“Don’t irritate, just meditate.”

Meditation is a process in which a person trains his mind to focus on a particular thing or work and prevent it from being distracted by other things in life. Meditation has been scientifically proven to provide various advantages both physically and physiologically.

I personally have been practising meditation for a few months and I can evidently see positive changes in my overall personality. I am listing down a few benefits of meditation:

● Meditation helps you to be more focussed in real life. It brings clarity in your thoughts and helps you to make better decisions in your life. It also keeps you away from all the distractions and helps you to stay motivated towards achieving your goal and be successful. You become more productive in your work due to meditation

● Meditation is powerful in eliminating the stress in your life if practised regularly. It trains your mind to deal with stress efficiently. Your body releases neurotransmitters like serotonin, dopamine, and endorphins during meditation. These are known to have a calming effect on your mind and body and provide happiness.

● Meditation makes you a confident person. It makes you believe in yourself and increases your self- esteem to make correct choices in your life. It teaches you to control your mind and use it in a way that is the most beneficial for you both professionally and personally.

● Meditation makes you mentally alert. It teaches you the necessary skills to tackle the problems of your life. It makes you smarter and increases your understanding of different things.

● Meditation makes you optimistic in life. You start thinking and focussing on the positivity and neglect the negativity surrounding you. You start feeling happy in your life.

● Meditation is a great way to get away from stress and also it is known to make you cheerful. Because of this, you are able to build stronger and healthier relationships with your family and friends, as you are able to communicate with them properly and be less angry or frustrated.

● Meditation can help you to sleep better. This, in turn, affects your overall health positively as getting good sleep has numerous benefits. It can improve your immune system, protect you from different types of diseases and relax your mind and body.

● Meditation can prove to be very useful in boosting your immunity power. It also lowers the blood pressure and reduces the risk of heart attack, kidney failure or any heart related diseases.

● Meditation makes you brave and fearless. It calms you and makes you strong from within. It gives you the required confidence to face any difficult situation in your life without anyone’s help.

● You get a glowing and a beautiful looking skin once you start practising meditation regularly. This is due to the release of good hormones in your body, reduced levels of stress in your life and your positive approach for life.

So, whenever you are feeling lost in your own busy world and want a break from your chaotic life. Just try to take out some time from your daily regimen and refresh yourself by meditating. Once you are done with it, you will feel energized from within and more joyful.

Communication work for those who work at it.

Communication is like a skill that you can learn.It’s like riding a bicycle or typing.if you are willing to work at it,you can rapidly improve the quality of every part of your life.In a lame language”Communication is a process through which one person can share his views,thoughts ,ideas to the other person”.A good communication acts as a tool through which we can connect to different people all around the Globe and create a network.It is not only necessary but it’s the need of the hour every individual whether he/she might be a student a professional etc must possesed good communication skills because this is the need of the hour.It allows you to get the trust of the people and at the same time carries better opportunities for the individuals.The significance of communication is that it is required in daily life it act as a catalyst in building relationships with people.It is mainly of two domain oral and written communication.There are many issues which can be handled through right and effective communication.It is useful in Corporate World as it’s foster strong team if efficient and proper communication is done through hierarchy.Even difficult to difficult issues can be solved and solutions can be graped through poweful communication.Someone has rightly said “The more we communicate the less we suffer and the better we feel about everything around”.

