India, Jan. 1 -- About 200 kilometres south of Delhi lies the mostly forgotten town of Bayana in Rajasthan. Once celebrated for producing perhaps the world's first and finest clear crystalline sugar, Bayana rivalled Agra and Delhi in wealth and grandeur. What made Bayana's sugar special was something to do with its wells and their water. Then, suddenly, Bayana's prestige waned. And finally vanished altogether. What had happened?

Environmental historians believe that the cause of the town's decline was a distant earthquake in 1505 and the gradual diminishing of available water. Bayana lies on the Bayana Basin, in the eastern part of the North Delhi Fold Belt within an ancient chunk of the earth's crust known as the 'Aravalli Craton'. The ...