Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink¦,’ said Coleridge in his poem ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’. Though the lines were not written in the context of lack of drinking water in general, but the sense conveyed would become a reality if the depletion of fresh water supplies continues at the current pace. Today, over 1.1 billion of the world’s total population use potentially harmful sources of water every year to meet some of their very basic needs, including quenching thirst. In clearer statistical terms, almost two in every 10 persons on this earth have no source of safe drinking water. This indirectly leads to a humanitarian crisis which causes death of nearly 3,900 children everyday across the world, according to the United Nations. In 2000, over 2.2 million human lives were lost due to waterborne diseases (related to the consumption of contaminated water) or drought. These are just some of the startling figures which highlight the existing ‘water crisis’. However, this is the crisis which ‘exists’, in the present. What’s going to come in the future is much more scary and grave. Challenge of the century The Director General of the UN’s […]