Dhaval Joshi

Interested in #groundwater ? Interested in #India groundwater? Interested in India’s groundwater science policy practice? Interested in groundwater in language other than English? Here is a blogsite for you: groundwaterandbeyond.in

@GraemeWYoung @devcomms @UniWestScotland @shashank_deora

The call for papers for the 2024 @devcomms Scotland conference at @UniWestScotland is now open. This year's theme is Migration in the Global South. Work on other topics related to Development Studies in Scotland is also welcome. Submit by May 14th. devstud.org.uk/2024/04/28/cal…

चोख जगण्याचे ठोक मार्ग फ

What a paper! As a global south scholar in global north university researching in global south, this has been very insightful to reflect on my conceptualisation of the ‘field’. Salute to this phenomenal piece of writing! tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…

@theliverdoc @MorningContext Seems interesting but paywalled. Thanks for the trailer, I hope the picture is good.

Goodmorning! In this first part of a two-part series on The Great Indian Nutrition Myths, I write for @MorningContext on hard hitting facts from published literature on diet and nutrition among Indians In this subscription newsletter, I write on differences between diet and nutrition and how they are not synonymous and deep dive into current dietary practices and nutritional status among Indians. It is not a pretty picture. What is wrong with Indian diets? Read more at: themorningcontext.com/chaos/what-is-… A thorough dissection on various diet & nutrition myths will feature next month! But dont miss this prologue!

Is that some baori/bavdee (traditional/olderdugwell) from Ahmedabad? Groundwater featuring in the Cricket World Cup #groundwater #CWC23Final

@theliverdoc I am not sure but I hope you have/may come across work of Dr. Abhay Bang who with Dr Rani Bang leads SEARCH an public health organisation based in Gadchiroli, Mah. Amongst other things, his work on anti- 'alcohol' is immense. Sharing one article: idronline.org/how-alcohol-an…

It's better to masturbate than drink alcohol. Alcohol degenerates the brain, makes one age faster, damages sperm DNA, causes birth defects, results in liver disease, causes more than 7 types of major cancers, promotes domestic violence, leads to road traffic accidents and death, reduces brain volume and prevents person from making new memories. Masturbation does none of that. Next time you feel the craves, look inside your trunk, instead of the mini fridge.

nothing here to see, Barmy army being in awe of the efficiency of the @RailMinIndia given the conditions back home.

All my fieldwork, used it for about 50 odd times last year. Not a single issue in those rides Been travelling to Edinburgh for a year nw. Not a single ride that been normal. Cancelled-delayed-bus rep-no driver- track issue. #UKrail #IndianRailways Gives me anxiety everytime

@veenas_water All this while funding about two/three times more for per village basis (6000crores for 8500 GPs- CSOs on the other hand costing way less). Timeframe is similar in both cases (about 3 to 5 years). Actually it warrants discussion/piece on why ABhY does not represent CSOs efforts

@veenas_water CSOs constituted some form of water agreements/institutional arrangements. Like bore well sharing in WASSAN's case, GGPs' Paani Panchayat, APFAMGS crop water budgeting etc.

1/n Some context needed here -- since a few people have asked. Is Atal Jal and more specifically groundwater budgeting a bad idea? @CGWB_CHQ @indiawater @IndHydrogeology Not at all. It is a fabulous idea -- do not want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

@veenas_water Not at all, not useless. Only issue is that it is looked upon as a panacea for problems of managing GW. the amount of resources for eg devoted to it (app, dashboard, etc) in ABhY points to that. at least that is an observation from Maharashtra. No 1 even looking at data gng in it

@dhavalgy This is a fair observation. But the fact that it is not well done doesn't mean its a useless exercise. I think the larger point is that organisations, who do it well have a lot of social capital and scaling water budgeting w/o social capital means that it becomes a numbers game.

@veenas_water Tried to write about it (in Marathi) some time back: groundwaterandbeyond.in/2023/06/22/भू-जल-व्यवस्थापनातील-मध/

@veenas_water Great points. my Q: Even if Water budgeting is right, what purpose does it serve? Observing that farmer practices transcend these boundaries, knowing these bank acc are porous n continuous. Assuming that agenda is to transform practices, how does budgeting help?

@veenas_water I appreciate your approach and I am keen to learn more going ahead. Thank you for the responses!

@dhavalgy Apart from the cross-border flows -- maybe GPs won't be able to actually control abstraction even if they see they are over-abstrcated. But I think it opens up the conversation to more interesting policy approaches.

@veenas_water I did undertake budgeting in many villages but could not correlate the purpose of the exercise towards collective decision making. Yeah, it gives a number. but what it means depends on who you are- large or small farmer, near stream, away from stream, men or women, etc.

@dhavalgy Hmm. I am not sure I agree. It's been especially successful in hard rock regions where aquifers tend to be hyper-local -- there are a few CSOs who have been doing this successfully -- GGP, FES, WASSAN apart from the APFAMGS programme.

@veenas_water Third, while budgeting may tell us about total water available, in heterogenous hard rocks, access becomes unequal again making us ponder- why budget? Again links to question of scale. All this even before bringing the socio-political nature of water access and conservation.

@veenas_water Totally agreed. But unlike surface water systems (with relatively centralised control) budgeting groundwater becomes unfruitful as it is openly accessed. It also brings the question of scale- eg. in ABhY where we see villages (in hard rocks) as units- makes no sense.