CHITRA, WHY DID YOU PAY MY HOTEL BILL? 🥰

The ticket collector came in and started checking people’s tickets. Suddenly, he looked in my direction and asked, ‘What about your ticket?”Not you, madam, the girl hiding below your berth. Hey, come out, where is your ticket?’ Someone was sitting below my berth. When the collector yelled at her, the girl came out of hiding.She was thin, dark, scared and looked like she had been crying profusely. She must have been about 13 or 14 years old. She had uncombed hair and was dressed in a torn skirt and blouse. She was trembling and folded both her hands. The collector started forcibly pulling her out from the compartment. Suddenly, I had a strange feeling. I stood up and called out to the collector. ‘Sir, I will pay for her ticket,’ I said.Then he looked at me and said, ‘Madam, if you give her ten rupees, she will be much happier with that than with the ticket.’I did not listen to him. I told the collector to give me a ticket to the last destination, Bangalore, so that the girl could get down wherever she wanted.Slowly, she started talking. She told me that her name was Chitra. She lived in a village near Bidar. Her father was a coolie and she had lost her mother at birth. Her father had remarried and had two sons with her stepmother. But a few months ago, her father died. Her stepmother started beating her often and did not give her food. She did not have anybody to support her so she left home in search of something better.By this time, the train had reached Bangalore. I said goodbye to Chitra and got down from the train. My driver came and picked up my bags. I felt someone watching me. When I turned back, Chitra was standing there and looking at me with sad eyes. But there was nothing more that I could do. I had paid her ticket out of compassion but I had never thought that she was going to be my responsibility!I told her to get into my car. My driver looked at the girl curiously. I told him to take us to my friend Ram’s place. Ram ran separate shelter homes for boys and girls. We at the Infosys Foundation supported him financially. I thought Chitra could stay there for some time and then we could talk about her future.Ram suggested that Chitra could go to a high school nearby. I said that I would sponsor her expenses. I left the shelter knowing that Chitra had found a home and a new direction in her life.I always enquired about Chitra’s well-being over the phone. She was studying well and her progress was good.. I offered to sponsor her college studies if she wanted to continue studying. But she said, ‘No, Akka. I have talked to my friends and made up my mind. I would do my diploma in computer science so that I can immediately get a job after 3 years.’ She wanted to become economically independent as soon as possible. Chitra obtained her diploma & got a job in a software company as an assistant testing engineer. When she got her first salary, she came to my office with a sari and a box of sweets.One day, I got a call from Chitra. She was very happy. ‘Akka, my company is sending me to USA! I wanted to meet you and take your blessings but you are not here in Bangalore.’Years passed. Occasionally, I received an e-mail from Chitra. She was doing very well in her career. She was posted across several cities in USA and was enjoying life. I silently prayed that she should always be happy wherever she was.Years later, I was invited to deliver a lecture in San Francisco for Kannada Koota, an organization where families who speak Kannada meet and organize events. The lecture was in a convention hall of a hotel and I decided to stay at the same hotel. After the lecture, I was planning to leave for the airport. When I checked out of the hotel room and went to the reception counter to pay the bill, the receptionist said, ‘Ma’am, you don’t need to pay us anything. The lady over there has already settled your bill. She must know you pretty well.’ I turned around and found Chitra there.She was standing with a young white man and wore a beautiful sari. She was looking very pretty with short hair. Her dark eyes were beaming with happiness and pride. As soon as she saw me, she gave me a brilliant smile, hugged me and touched my feet. I was overwhelmed with joy and did not know what to say. I was very happy to see the way things had turned out for Chitra. But I came back to my original question. ‘Chitra, why did you pay my hotel bill? That is not right.’ Suddenly sobbing, she hugged me and said, ‘Because you paid for my ticket from Bombay to Bangalore!'(Excerpted from Mrs. Sudha Murty’s ‘The Day I Stopped Drinking Milk’ )

SAY NO TO DRUGS

On International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, we should be more serious about this hazard, that destroys the lives of millions including youngsters.the theme for this year’s anti-drug abuse day Is “Better Knowledge for Better Care”. The main idea behind this theme is to stress upon the need of improving the understanding of the world drug problem.

The day is also marked as an expression of its determination to strengthen action as well as cooperation and achieve the society which is free of drug abuse.Around 35.6 million people across the world are victims of drug abuse, according to the World Drug Report 2020 published by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. Young adults and teenagers account for the largest share of those using drugs and most of them suffer from HIV, Hepatitis C and other related diseases. Only one out of eight people who need treatment and rehabilitation are able to get it, according to the report.

So many people want to quit but they can’t due to lack of awareness and social stigma. We need to take a step to secure our life and future, this is our responsibility being a citizen of a country .

