A NEW BEGINNING

 






By the people
  

IN FOCUS

Open letter to the
Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee

Khandwa,Catching every droplet
The lost pond
 

CAMPAIGN

From the courtroom
Face to face
Destroy, then revive

INITIATIVE

Woman power
Paying up
A tiny oasis in Uttar Pradesh
Smile!
CII’s water meet
Rotary’s initiative
Brick by brick
Nurturing the future
CSE’s pilgrims in Madhya Pradesh
Taking initiative
Experiments with water

NEWS FROM GUJARAT

Pure rain
In a great hurry!

JAL BIRADARI

As priceless as amrit
Reviving pynes

JAL YODHA

D V Subramanaian
Ashutosh Agnihotri


NEWS FROM CHENNAI

Rain centre inaugurated
The Alacrity cycle
Porous roads
Plumbers’ meet
Women’s meet


CSE' LATEST DESIGNS

Making a mark in Laburnam

TECHNOLOGY

Pollutants to bind roads
Make your own rain gauge
Smart farming tool
Techno tit bits


CLASSROOM

WATER WISDOM

FUNDING AGENCY

NEWS FROM ABROAD

WATER IN NEWS

AN OPPORTUNITY

READERS SPACE

BOOK/DOCUMENTS

VISUAL WATCH

WEB INFO

EVENT

NOTICE BOARD

    
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Vol. 4   

No. 4

August-September  2002

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Small grants

"Up till now, 75 per cent of funds under Small Grants Programme (SGP), has gone to projects on biodiversity and climate change, but it was only due to absence of good proposals from the other sectors such as rainwater harvesting", says SNair, National Coordinator of SGP in India.

Under SGP, Rs 15 lakh per project are provided by United Nations Development Programme and Global Environment Facility, to 63 developing countries for community-based natural resource management.Since 1996, more than 76 projects have been funded by SGP.

The funds are directly given to the implementing agency. In each country, a national coordinator, working on the voluntary basis, is responsible for screening, selecting and implementing the SGP funded projects.

For further information
National Coordinator
UNDP/GEP-SGP
Centre for Environment Education,
B-73, II floor,
Soami Nagar (North)
New Delhi 17
Tel: 6497049/51



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Ongoing quest for pure water

The quest for safe drinking water is fascinating and is ongoing. Let’s look at this water wisdom from the very beginning.

dot.gif (88 bytes)A sanskrit manuscript Ousruta Sanghita, from 2000 BC observes that "It is good to keep water in copper vessels, to expose it to sunlight and filter through charcoal."

dot.gif (88 bytes)Early Egyptian paintings from the 13th and 15th centuries BC depict the sedimentation apparatus being used.

dot.gif (88 bytes)Historically, the taste of water used to determine its purity. Hippocrates, the father of Medicine, invented the ‘Hippocrates Sleeve’, a cloth bag to strain rainwater, in the 5th century BC.

dot.gif (88 bytes)Between 343 BC and 225 AD, Roman engineers created a system — supplying 130 gallons daily through aqueducts.

dot.gif (88 bytes)Sir Francis Bacon, a philosopher, chronicled only ten experiments in the preceding 1,000 years that dealt with water treatment. He believed that saline sea water could be purified if it were percolated through sand.

dot.gif (88 bytes)In 1685, an Italian physician, Lu Antonio Porzio, designed the first multiple sand filter. It used contained two compartments (one downward flow, one upward). The filter used plain sedimentation and straining followed by sand filtration.

dot.gif (88 bytes)Filtration was gaining popularity.In 1746, a Parisian scientist Joseph Amy, was granted the first patent for a filter design consisting of sponge, charcoal and wool. By 1750 his filters were out in the market for home use.

The concluding part on the developments made between the 19th - 21st centuries for pure water, will be carried forward in the next issue.


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