The controversial Kalabagh dam has been met with strong opposition, which has intensified in recent months.

The soothing warmth and buoyancy of warm water make it a safe, ideal environment for relieving arthritis pain and stiffness. Immersing in warm water raises your body temperature, causing your blood vessels to dilate and increasing circulation. Water exercise is a gentle way to exercise joints and muscles. Water supports joints to encourage free movement, and may also act as resistance to help build muscle strength. Using a spa adds a component to the therapy – massage. Jet nozzles release warm water and air, massaging your body and helping you relax tight muscles.

The controversial Kalabagh dam has been met with strong opposition, which has intensified in recent months.

 

    "Look, the site of the dam is miles away from us and we do not know what is technically right or wrong, but our party leaders believe that our entire district would be submerged if the Kalabagh dam was built," he says from the shop along the main highway in the old colonial structured cantonment bazaar of Nowshera.

PENANG (IPS) - Civil society groups worry that private sector interests will soon dominate the country's water and health care sectors and burden the public -- despite government assurances that these areas will be spared privatisation.

   Authorities are busy revamping the way these two sectors are managed and financed, and the coming months will be crucial as blueprints and enabling laws are formulated.

Both humans and animals alike bathe in the polluted Hudiara drain, a tributary of the Ravi river.

The diversity of water rituals in Japan is phenomenal. The ways in which water is used, and the ends sought, are numerous. One can find somewhere in Japan a water ritual to provide the relief or the assurance desired for almost any event in one's life. An easy birth, a healthy baby, recovery from illness, success in an examination or in a new job, a propitious outcome to moving house, more money, good eyesight, longevity, peace, wisdom and revelation - each can be had by the proper use of water.

The present polluted water state of the Hudiara drain, which used to add to the Ravi river's aquatic health.

Both humans and animals alike bathe in the polluted Hudiara drain, a tributary of the Ravi river.

Both humans and animals alike bathe in the polluted Hudiara drain, a tributary of the Ravi river.

But there is more to this than meets the eye. “No need to be  happy. The plants we use the yield of are watered by Hudiara drain,”  says Hania Aslam of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Pakistan, referring  to a highly polluted tributary of the River Ravi.

BRUSSELS (IPS) - An alliance of development groups is challenging the European Union and developed countries over their plans to promote water privatisation in developing countries at a key international meeting later this year.

    Some ten development non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have agreed on a plan of action to put "optimal pressure" on European Union (EU) negotiators as they make preparations for the World Water Forum (WWF) to be held in Mexico City March 16 to 22.

KUALA LUMPUR (IPS) - Transnational aluminium smelters, some teaming up with Malaysian partners, are beating a path to eastern Sarawak state with an eye to surplus power from the problem-ridden Bakun Dam. 

   The much-delayed dam in Sarawak, on Borneo island, was originally scheduled for completion in 2003, but is now only expected to gradually generate electricity from late 2009. 

BISHKEK (Asia Water Wire) - In a middle school in Burghandy village in the south of Kyrgyzstan, pupils come to school with their own bottle of boiled water or tea, labelled clearly with their names. 

   This is no ordinary school regulation but one that is crucial to public health as part of attempts to prevent children from falling ill from belly typhus, which is the most common infectious disease due to dirty water in the south of this Central Asian country. 

ISLAMABAD (IPS) - Plans by the Pakistan government to push ahead with the controversial six billion dollar Kalabagh Dam project have stirred up ethnic differences between Punjab and the country's three other provinces, which see disadvantage in impounding the waters of the Indus River.

   "Kalabagh Dam will destroy the federation of Pakistan and trigger the world's first war over water," warned Said Alam Mehsud, a spokesman for the ethnic Pushtoon, Pukhtoonkhwa Milli Awami Party (PMAP) in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP).

According to the National Water Quality Association, 56 percent of all people worry about the quality of municipally treated tap water. This, along with the desire for better tasting drinking water, has fueled tremendous growth in the bottled water industry. We can all remember, not too long ago, when the bottled water section at the grocery store consisted of a very small allotment of counter space, primarily devoted to a few gallon jugs of distilled water. Today, bottled water enjoys a major section of the beverage isle and the prestige of being the fastest growing segment of the entire beverage industry, not to mention the most profitable.