HERE ARE THE OPTIONS INDIA HAS LEFT IN THE BORDER STAND-OFF

When the border stand-off with China deepens, India will need to think of all potential diplomatic solutions in this crisis that will lend it leverage. New arrangements with a variety of foreign powers is one such factor which is often discussed in this sense. Most military analysts salivate at the possibility of an ever stronger coalition with the United States.

It is a good moment for mobilizing public sentiment on China. As China under Xi Jinping regime has seen an unprecedented degree of global alienation.  But can that be translated into concerted global action to bring real pressure to bear on China? India should pursue every avenue possible. Yet we would always have a thorough understanding of the limits of what can be achieved for India through new partnerships or agreements.

It’s important to remember that in the context of the development paradigm of a country , international relations are formed. India’s primary goal, if it can possibly articulate one, would be to maintain the optimum space for its growth model. In that way, India isn’t special. The alliance between the US and China may have arisen in the diplomatic effort to establish a break between the Sino-Soviets. But for decades this relationship was sustained not by a strategic logic, but by the logic of the developmental political economy in both the US and China, where they depended on each other reciprocally.

The technology model ‘s diplomatic prestige waned, and it is this fact that will be essentially the catalyst of the relationship between the US and China. The question for India is not just whether the US has any stake in the development of India, which it could have. Yet it is more a matter of how India’s infrastructure needs can fit into the evolving model of US growth. Will the very powers of the political economy which establish a disengagement with China also come in the way of closer relations with India? Some sections of American big business could be batting for India; but the underlying dynamics of the political economy are less favorable.

Would the US grant India the space it wants for commerce, intellectual property, legislation, agriculture, labour mobility, the very domains where democracy is essential to the economy of India? Can an American hell-bent on getting industrial jobs back to the U.S., comfortably fit with a Bharat “atma nirbhar?” To see what’s at stake, we need only look at how friction over the development paradigm drives tensions between the US and the EU on trade, taxation and regulatory issues.

There is sometimes a complaint in the US about India being invited but refusing enthusiastically to come to table. Given the salutary cultural and political impetus in this relationship there is some reality to this. Yet the causes of this, including climate change, have also been genuine disagreements in growth. It was also that this question was antithetical to the other strategic commitments of India at various points. India was wise to stay out of the Iraq war, it was wise not to completely spurn Russia, and it is wise not to throw its weight behind the US policy on Iran.

There’s more wisdom in the US to comprehend the role of India. But there is a section of India ‘s strategic community that sees India ‘s reluctance to go in with the U.S., hook line and sinker, as a sort of ideological wimpiness, not a sign of deeper-thought-out realism that it was.

It is a strange moment in global affairs, where a common challenge emanating from China is recognised, but there is no global appetite for concerted action. The global response to the BRI could be an interesting example. Many countries struggle to meet their debt obligations to the BRI. Most loans from China have been a millstone around the necks of the debtor countries. But it’s hard to see the rest of the international community help all these countries wean their regimes away from Chinese finance dependence. Similarly, there are now considerable concerns about frontier conflict areas such as cyber security and space.

Source:https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/india-china-border-dispute-on-our-own-pratap-bhanu-mehta/

WILL BABA RAMDEV’S MANTRA WORK THIS TIME TOO?

On 23rd of  June,2020 in a press conference held by Yoga Guru ,Ramdev Baba launched the “Coronil Kit”. As claimed by Baba Ramdev  ,the Coronil Kit is the only solution found till date against the pandemic. It is the first clinically  ,researched and tested medicine carried upon 280 patients in Haridwar, Delhi ,Meerut and Ahmedabad. The medicine which is  a joint effort by Patanjali Research Institute and National Institute of Medical Science, Jaipur  has shown 100% recovery rate in 7 days ,while 69% recovered within 3 days of time. During the launch, he continuously talked about immediately releasing the evidence of the research.

