The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : “Rivers in State can be rejuvenated”

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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

“Rivers in State can be rejuvenated”

Special Correspondent

— Photo: R. Shivaji Rao

WATER DIALOGUE: (From left) Rajendra Singh, leader of the Tarun Bharat Sangh and winner of the 2001 Magsaysay Award; B.K. Sinha, Director-General, National Institute of Development; Anil Naidoo, Blue Planet Project, Council of Canadians; Saleh Rabi, Director, Palestinian Water Training Institute; and Mary Ann Manahan, Focus on Global South, the Philippines, at a seminar in Chennai on Friday.

CHENNAI: When rivers in Rajasthan, a desert State, can get a fresh lease of life and become perennial, it is possible in Tamil Nadu, too, Rajendra Singh, leader of the Tarun Bharat Sangh and winner of the 2001 Magsaysay Award, said here on Friday.

Participating in a ‘water dialogue’ held as part of the pan-Asian colloquium at Indian Institute of Technology-Madras, he said that having a sense of water, sense of river and sense of life, and seeing a close relationship among the three, was the critical factor.

Pointing out that seven rivers in the northern State had been rejuvenated, Mr. Singh said that when his organisation started the work, it wanted not to revive rivers but to reclaim livelihood. As lack of water was the reason for the loss of livelihood in that part of the State, the Sangh had decided to focus on the water issue. Calling upon the people to negotiate between global policies and local action, Mr. Singh said those rooted in ancient wisdom would be able to tame the forces of consumerism. Saleh Rabi, Director of the Palestinian Water Training Institute, Palestine, regretted that leaders of the West, Israel and Palestine were not paying attention to water issues in his country.

B.K. Sinha, Director-General of the National Institute of Rural Development, said that though powers had not been uniformly distributed among panchayats across the country, those that had been empowered created wonders. He also explained how the technological ban created by organisation was serving as a platform for various institutions. Anil Naidoo, who represented Blue Planet Project, Council of Canadians, lauded Tamil Nadu engineers for willingly giving up powers for the experiment of water democratisation. Mary Ann Manahan of the Focus on Global South, The Philippines, said that after years of work by water rights activists in her country, the government recognised importance of their movement.

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