Who would bridge the knowledge gap in the Himalayan component?
3.1 Will the Proposed Interlinking of Rivers Offer a Permanent Solution to the Scarcity of Domestic Water Supplies in the Drier Parts of the Country? The spatial and temporal variations in the precipitation over India lead to various forms of human sufferings. They range from scarcity of drinking water, inundation of agricultural lands, failure of crops, damage to cattle, etc. There is no doubt that the satisfaction of the domestic needs of water should be seen as a part of human rights (Gleick, 1999; McCaffrey, 1992) and this should receive the highest priority in our water policy. Further, protection of food production from variations in the precipitation, especially long spells of droughts, should be an equally important and high priority objective in India’s water policy. It will be interesting to examine how much the proposal for interlinking the rivers provides a permanent solution to these. The problem of scarcity gets further compounded by the fact that droughts and floods are
