To begin with, managing freshwater, the elixir of life, has once again been put at the top of the unresolved scheme of the world. Several conferences, workshops and hybrid consultations are being organised to set the agenda for the Third UN Water Conference to be held in early December this year in the UAE. Meanwhile, the UN General Assembly sponsored the International Water Decade, designed to galvanise collaborative action on water-related challenges, which ends in 2028 and is largely off track.
"Chinese dam concerns raise fears of future water conflict" SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST, 05 September, 2013Beijing's coyness over hydro plans for Tibet's Yarlung Zangbo sparks mistrust from India over downstream impact on Brahmaputra.The sensitive issue of water sharing between China and India is again under the spotlight.India raised its longstanding concerns about Chinese dam construction on rivers that start in China and flow into the sub-continent at the 5th round of the India-China strategic dialogue in New Delhi last month.
The rising threat from unpredictable and excessive rainfall, exacerbated by climate change, has warranted a conceptual debate for robust policy formulation. The urgency has never been felt more than now as we witness devastating incidents like dam breach in Laos, the State Deluge in Kerala (India) and frequent marooning of cities, including ‘smart cities’ in India, during monsoon. It has now become a common scenario across megacities and towns when torrential rains play havoc with daily lives of people leading to deaths and destruction of properties.
It can be argued that whims rather than institutions govern Odisha's water resources development and management. The party's election manifesto (2014) ruling the state presently promised to add 10.00 lakh hectares (ha.) of land for irrigation coverage in the next five years. This is the only document referred to as a 'perspective plan in the water sector'. But even after a year of being re-elected, a five-year blueprint on water resources has yet to materialize.