Mahanadi needs rejuvenation plans to remain a live river system

Mahanadi River at Mundali barrage near Cuttack city, Odisha

Photograph: Basudev Mahapatra

At the centre of the dispute, since 2016, between Odisha and Chhattisgarh over sharing of water, River Mahandi is getting overstressed and its basin ecosystem degrading day by day

Mahanadi is the sixth largest river of India. It originates from a pool, 6 KM from Farsiya village of Dhamtari district, in the State of Chhattisgarh, and flows about 851 KM east through Odisha to reach the Bay of Bengal near Paradip in Jagatsinghpur district.

Enterprising Odisha women take to selling fish to improve lives

Women in Odisha’s coastal fishing villages have turned to selling fish and value-added fishery products after eliminating middlemen and abolishing the home brewing of country liquor, the root cause of their problems.

Selling fish at the local fish market, Dulana Das (40) of Rambha village in Odisha’s Ganjam district took pride in introducing herself as a businesswoman instead of a fisherwoman. “I buy fish every morning from fishermen who fish in Chilika Lake and the nearby sea,” Dulana told VillageSquare.in.“With a designated place for me in the market, and a 20% profit, I earn a good income.” 

Ocean warming will kill fish, make them smaller and potentially toxic

No matter how near or far you live from the coast, you'll be affected by it: ocean warming may become one of the biggest threats to ecosystems and food security. 

Ocean warming, driven by increasing carbon emissions and rising temperatures, may become one of the biggest challenges facing humanity and threatening the Earth’s life systems, affecting even those living far from oceanic coasts. Already impacting people, fish stocks and crop yields, it may lead to more extreme weather events and increased risk from water-borne diseases including cholera. Fuelling global warming, it would put the livelihood of agrarian and fishing communities in the Indian and Pacific Ocean regions at stake, cautions the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in a report.