India, Sept. 8 -- Water is the fundamental requirement for sustaining life, agriculture and the overall economy. With an exponential rise in the world population and diversified use of water, coupled with deforestation and increasing climactic vagaries, fresh water sources are under tremendous pressure globally. During the last 100 years, there has been a six to seven-fold increase in the demand for fresh water.
However, at the macro level, though the availability of fresh water is constant, at the micro level, due to overexploitation and indiscriminate use, lopsided planning in human settlements, changes in the hydrological cycle and pollution, water resources are dwindling very fast. Though we have plenty of rainfall in India to recharge...