Coronil Kit

The corona kit consists of 3 medicines ,one of which is in liquid form, while the other two are in tablet form. The main ingredients in the tablet are Giloy, Tulsi and Ashvagandha. The entire kit costs around Rs.545. The kit would be available for free ,for those below the poverty line. The dosage prescribed for patients aged between 15-80 years of age is 2-2 tablet every half an hour after food ,to be taken along hot water. Whilst for those between the age of 6-14 years, would be given half the amount prescribed. The medicine would be initially available in the  Patanjali stores, but they’re very soon going to launch the e-commerce app, “Order Me” for online delivery.

According to the Government prescribed rules, any effort made without the permission from Ayush Ministry, is worthless. The Ayush Ministry has called for the full details about the medicine, since it’s unknown to them. They’ve  restricted them from advertising or selling the product, without their approval. The full details of the name of the company of the medicine, sample size ,the hospital where research is conducted. They’ve even asked the Uttarakhand State Licensing Authority to provide copy of the license issued to them. The Uttarakhand State Licensing Authority reported that Patanjali at the time of applying for the license, didn’t mention about the Covid-19.Instead ,they’d only approved license for being immunity boaster ,and cough ,fever. As a result, the Ayush Ministry issued circular by claim of misleading information, fake claims and misbranding. Before commenting anything on whether Patanjali violated the Protocol or not, they ’re waiting for the documents.

Recent news have proved how Patanjali had planned it to be a strategic move to earn lots of money , but seem to be failing instead. They’re in a total mess right now ,like the proper protocol for such trials is completely missing, besides having discrepancy with the CTRI. Inconsistencies which’ve risen have proved that only 100 were there for the trial  ,instead of 280 patients as reported. Out of this 100,half had taken the placebo drugs and only those patients who showed mild to moderate symptoms were the chosen ones.

Ayurveda has been an age long belief of Hindus, believing it has power to  cure them of any disease they want. Ramdev Baba had even before claimed of curing homosexuality, and had offered medicine with the power to make women conceive male child. It is because of such beliefs that Patanjali is now valued at Rs.3000 crore, and every here and now comes out with schemes to make money at the cost of people’s trust.

INFORMAL ORGANIZATION


Informal organization refers to relationships between individuals in the organization based on interest, personal attitudes, emotions, prejudices, likes, dislikes, physical location, the similarity of work et. The informal organization comes into existence because of the limitations of the formal structure and it represents a natural grouping of people in working situations and the birth of small groups in an organization is a natural phenomenon. The informal group may overlap because an individual may be a member of more than one informal group. Informal groups come into being to support and supplement the formal organization. The formal and informal organization are inextricably interlinked. As Joseph L. Massie said, “Informal organization has been defined as any human interactions that occur spontaneously and naturally over long periods of time”.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is informal-organization.png

CHARACTERISTICS OF INFORMAL ORGANIZATION

The main characteristics of informal organization are:

  1. It has no place in the formal chart.
  2. It is definite and has no structure.
  3. It is a network of personal and social relations.
  4. It has its own rules and traditions.
  5. It provides for social satisfaction to its members.
  6. An informal organization arises spontaneously.
  7. It is an integral part of a total organization and management cannot eliminate it.
  8. It is based on personal attitudes, emotions likes and dislikes etc.

  ADVANTAGES OF INFORMAL ORGANIZATION

The informal organization is a psycho-social system and the main advantages of an informal organization are:

  1. Informal organization evolve short cuts and eliminate various individuals and departments.
  2. Informal organizations help in solving work problems of members.
  3. Informal groups recognise talented workers as their leaders.
  4. A manager can build better relations with his subordinates through informal contacts.
  5. Informal groups do not allow managers to cross the limits of authority.
  6. Informal groups often fill up the communication gaps which might arise in the organization.
  7. The informal organization may fill in gaps, if any, in the abilities of managers.
  8. Informal groups develop certain norms of behaviour which differentiate between good and bad conduct and between legitimate and illegitimate activities.
This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is informal-organization.jpg

LIMITATIONS OF INFORMAL ORGANIZATION

Informal groups have negative aspects too. They may create problems for the organization as mentioned below:

