Mumbai's 150-year-old Bhendi Bazaar quarter is embarking on a unique community-led modernisation that could be a model for inner-city redevelopment across India

MUMBAI, June 12 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - All her life, home for Robab Nallwalla has been a one-room flat in central Mumbai, a space she shares with her parents and her brother - and more recently, her brother's wife.

The single room, similar to nine others on the dingy floor with no lift, was cramped and noisy, not a place she could invite friends to.

SANTIAGO, May 18 2017 (IPS) - Water at high prices, sold as a market good, and small farmers almost a species in extinction, replaced by seasonal workers, are the visible effects of the crisis in rural Chile, 50 years after a land reform which postulated that “the land is for those who work it.”

These innovations did not exist in 2010 when heavy flooding devastated the area, destroying crops, ecosystems and more than 20,000 homes.

The town of El Torno, in Colombia's northern province of Sucre, was seriously affected by flooding, which destroyed crops and homes, but today the community of 600 residents is an example of resilience and sustainable adaptation to climate change.

Today, on Earth Day, we examine how climate-smart solutions hold the key to lifting people out of poverty.

We have been sharing the faces of the hunger crisis  in East Africa — bringing you the human stories that have sprung from devastating climate disasters in countries like Somalia, Kenya, and Ethiopia.

Elizabeth Apolinar enjoys her job as a lawyer in the bustling center of Bogotá these days. But now and then she misses the traditional life she used to lead deep in the heart of the Colombian jungle.

Apolinar is originally from a community called the Sikuani. The Sikuani people are a pueblo indigena, an indigenous people, one of about 100 indigenous ethnic groups in Colombia. These groups are represented by Apolinar’s employer: La Organización Nacional Indígena de Colombia (ONIC), or the National Organization of Indigenous Peoples in Colombia.

The taro leaf prevents seepage and holds water for more days.

Somewhere in a mountain village in the Himalayas, a woman folds a taro leaf into a cone, fills it with soil, and sows a seed. She waters her little cone with waste water from the kitchen, creating an enabling environment for the seed to germinate in, says a woman researcher of an international institute.

Thomas Fuller's words "We never know the worth of water till the well is dry" ring true, when reports coming in from across the world paint a picture of despair regarding depleting water resources.

22 March has been observed as World Water Day since it was first proposed in Agenda 21 of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro. The UN had designated the day as International World Water Day in 1992 at the same conference.

Since the inception of World Water Day 24 years ago to advocate for the sustainable management of water resources, several stakeholders have come together across the world each year to increase the awareness among people about the importance, need and conservation of water.

The focus this year, 2017 is waste water.

Earth is a planet in upheaval, say scientists, as the World Meteorological Organisation publishes analysis of recent heat highs and ice lows

It is not just an ecological imperative, it opens up business opportunities as well. Market mechanisms need to improve

On March 22, we will celebrate the 24th World Water Day. The theme this year is ‘Waste Water’. This day is generally observed to spread awareness among the general public and focus on its importance in sustainable development.

Scientists speculate that the era of never-ending global coral bleaching may have already arrived, decades early.

THE Whanganui River has been granted the same legal status as a human being by New Zealand’s House of Representatives.

Explaining the world-first decision, the country’s Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Minister Christopher Finlayson said the river would “have its own legal identity with all the corresponding rights, duties and liabilities of a legal person.”