Vachati village, where the residents openly defy the authorities, has acquired a reputation for collective smuggling.

Recycling water and chemicals has resulted in drastic reduction of effluents from Surat's textile units.

The issue of sharing West Asia's water resources threatens to explode into another Arab Israeli war, which will shatter the semblance of peace settling over the region.

While the cultivation of paddy in Punjab (and Haryana) does need some curbing, the extreme forebodings of either total groundwater exhaustion in Punjab or of the state turning into a desert of paddy growing is not curbed forthwith are unwarranted.