  1. Informal groups generally tend to resist change and change requires new skills but informal groups want to maintain the status quo and this creates obstructions in implementing new ideas and thus organization’s growth.
  2. An informal leader may turn out to be a troublemaker for the organisation and to increase his influence, he may work against the policies of management, and try to manipulate the behaviour of his followers.
  3. Every member of an informal group is also a member of the formal organization and sometimes role conflict may arise because the ideas, expectations and requirements of both the organizations may be opposite to each other.
  4. An informal group exerts strong pressure on its members for conformity and the members may become so loyal to their group that following the group norms may become a part of their life.
  5. Informal communications may give rise to rumours which may create conflict and misunderstanding among the people and rumours may prove dangerous for the organization. 

For All My Life I’ll Wonder Why

Are you still waiting for some last words of reason and explanations? Perhaps you were never really meant to get them ever. For if you think about it, what is closure really? Is it the memories left behind by those lilting words? Or is it the agony of those harsh words that you keep replaying over time in your own head?

Most people have someone in their lives with whom they lost contact over a period of time. Some goodbyes were intentional on both sides while many of them were aided with a sudden abruptness for no apparent reason at all. Or better still; some goodbyes were all out bitter. Yet somewhere in your mind, you might still be expectant on some form of communication regarding why.

Closure is a very funny thing; it has widely different meanings for different people. But at the end of the day, all someone wants is to feel some sort of resolution to a relationship. What will break your heart, although, is the fact that most people never get to really experience the closure that they want. And even if they do get closure, it will be in some unexpected form.

clos title

For some people, closure is having the person who wronged them admit to the said wrongdoing. As rarely as it happens, this will not help you reach a space of healing though.

For some, closure means the other person providing an explanation for his actions, right or wrong. The wronged party truly feels that this will help them move on in their lives and move past that one past experience.

Then there is another form of closure which is closure in the form of revenge. You wait to witness something bad happen to the person who wronged you or you take things in your hands and try to wreck their lives. This one is always empty. It will give you only a false sense of satisfaction because, in the end, you are still hurting. On top of that, you will most probably end up regretting your actions.

Closure is like the last chapter of a book, a book that you are writing. And whenever you finish a book, you move on to the new one. If you get stuck on that one book and just look back on the past, it will always leave you feeling salty. Instead, you could decide what you want as your own ending and move on with your life by resolving your issues.

Imagine what closure means to you. Is it an apology you are waiting for or something you wanted to say to the other person? If it is revenge, figure out why you need revenge instead of a revenge plot. Now write it down as a letter, rant all you want, and burn it.

When you are finally free of all you wanted to say or be said, figure out your future strategy. Focus on your life ahead. Whatever your need be for closure, the endgame remains moving on.

Image Courtesy: GOOGLE

2019 and Beyond: 6 Ultimate Online Grocery Trends to Watch Out Now

2019 & Beyond_ 6 Ultimate Online Grocery Trends to Watch Out Now - RestroApp

Disturbance breeds advancement. Innovative advances have had their effect on the basic food item part also. There has been a change in perspective from “Blocks and cement” to “Snap and Mortar”. Individuals have begun utilizing cell phones to arrange for all intents and purposes everything. Given basic food item falls under the transitory things can, individuals need to arrange goods consistently

Practically 45% of cell phone clients will in general purchase staple goods online on grocery store portable application. Ten years back would anyone be able to envision that something as straightforward as shopping for food can turn out to be so best in class? Did you ever imagine that you could utilize your cell phone to arrange eggs and veggies?

There are way breaking patterns in the online basic food item space in the present and future. How about we walk you through a couple of them:

Pattern 1 – Supply Chain Technology

A Plus Academy - Home | Facebook

Presently, some of you may be thinking about what is gracefully chain? It’s an Eco space of individuals, associations, urban communities, data that are engaged with moving an item/administration from provider to client.

To make sync among flexibly and request there must be exactness in what requests are coming through versus what is there in the capacity. Quality must be ideal as online life can be a major issue for this situation. A little creepy crawly found in any of the basic food item things conveyed and prepare to be gravely investigated via web-based networking media. Photographs of any imperfection can turn into a web sensation and wipe the business out in seconds because of a discolored picture. To improve efficiencies of stock conveyance it’s significant that there are live information takes care of.

