ANNOUNCEMENTS
This research seeks to understand the several threats to ensuring drinking water as a right, in India and specifically carried out empirical work in a New Delhi neighbourhood comparison to get a clearer picture. It aims to recognize the various institutions, policies, laws and agencies involved in determining and assuring drinking rights of citizens. The judicial interpretations of this right shall be tackled through case laws and other international laws associated with it. This paper will try to comprehend the thematic interdependencies of factors associated with the right such as economic, social, political, environmental, ecological, legal, infrastructural, healthcare and federal overlap. It also aims to emphasise on the current deteriorating situation of the fresh water resources and impending water scarcity. To understand the importance of water and as an explanation of the relationship between humans and water, a passage from Four Quartets (1943) by T.S. Eliot, reads as follows:
“I do not know much about gods, but I think that the river
Is a strong brown god–sullen, untamed and intractable,
Patient to some degree, at first recognized as a frontier;
Useful, untrustworthy, as a conveyor of commerce;
Then only a problem confronting the builder of bridges.
The problem once solved, the brown god is almost forgotten
By the dwellers in cities–ever, however, implacable,
Keeping his seasons and rages, destroyer, reminder
Of what men choose to forget. Unhonoured, unpropitiated
By worshippers of the machine, but waiting, watching and waiting.”
