Horsin' around
How to hold your horses? Well not quite, but the Ajinkya Sanskriti Pratishthan's month long horse riding camp will teach you how to ride one. The course is open to those between the ages of 8 and 50 in horse riding skills. ``This is a regular feature of the Pratishthan. Training will be given in two batches of 20 minutes each at the ground opposite the Navasahyadri tennis court in Kothrud. Physical fitness is an absolute must for this camp,'' says president Mahesh Vartak. Although the course starts on September 10, registration is still open at the Vartak residence at Bharatnagar in Kothrud. Now, if you have envied those heroes who sit astride a horse and ride into the sunset, here's your chance!

Water brigade
``If World War III breaks out, it will be for water. Lack of water management and ineffective water conservation will lead to this,'' predicts Lt. Col. Suresh Patil, whose group Green Thumb actively espouses the cause of environment protection. Green Thumb, which includes trustees like Anna Hazare and Dr D.Y. Patil, is a registered group with the Charity Commissioner. The group positions itself as an awareness pressure body for a healthy environment and to serve its ends it addresses school and college students, and other conscious citizens in Pune.

``Statistics show that the water table , which in the '50's was 20 to 30 feet below ground level, has gone down to 200 feet after gross over-exploitation. Today we have the technology, later we may not have a contraption to take out the water. Water conservation is a must, since the water cycle is wrecked. Not only is this an environmental hazard, but nobody in this country is talking of the socio-economic angle either, '' says Patil.

The monsoon waters are not tapped to the full with most of the water draining away into the seas. If catchment areas and bunding systems are good, agriculture too will receive a boost. ``Slum areas in metros are on the rise even today because the people cannot irrigate their land in the villages. Water management in their villages is lacking,'' says Patil. Global warming and a drastically changing climate have altered rain patterns too. `` So you have freak weather situations and erratic rainfall, with abnormally high temperatures, ''he states.

He cites the example of Ralegaon Siddhi, where Anna Hazare has converted a rain-shadow area into a water-rich zone. ``He used the ridge-to-valley concept to conserve water (a bunding system for waterfalls) and today, there is plenty of water in the wells. The water table has risen, and previously where one-crop agriculture was in practice, the two-crop method gives surplus yields. The farmers export vegetables to Dubai and Middle-East,'' relates Patil, who would like to see more villages like this.