The ebb and flow of rural India’s rivers

Living off grass blades in the national capital

Migrants from Bihar, Rita and her family live on the flood plains of Yamuna in a makeshift hut which seems more like an abode of trials. They eke out a living in New Delhi by selling elephant grass

October 21, 2025 | Sandhya

In Chinchpur Dhage: the river took it all

Marathwada region known for its recurrent droughts and water scarcity is witnessing excessive and record breaking rainfall this year. Crops and livestock, homes and livelihoods are reeling from the damage

October 14, 2025 | Medha Kale and Sampat Kale

In Amritsar district: a flood of challenges

Homes and fields across Amritsar district, are bearing the devastating impact of floods. Agricultural labourers are anxious about their livelihoods, now buried under acres of silt and floodwaters

September 27, 2025 | Arshdeep Arshi

‘The river warns us, the government ignores us’

Early flood warnings offer scant relief, as families in north Bihar’s floodplains are left stranded every year—without evacuation plans or adequate relief camps

July 29, 2025 | Umesh Kumar Ray

The foaming Yamuna: perilous piety

On Chhath Puja, thousands take a holy dip in the dangerously polluted Yamuna river in Delhi

March 23, 2025 | Prakhar Dobhal

Surviving a flood of problems in Assam

The annual flooding of the Brahmaputra and its tributaries throws up many challenges for people living in flood-affected areas. The lack of potable water and the challenges of sustaining agriculture in fields submerged annually are some of the daily stresses

December 27, 2024 | Ashwini Kumar Shukla

The waters of the Sutlej run black

The 'Kale Pani Da Morcha' saw thousands of people turn out in Ludhiana to protest the state’s apathy, and call attention to the continuing pollution in the Buddha nala which empties into the Sutlej, once a source of potable water for drinking and irrigation

November 26, 2024 | Arshdeep Arshi

‘We are losing land to the Brahmaputra’

In this village in the island of Majuli, frequent floods over many decades have led to a loss of livelihoods around agriculture while other traditional occupations, such as boat-making, have been unstable sources of income

May 27, 2024 | Nikita Chatterjee

In Bagribari: the river takes it all

The annual monsoon flooding of the Puthimari river, a tributary of the Brahmaputra, is a constant source of anxiety for those who live on its banks. Flood waters destroy farmland, standing crops and even looms, leaving many residents with no option but wage labour. Expensive embankments don't help

September 20, 2023 | Wahidur Rahman and Pankaj Das

‘Who drowned Delhi?’

The capital is getting a facelift as it gears up to host the G20 meet on September 8, 2023. But the sprucing up is selective. Those residents of Delhi who have been displaced by the recent Yamuna floods and on-going development projects on its banks, are now living on public roads, and told to ‘stay out of sight’

September 6, 2023 | Shalini Singh

And a river no longer runs through it

The story of the slow death of the Sai River, the struggles of the villages around it, and of climate change in UP’s Hardoi district. Seen through the lens of the two main persons involved in those struggles

June 17, 2023 | Rana Tiwari

Nanoi floods: the night of June 16

In Assam’s Darrang district, the Nanoi, a tributary of the Brahmaputra, burst its banks due to excessive rainfall. The river water swept into homes, submerged freshly planted fields and emptied fish ponds

July 1, 2022 | Wahidur Rahman and Pankaj Das

'We climbed on trees to save our lives'

Cyclone Yaas brought Mousuni's lands underwater on May 26, a year after Amphan had hit the Sundarbans. PARI visited the island and found people saving what they could of their damaged homes and livelihoods

June 9, 2021 | Ritayan Mukherjee

When the water chased people like a mad bull

In the Sundarbans in West Bengal, Cyclone Amphan came atop the Covid-19 lockdown. PARI visited the region and found widespread destruction of trees, houses and utilities – and of people’s already-frayed livelihoods

June 03, 2020 | Ritayan Mukherjee

Aure Palheri: broken bridge, drowning hopes

Residents of an isolated hamlet in Maharashtra's Shahapur taluka risk walking on a slippery wall every day in the monsoon to reach schools, work, clinics and markets, after the only bridge here collapsed in 2005

August 23, 2019 | Jyoti Shinoli

'What if the river gets angry again?'

On August 4, an overflowing Vaitarna river ravaged the homes of Katkari Adivasis in Maharashtra's Palghar district. The villagers are now anxious about depleting rations, uneven state support and another flood

August 16, 2019 |  Jyoti Shinoli

Bhendavade battles Kolhapur flood fallout

At least 40 people have been killed across Kolhapur and Sangli districts of Maharashtra, over 400,000 evacuated to transit camps, and livestock and crop losses are huge but yet to be properly estimated

August 13, 2019 | Sanket Jain

‘It feels like the flood left mud in our mouths’

A downpour in August destroyed the cotton crop in the villages of Adilabad district. Many were first-time Dalit farmers with no insurance and heavy loans, now hoping for compensation and luck with the next crop

