher Secondary School. Titled Goa's water security: Present scenario and future challenges, the workshop will go into the present status of Mhadei and Virdi dam projects and rivers namely Terekhol, Chapora, Baga, Zuari, Sal, Talpona and others.

With only two weeks to go for the pre-monsoon deadline for road and drain works to be completed, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation is struggling to meet the demands of the newfound stress on preparedness for disasters. First, even after allocating an additional Rs 110 crore for its works on widening and deepening the Mithi river, officials are unable to promise that a swollen Mithi will not cause floods as it did in 2005.

A sharp fall in the water level of the Ganga downstream from Narora in Bulandshahr district of western Uttar Pradesh has fuelled fears of the grand old river being reduced to a trickle at the holy Sangam in Allahabad. The fall in the level of the river, considered the lifeline of the State since ancient times, has set alarm bells ringing. The state of the river in Varanasi is no better than in Allahabad.

JAMUNA river erosion has taken a serious turn in the Brahmaputra Right Embankment area in Sirajganj and Bogra, so did on the eve of the current dry season. With the changing trends, the mighty Jamuna is directly hitting the flood control embankment at Sailabari and Shimla points under sadar upazila, Shubhagachha and Meghai points under Kazipur upazila in Sirajganj. Similarly, it is also hitting at Bhanderbari point under Dhunat upazila, Talukdarpara and Karnabari points under Sariakandi upazila in Bogra.

When Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, was asked to ponder the future of the world before an audience of powerful businessmen and politicians, at a meeting in Switzerland earlier this year, he could have chosen any topic he liked. What he focused on was both a hoary old favourite, and a newly popular preoccupation, of debates on world affairs: the rising risk of wars over fresh water, as populations increase and the world gets drier.

Indiscriminate digging up of road sides in Himachal Pradesh are known to have posed dangers to many lives while driving on roads, but this time it has become responsible for aggravating Shimla's water problems. The telecom department, while laying its telephone cables, has damaged nearly 15 kilometres of main supply line of the drinking scheme, which was planned to solve the water crisis in the town.

Water has become a mirage for the Narmada Project oustees rehabilitated here from Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, who agreed to give up their irrigated farms back home to ensure that the Sardar Sarovar Dam project became the lifeline of the waterstarved people of Gujarat.

At least 57 varieties of sweet water fishes in southern region are now on the verge of extinction. Barisal divisional fisheries office sources said the varieties were disappearing every day as open sources of sweet water like rivers, canals, ponds and enclosures are being silted every day which become threat for the extinction.

Climate change and reckless construction have dried up the "Water Bank' of the country