Water News

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With its embankment breached and the basin choked with silt, Keshav Yadav’s farm pond remains dry, leaving Yadav without any means to irrigate his Rabi crops after erratic rainfall. Image by Shivam Bharadwaj.

When farm ponds fail to hold water

Shivam Bhardwaj 26 Aug 2026
Drang Drung glacier in the Zanskar Himalayas. Image by Andrew Mackintosh.

Ladakh glaciers losing speed as ice melts, new study warns

Simrin Sirur 18 Aug 2026
Fishers at work in Vembanad Lake, Kerala. Image courtesy of India Water Portal via Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).

A fertile landscape at the crossroads of ecology and development [Commentary]

C.P. Rajendran 3 Aug 2026
Lateral view of a specimen of Pseudecheneis likimroensis. Image courtesy of Zoological Survey of India.

A newly-described fish sheds light on a biodiversity blind spot

Monish Upadhyay 31 Jul 2026
The devastating impacts of the famine on people in then Bellary district, Madras, illustrated for The Graphic (a British weekly newspaper) published on October 6, 1877. Illustration by Horace Harral courtesy of National Portrait Gallery via Public Domain.

Volcanoes, El Niño and colonial policies fuelled two deadly famines in India

Karthik Vinod 30 Jul 2026
A sugarcane field in Narsinghpur, Madhya Pradesh. Image by Manish Chandra Mishra/Mongabay.

India’s ethanol push moves from the pump to the field, raising water and food questions

Manish Chandra Mishra 28 Jul 2026
Cracks appear in Basant Dangi's field in Pathalgada village, where he normally grows a paddy nursery. Image by Vishal Kumar Jain.

Low rainfall delays paddy farming signalling El Niño-induced drought

Vishal Kumar Jain 27 Jul 2026
A diggi in Jamal. Image by Partik Kumar.

Rethinking irrigation through farm ponds [Commentary]

Partik Kumar, Parul 27 Jul 2026
A cement naala baandh in Kiraksal constructed in 2017. Image by Vinaya Kurtkoti.

Watershed management improves livelihoods in drought-prone village

Vinaya Kurtkoti 9 Jul 2026

A social worker’s solo endeavour to track fluorosis and groundwater contamination

Biswajit Das, Nabarun Guha 16 Jun 2026
Dharani Saikia speaks with a person affected by fluorosis. Image by Nabarun Guha.

In rural Assam, fluoride in groundwater is bending bones

Nabarun Guha 16 Jun 2026
The 2023 Beas floods washed away a segment of the Manali-Leh Highway, with the snow-capped peaks near the Beas Kund glacier visible in the background in Manali. Image by Sumit Mahar/Himdhara Collective.

Climate resilience in Himachal begins with spatial planning [Commentary]

Prateek Draik 16 Jun 2026
A man collects water from a well as a woman washes clothes in Mumbai. Representative image. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)

An unregulated groundwater economy drills into trouble

Esha Lohia 12 Jun 2026
A man exits a foot bridge over a flooded street after heavy monsoon rains in Guwahati, Assam in 2025. Representative image. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath)

A strong El Niño demands planning, not panic [Commentary]

Madhavan Nair Rajeevan 3 Jun 2026
High-tension power lines. Image by Ujjwal Kishore via Pexels.

India bets on data centres even as water, energy-use concerns mount

Priyanka Shankar 12 May 2026
An active urban freshwater spring channeled through PVC piping amidst residential buildings in Tadong, Gangto, Sikkim. Image by Avantika Thapa.

Overlooked urban springs can strengthen water security in Himalayan cities [Commentary]

Sailendra Dewan, Niharika Bindal 11 May 2026
Volunteers remove water logging in potholes after heavy rain in Kochi, Kerala, in 2022. (AP Photo/ R S Iyer)

Better urban services require citizen participation [Commentary]

Katie Pyle, Neha Malhotra Singh 4 May 2026
A natural farming practitioner works at her farm in Guntur district, Andhra Pradesh. The National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture frames soil health, water-use efficiency, and biodiversity conservation as agricultural priorities. Representative image. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

India’s farms do ecological work that no policy has accounted [Commentary]

Deepanjana Saha, Prasanna N.S., G. Ravikanth 29 Apr 2026
A sarus crane feeds its offspring. It is listed as vulnerable by the IUCN Red List, and Shekha jheel is a critical stronghold for the species. Representative image by Drsssuresh1961 via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Ramsar wetland tag needs to be followed up with sustained management, say experts

Manish Chandra Mishra 24 Apr 2026

Hopes for inland waterways transport fall short as operational challenges rise

Rahul Singh 13 Apr 2026