To offer customers an Omni-direct involvement with shopping for food, buyers may have the option to see and feel the item through intelligent screens. Additionally, to deal with the distribution center there must be basic food item pressing robots.

Pattern 2 – Formation of Mixed Spaces

The Importance of Public Spaces - Thejas Jagannath - Medium

As all of you know it’s extremely hard to keep the twenty to thirty year olds stuck to one spot. To drag them to purchase basic food item there must be another motivating force too. For that invite the idea of blended space supermarkets. Presently, what does this precisely mean? It implies that the markets are not independent physical stores.

There is a perplexing, a few story working with a market on the ground floor, storm cellar stopping and cafés and bars on the highest level. There can be other food merchants, Xerox/printout office so individuals drive there once and they can address different necessities and prerequisites one after another.

Individuals are searching for comfort, getting different things at one spot will be a lifeline for them. They can eat, complete the preparing, set everything straight across the board place.

Pattern 3 – Out of the crate conveyance alternatives

New Food magazine

Given the vicious rivalry in the online basic food item space, contenders are separating themselves through imaginative conveyance choices. There have been intriguing patterns like direct to ice chest online basic food item conveyance. This one is fascinating. When the conveyance kid arrives at your doorstep you get a notice on the staple application. He would then be able to go into the house and set some staple goods on the right track into the ice chest. This happens under sharp watchfulness of the client utilizing home observation cameras. There is no danger of conveyance kid taking/taking anything.

Another imaginative conveyance choice is by expanding the stockrooms in prime areas. Amazon does that. It has begun its prime now one hour and two-hour basic food item conveyance benefits the nation over by opening its stockrooms in a portion of the key areas.

Pattern 4 – Voice Ordering

Starbucks Debuts Voice Ordering within Mobile App and Amazon Alexa ...

Voice acknowledgment is increasing a great deal of footing in the market. We are living in a universe of Alexa and Siri. Individuals don’t want to type anything now. Simply let the right hand so all the work. As indicated by research half of the quests in 2020 will be finished utilizing voice. A few models incorporate Ask Peapod, Walmart’s Voice Order and Alexa. It makes an increasingly common habitat for shopping and furthermore prompts more client faithfulness.

Because of the recurrence of shopping for food and the inclination for comfort, this zone is going to become showbiz royalty. The main disadvantage here is customers don’t get visual affirmation of their buy. So later on, an amalgamation of voice and visual will be a progressively winsome combo. This move to conversational trade will be somewhat testing however. Individuals need to turn out to be increasingly agreeable in collaborating with their gadgets while making any buys from Amazon Pantry.

Pattern 5 – Subscription Shopping

Subscription shopping: Fad or future? | INTHEBLACK

This one is a newcomer. It implies masterminding to have the items conveyed to your home after a prearranged plan. This training is picking up footing more for singular items as opposed to a few items together. A few organizations that are as of now utilizing it are Proctor and Gamble that sells razors on-request through Gillette on Demand. We can expect more membership purchasing later on as customers need to improve their repetitive buys.

Pattern 6 – Blockchain advancements in the food flexibly chain

The rise of blockchain technology in agriculture and food supply ...

There has been an ascent in buyer mindfulness particularly about what they are eating. How solid right? What are the carbs and proteins in what they are devouring? Presently, this converts into a request more data about the items than what was given truly by the retailers. There can be inquiries on food quality, where is it sourced from? This consoles the stage to the clients by causing them to comprehend where does their food originate from?

Envision you request an orange. You get the subtleties of where it was picked, handled, transported, investigated, how old is it and at what temperature was it kept to make it helpful for eating, etc. Clients would now be able to get all data from planting to distribution center conveyance. We can answer all inquiries that are there in a client’s brain that avoid them purchasing an item from our foundation.

Large information will be of significant assistance here. You can examine a standardized identification and you are prepared to answer all questions that a client has identified with a specific thing.

