In my professional career as field biologist, I came across thousands of people with diverse background, from politicians to policy-makers, and from indigenous people to intellectuals-Harnath and Sharmishtha Jagawat do not fit into any of them. They belong to an unusual class of India’s rural development practitioners. Harnath is an idealistic institutional leader, who always looks far into the future to eradicate poverty plaguing the drylands. His creativity, administrative aptitude and physical robustness brought up in the remote Chambal valley from childhood embodied with the upbeat spirit armored by his competence and genuine big-heartedness helped countless farming communities for over four decades by his tireless social work centered on irrigation water. In contrast, Sharmishtha is a down-to-earth person, who bows down to greet all humans irrespective of their age and status-from children to chief ministers, she expresses her lovely enthusiasm with genuine human touch. In this book, the author, who is Tata Visiting Chair at N M Sadguru Water and Development Foundation, highlights their enormous contributions to India’s rural development eradicating poverty while revolutionizing village-level food security.
Contents: Preface. 1. Beginning of a legacy. 2. India’s largest check dam in Rajasthan. 3. Environmental benefits of check dams. 4. Impact of irrigated agriculture in drylands. 5. Need for more rural development in Rajasthan. 6. Concluding remarks. Literature Cited.
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