Salt crunches underfoot like frosty soil on this bare stretch of land in western Uzbekistan. Cotton, to be used to make a mattress, is stacked in a home. The status of Uzbekistan as the world's second-largest cotton exporter is in danger because of environmental destruction. "Thirty years ago, this was a cotton field,' said a 61-year-old farmer who has lived near this city all his life. "Now it's a salt flat.'

In view of the ever increasing scarcity of fresh drinking water throughout the country, an innovative idea of setting up a water refinery in Asom and supplying refined water through water pipelines to the rest of the country is awaiting Dispur's nod. The annual per capita availability of fresh water in India has decreased from 6,000 cubic meter in 1947 to 2,100 cubic meter, which reflects the possibility of an acute fresh water crisis in the near future.

The 23rd Water Resources Day on the focal theme "Integrated Water Resources Development and Management' was organised on Friday last in a befitting manner by the Assam State Centre of the Institution of Engineers (India) in its Panbazar premises in collaboration with a host of State and Central Government organisations.

The tribals est the sleepy village of Kalyandi in Jharkhand depend on fish farming for living. However, till last year, the hectic activity would come to a grinding halt in May. The reason: non-availability of water in the ponds. This May, fish farming is on in full swing and the ponds are swarming with fish