In this part of the “Nightmare at Noon” series, a look at why “Water” is the new “Oil”, the possibility of water scarcity leading to “Water Wars” in the future and China’s worrying plans in Tibet.
It was almost two years ago that I was first alerted to the gravity of this matter. The first trigger was an article by Prof. Brahma Chellaney (Jun 2007)  in which he warned about how:
Water has emerged as a key issue that could determine whether Asia is headed toward mutually beneficial cooperation or deleterious interstate …

Please use this thread to share thoughts, comments and ideas on re-organisation of states in India.
To kick-start the discussion, excerpts from a few thought-provoking posts and articles below. The first excerpt from To reform UP, trifurcate it by Pratap Bhanu Mehta:
…But neither political party (Congress or BJP) is willing to be politically imaginative and ask a more fundamental question: what are the reforms needed to bring about the kind of radical change that politics in UP requires?
The answer to this question is complex. But most observers would agree that …

In the first part of this post, I cited evidence contrary to Sh Sanghvi’s assertion that “Hindu kings destroyed Buddhist monasteries…”
Sh Sanghvi’s second point was that, as a consequence of such destruction (which we now know is not supported by historical records) Buddhism declined in India – that land of its birth.
Let us start by what Dr B R Ambedkar had to say on the decline of Buddhism in India:
“..There can be no doubt that the fall of Buddhism in India was due to the invasions of the Musalmans…Islam came …

This post was triggered by Vir Sanghvi’s misleading article “Ayodhya for dummies” that he wrote in response to his “younger readers…(who are) mystified by the fuss and annoyed by the refusal of journos to tell them what it (Liberhan Report) was all about”
RC has already done a masterful dissection of Vir Sanghvi’s seemingly clever play with words. So I will limit myself to a specific flippant remark made by Vir Sanghvi viz. “…Hindu kings destroyed Buddhist monasteries, more or less throwing Buddhism out of India”
Before I begin, I must stress …

Continuing the Nightmare at Noon series on “Water“, in this part, an unusual innovation to tackle the challenge of water accessibility.

I first heard of PlayPumps about two years ago when I stumbled on their site while looking for something else on the web. It was a serendipitous discovery and the innovation stayed at the back of my mind.
Children on PlayPumps
As I conceived this series around “Water”, I felt that the story of PlayPumps was one worth telling. Here is Ginger Coleen writing about PlayPumps in Natural News (emphasis added):
…The PlayPump …

Is this a mohalla meeting that we have gathered all these people (from Ladakh, Jammu, Poonch and Rajouri) to discuss local affairs?

- Yasin Malik, Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front
Brief excerpt from Madhu Kishwar’s Open Letter to Yasin Malik:
In the November 7 meeting, you expressed your annoyance over the fact that representatives from Ladakh, Jammu, Poonch, and Rajouri had been invited. You dismissed their presence with open contempt saying: “Is this a mohalla meeting that we have gathered all these people to discuss local affairs?”
This attitude of assuming that it is only …