Author: Daniel Stellar3
-
India’s “Revolution”
Last week, NPR ran a two part story on water status in Punjab state in northern India. This is an area where the Columbia Water Center is doing a lot of work, and the article hit on several themes important to us, particularly the fact that current policies, while promoting food security, have had devastating…
-
Water, Development and Corruption: An Unholy Alliance
A recent article in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel highlighted some of the problems of building water infrastructure in the very regions where the Columbia Water Center is trying to work. The article cited intense corruption, as well as other factors, as barriers towards building improved water infrastructure. The most shocking point in the article is that…
-
Water: A Basic Human Right?
The 5th World Water Forum ended on Sunday (World Water Day), and in spite of the many pieces of good news, the dominant news story is that the group recognized water as a basic human need, not a basic human right. While this may seem like an issue of semantics, I think there is a…
-
Water for Profit?
I’ve long been fascinated by the concept of privatization of water. I can think of few topics related to natural resources that are so controversial. I tend to reject the claim, espoused by many including former Water Center speaker Maude Barlow, that water is a basic human right and therefore should never be private. While water…