I-Search+by+Aamel

**India's Water Crisis By:** Aamel
One of the world's biggest problems today is the water crisis that people face in India today. Millions of Indians don't have clean water to drink, and the situation seems to be getting even worse as time passes. As my parents grew up in India for most of their lives, I have the advantage of interviewing two people who have seen with their eyes what the problem is like. Even though they have never experienced the problem themselves, they have seen many people who haven't received water for 2 consecutive days, and the people that have to wait in long lines to get limited water from a truck. India has the second largest population in the world, and as the population keeps increasing, the crisis just seems to be increasing. I also know that there is a lot of water that is available in India, but it is not distributed correctly, and since many people live in slums or on the street, they don't have direct access to clean water.

** There also many things I would like to find out about the topic. Some of these questions are: What is UNICEF doing to ensure that people have access to clean water? What is the Red Cross doing to provide cleaner water for Indians? What does the Indian government plan on doing to solve this problem? What are the main reasons for the lack of clean water? And mainly, Why is there so little potable water in India?
 * Part II--What I Want to Find Out


 * Part III--The Search

I have just started researching, and I am lucky enough to find really good and informative sources about the water crisis in India. One of the great sources that I have found is a book called, " Water Crisis in India" by K.R. Gupta. I choose this book as out of all the books that I looked at that talked and explained the water crisis in India, I found this one to be the most informative. Another thing that affected my decision in choosing this book was the fact that the author is Indian and he lives there. Since he is in the country where the crisis is, I thought that it would be better to get information about this topic from a person who has not only done thorough research about the topic, but also has firsthand experience as he lives in India and is witnessing people constantly be out of water. Another great source that I found was an article on the Internet called, "The Water Crisis in India." This article really does a great job of talking about the water crisis itself, explaining what is happening to all the water that there is in India, and giving many facts and statistics about the water crisis. These 2 sources will really help on my journey to research India's water crisis.

I have gained much information from these 2 sources, but I am now looking for an article that describes the life of an actual person that experiences the water crisis problem, and what life is like for them. After doing much research, I finally found a good article by the New York Times. This article is really helpful as it is like an interview in which the person is talking about his experience about the water problems, and all that he encounters each day. This article has helped me visualize and know what people are going through in their day to day lives. I now plan on convincing one of my parents to give me some of their time so I can interview them to get some more first hand experience as my parents know people who have experienced this problem

I finally have gotten my mom to let me interview her about India's Water Crisis, and I have found out a few interesting things about the struggles of people that need potable water, and how they get water if any. This again has helped me learn more about the problem and how it is being handled. I now feel that I know a lot about this problem, and that I am ready to begin the next part of this I-Search which will be about what I have learned during this search of mine. My mom has told me about her experience when she lived in India and how she saw people dealing with the problem. Based on her responses to some of my other questions, I can tell that the problem could be considered the government's fault. They have yet to come up with an efficient plan or way to provide potable water to Indians, and are not even taking precautions and realizing the consequences of them not taking action.

** **Part IV--What I Learned** After spending much time on finding sources to help me learn more about the Water Crisis in India, I have found out much valuable information about the problem then I did when I first started investigating this problem. I have learned that one of the big reasons that there is so little potable water in India is because 90 percent of the groundwater in India is used for agriculture. This leaves only 10 percent of the groundwater which still has to be cleaned so that it is safe and clean for people to drink. There is also more to India's Water Crisis then just little water that is available. India's Water Crisis can be considered a man-made problem and one of the major problems is water pollution. New Delhi produces approximately 3.6 million cubic meters of sewage everyday, but due to the poor water management, more than half that waste is dumped into the Yamuna River. Therefore, due all the waste being dumped in water sources such as the Yamuna River, India's river have become dirty and cannot be used for drinking and irrigation. Also, since ground water is used so much, this leads to the unavailability of sufficient water for irrigation, and this has also lead to a big decrease in the level of ground water available.
 * 

Also, due to lack of clean water available for many Indians, more than 700 million Indians, or about two-thirds of India's population do not have proper sanitation mostly when it comes to clean water. More than 2.1 million children under the age of 5 die each year due to this problem. There must be something that has to be done about this problem as the demand of water will keep increasing every year due to an increase in population, and if a solution is not found, India could be stuck in a big mess. India should learn from this mess that they have themselves in, and next time they should carefully plan and think about the future and what could be the effects and consequences of the actions they take. **

Gupta, K.R. //Water Crisis in India//. 1st ed. New Delhi, India: Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, 2008. 1-159. Print.

Sharma, Richa. "The Water Crisis In Inida." //MeriNews: Power to People//. MeriNews, 2009. Web. 20 Apr 2010. . Sengupta, Somini. "In Teeming India, Water Crisis Means Dry Pipes and Foul Sludge ." New York Times 9/29/06: n. pag. Web. 22 Apr 2010. .