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WATER:
India faces a turbulent water future. Unless water management
practices are changed soon, India will face a severe water
crisis within the next two decades and will have neither the
cash to build new infrastructure nor the water needed by its
growing economy and rising population. India’s past
investments in large water infrastructure have yielded spectacular
results with enormous gains in food security and in the reduction
of poverty.
However,
much of this infrastructure is now crumbling. Shortfalls in
financing have led to an enormous backlog of maintenance.
Faced with poor water supply services, farmers and urban dwellers
alike have resorted to helping themselves by pumping out groundwater
through tubewells. Today, 70 percent of India’s irrigation
needs and 80 percent of its domestic water supplies come from
groundwater. Although this practice has been remarkably successful
in helping people to cope in the past, it has led to rapidly
declining water tables and critically depleted aquifers, and
is no longer sustainable.
Sewage
and waste water from rapidly growing cities and effluents
from industries have turned many rivers, including major ones,
into fetid sewers. Massive investments are needed in sewers
and wastewater treatment plants to protect people’s
health and improve the environment. Climate
change projections show that India’s water problems
are only likely to worsen. With more rain expected to fall
in fewer days and the rapid melting of glaciers in the western
Himalayas, India will need to gear up to tackle the increasing
incidence of both droughts and floods.
LITERACY:
The problem of illiteracy in the Indian context cannot be
over emphasised. Basic literacy, as defined by the United
Nations, is the ability to read 40 words per minute, write
20 words per minute, and do 2-digit arithmetic. In India,
where one of the oldest civilizations flourished, only 52%
of the population is literate (65.5% of males, 39% of females).
(These figures are from the 1991 census). The literacy rate
among rural women is 10%. Over half of the world's illiterates
may be in India as we enter the 21st century. Every third
working child in the world is in India.
For
3 million children in India, the street is their home. Various
barriers to child and adult literacy exist in India, most
prominent are the issues of gender and poverty. However, now
as the population nears the 1 billion mark and with issues
of poverty and social inequities becoming larger, it is time
to face the challenges. Literacy is the key to development,
health care, employment and last but not the least, it is
the key to population control.
Through
Rotary projects, teachers and students pair up with Rotarians
to educate the community. The importance of literacy is the
need for the community to be able to read. As President Wilf
Wilkinson said " Literacy empowers people. It is the
foundation for virtually all forms of education and an essential
component of poverty reduction, social inclusion, and economic
development. Despite the importance of literacy, there are
more than 800 million people unable to read or write in the
world today, and 64 percent are women and girls".
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