Synopses & Reviews
This unique survey analyzes the interconnections between water and human security in India and its region. In India, population growth, development, and modernization have brought water policy to the top of the agenda of national and local governments. Transboundary water sharing, dams, and projects to provide water have become strategic geopolitical tools. Water is a key issue in the India-Pakistan-Kashmir dispute, and has strained the relations between India and Bangladesh. If the availability of water may cause conflict, it is also essential for human development and environmental sustainability. Cooperation between states is needed to increase economic development, and the book argues that the importance of water for human security calls for the creation of a security community, that is: a stable political alliance, which will contribute to peace and development in the region, with India playing a key role in water leadership.
This comprehensive survey of a vital geopolitical issue of the 21st century in an emerging country will be invaluable to anyone studying Indian politics, Asian politics, environmental policy, and international law.
Synopsis
Few people actively engaged in India's water sector would deny that the Indian subcontinent faces serious problems in the sustainable use and management of water resources. Water resources in India have been subjected to tremendous pressures from increasing population, urbanization, industrialization, and modern agricultural methods. The inadequate access to clean drinking water, increase in water related disasters such as floods and droughts, vulnerability to climate change and competition for the resource amongst different sectors and the region poses immense pressures for sustainability of water systems and humanity.
Water Security in India addresses these issues head on, analyzing the challenges that contemporary India faces if it is to create a water-secure world, and providing a hopeful, though guarded, road-map to a future in which India's life-giving and life-sustaining fresh water resources are safe, clean, plentiful, and available to all, secured for the people in a peaceful and ecologically sustainable manner.
About the Author
Vandana Asthana is Associate Professor in the Government Department, Eastern Washington University, USA. She was a member of the planning process of nongovernmental organizations at the United Nations Prep Com Meet on Environment and Development.
A.C. Shukla is a Visiting Scholar at the Program in Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and currently at Eastern Washington University Cheney, USA. He headed the Biopollution Study Centre at Christ Church College, Chhatrapati Sahu Ji Maharaj University in Kanpur, India.
Table of Contents
Preface
Part I
Chapter 1: INTRODUCING THE CONCEPT: WATER SECURITY
Chapter 2: WATER RESOURCES OF INDIA
Part II
Chapter 3: AGRICULTURE AND IRRIGATION DEVELOPMENT IN INDIA
Chapter 4: INDUSTRIALIZATION, URBANIZATION AND POPULATION GROWTH
Chapter 5: VULNERABILITY OF CLIMATE CHANGE
Chapter 6: POLICY AND INSTITUTIONAL DRIVERS
Part III
Chapter 7: PRIVATIZATION OF WATER
Chapter 8: INTRASTATE WATER DISPUTES
Chapter 9: WATER SECURITY IN INDIA'S NEIGHBORHOOD
Chapter 10: WATER VISION AND SHIFTS IN MANAGEMENT PRACTICES
Chapter 11: WATER SECURITY: HOPE AND DESPAIR
Bibliography
Index