Since we have given you these basic food item inclines, what are you hanging tight for? Contact GrocersApp and get your Grocery Mobile App worked according to your requirements.

GrocersApp brings food, innovation and comfort at a typical platform by helping a business get your versatile application. We overcome any barrier between the supermarket and their clients. On the off chance that you have any questions, keep in touch with us at info@eazykarts.com

Water Conservation and Minimizing Wastage

Like in many philosophical traditions of the world, the Indian tradition puts great emphasis on the importance of water in life. In the ancient Indian tradition, ap or water is one of the five panchmahabhutas or great elements of life. Early Indian literature belonging to Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and other traditions had highlighted the importance of water and its conservation. The rich Ayurvedic literature of the subcontinent has countless treaties on water. It goes to the extent of defining it as jiva or life. However, this elixir of life is becoming increasingly scarce due to challenges of rising population, rapid urbanisation, industrial growth and increasing water pollution. Since the second half of the previous century, the world has been urbanizing rapidly. According to the Population Division of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), a division established in 1946 to study “population dynamics and monitoring demographic trends and policies worldwide”, in 1950, only 30 per cent of the world’s population lived in urban areas, whereas by 2018 the world population living in the urban setting had grown to 55 per cent. The urban population of the world has grown rapidly from 751 million in 1950 to 4.2 billion in 2018.

The rapid urbanization has led to a severe crisis of useable water in the world, particularly in developing countries such as ours. In India, per capita availability of water has decreased from 2209 m3/year in 1991 to 1545 m3/year in 2011 and it is estimated to decline further up to 1140m3/ year in the year 2050. Furthermore, demand for water from various sectors viz. irrigation, drinking water, industry, energy and others are expected to rise from 710 billion cubic metres (BCM) in the year 2010 to 843 BCM in the year 2025 and further to 1180 BCM in the year 2050.

 According to a 2018 NITI Aayog report, currently, 600 million Indians face high to extreme water stress and about two lakh people die every year due to inadequate access to safe water. By 2030, the country’s water demand is projected to be twice the available supply, implying severe water scarcity for hundreds of millions of people and an eventual six per cent loss in the country’s GDP. When we speak of water, we generally mean freshwater because even when 70 per cent of our planet is covered with water, only 2.5 per cent of it is consumable. 

According to the UN Environment’s document ‘Freshwater Strategy 2017-2021’, freshwater plays a fundamental role in support of the environment, society and the economy. Since water is a natural resource and it cannot be created in factories or laboratories, the only solution to our looming water crisis is conserving water. 

In seven out of India’s 10 most populous cities, the depth to groundwater has increased significantly over the last two decades. This is an alarming situation because India is the biggest user of groundwater. According to a report India extracts more groundwater than China and the US the next two biggest pullers of groundwater combined. Half of the total clean water needed in our country is met from groundwater. 

The 2014 report o the parliamentary standing committee on water resources constituted on August 5, 2004, found that the groundwater forms the largest share of India’s agriculture and drinking water supply. About 89 per cent of groundwater extracted in India is used for irrigation making it the highest category with 9 per cent share of the extracted groundwater followed by the industry that uses only 2 per cent of it. Similarly, the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) has stated in Lok Sabha that 50 per cent of urban water requirement and 85 per cent of rural domestic water needs are fulfilled by groundwater. This kind of use has caused a reduction in groundwater levels in India by 61 per cent between 2007 and 2017.

The present government has shown unprecedented interest in water conservation, minimising wastage and ensuring equitable distribution. In his first Mann Ki Baat programme in the second term as the Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi described the water crisis as on one of the biggest challenges facing India today. Apart from this, to encourage stakeholders like water user associations, institutions, corporate sector, individuals, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), gram panchayats, urban local bodies to adopt innovative practices of groundwater augmentation like creating awareness through people’s participation, rainwater harvesting and artificial recharge, promoting water use efficiency, recycling and reuse of water, the government in 2007 launched the Groundwater Augmentation Awards and National Water Award.