October 25, 2018 | Harinath Rao Nagulavancha

The bank that went under – almost

After the floods in Kerala, the clean up underway requires retrieving and rescuing countless thousands of valuable records and deeds, without which many activities could be paralysed for a long time

October 8, 2018 | P. Sainath

Kerala’s women farmers rise above the flood

Their determination outstrips the devastation. Savaged by the August floods, facing a looming drought, the women of Kudumbashree’s pathbreaking group farms are rebuilding, using solidarity as a strategy

September 24, 2018 | P. Sainath

‘The water began to rise slowly, slowly’

After the recent huge flood in Kerala, children at a relief camp in Alappuzha district were given pens, crayons and diaries to draw and write. Their pictures and words speak of their fears and prayers, of loss and relief

August 31, 2018 | V. Sasikumar

‘Our houses are vanishing. Nobody cares’

For decades, villagers from Ghoramara island in the Sundarbans have been migrating to Sagar island because the river and rain keep washing away their houses. They have received little help from the state

July 20, 2018 | Urvashi Sarkar

Polavaram’s dispossessed march with hope

From July 10 to 16, a determined group of Adivasis marched from Cheeravalli village in West Godavari district to Eluru, protesting against the Polavaram project, which will displace and destroy their communities

July 19, 2018 | Rahul Maganti

Pydipaka families: and then there were ten

Hundreds of villages will vanish over time due to the Polavaram project on the Godavari. In Pydipaka, ten families are refusing to move, demanding from the state at least the legally mandated resettlement package

May 28, 2018 | Rahul Maganti

Floods by neglect, flooded by damage and debt

The houses and crops of many Adivasi families in Itukulakota were damaged by flood waters from the Polavaram canal last October. They are still recovering, without any help from the government

May 16, 2018 | Rahul Maganti

‘Many families just vanished…’

Adivasi and OBC families thrown off their land for the Bhatsa irrigation project in Maharashtra’s Thane district still wait for justice almost half a century later

November 16, 2017 | Jyoti Shinoli

The bamboo-splitters of Dhubri

Mainuddin Pramanik of Kuntir island on the Brahmaputra in Assam comes to Dhubri town every day to work as a bamboo-splitter. But the trade is in decline and few other options are available to daily wage workers

October 23, 2017 | Ratna Bharali Talukdar

Unquiet on the riverfront

The fishing communities on the banks of the Krishna in Andhra Pradesh are being forced to leave their homes and livelihoods due to the state’s many riverside projects around Vijayawada and the 'new' Amaravati

October 18, 2017 | Rahul Maganti

Milk boats from the chars

For the people living on Chalakura island on the Brahmaputra in Assam, dairy farming is the only sustainable livelihood – but a withdrawal of state-subsidised cattle feed has increased the uncertainty of their lives

October 3, 2017 | Ratna Bharali Talukdar

Solar on the char 

The three villages of Birsing char have got solar electricity in recent years, and it has transformed primary healthcare and other daily activities on these sandy shifting islands on the Brahmaputra in Assam

June 19, 2017 | Ratna Bharali Talukdar

When the river ate the school

The only school in Panikhaiti village on Sontali char in Assam has vanished into the Brahmaputra. Of its 198 students, just 85 continue to attend a makeshift school at headmaster Tariq Ali's residence

February 17, 2017 | Ratna Bharali Talukdar

From river to plate: the journey of the Sundarbans tiger prawn

For village women in the Sundarbans, collecting tiger prawn seedlings is unrewarding and unsavoury work – though the delicacy fetches high prices for others later along the supply chain

January 11, 2017 | Urvashi Sarkar

Struggles of the sandbar people

Hasan Ali is one of 2.4 million people who live on impermanent ‘chars’ or sandbars on the Brahmaputra – without basic necessities, frequently shifting home, their lives dictated by the flux of the mighty river

January 6, 2017 | Ratna Bharali Talukdar

Water come, water go

In north Bihar, people revered the monsoon and rivers, even though they caused floods on occasion. But now, Senu Devi says, the rising waters are a source of trouble

Nove,ber 8, 2016 | Sayantoni Palchoudhuri

Living with floods

While farmers in many parts of the world are learning to manage with less water, Vinod Yadav and his neighbours in north Bihar are trying to farm in constant flood water

November 1, 2016 | Sayantoni Palchoudhuri

In north Bihar, embankments built by the government along the turbulent Kosi have created conflict, aggravated floods and caused huge losses to the people living in Ghongepur and other villages

October 17, 2016 | Sayantoni Palchoudhuri

Swimming to migrate in Odisha

In Odisha’s Jagatsinghpur district, buffaloes swim across the local river every day during the summer, seeking fresh pastures

October 2, 2015 | Dilip Mohanty

Mending boats with music

In Alappuzha, Kerala, super-skilled labourers merge repair and rhythms at work

April 10,2016 | V. Sasikumar

A right to fish, a fight to live

“Why confiscate the canoes and hurt us in the stomach?"

March 12, 2015 | Urvashi Sarkar