In Aaj Bhi Khare Hain Talaab, Shri Anupam Mishra documents the life and work of several individuals and communities, across the country, in setting up water harvesting and management systems through talaabs (lakes / tanks).
These traditional water bodies are the lifeline of many villages and towns in the country even today. Their work serves as a guide, in organising to face and tackle the current water crisis in the country.
Shri Anupam Mishra has worked in the field of environment and water conservation for many decades, and currently works with the Gandhi Peace Foundation New Delhi.
His books on the work of people/society organising themselves, to harvest and manage water - Aaj Bhi Khare Hain Talaab and Rajasthan Ki Rajat Boondein, are considered landmark works in the field, and continue to inspire several individuals even today, to take up work on setting up and reviving these time-tested water harvesting systems.
Shri Anupam Mishra does not hold any copy right over books written by him. Aaj Bhi Khare Hain Talaab has thus been translated through the initiatives of several inspired readers, into 19 languages. It is one of the only books after Gandhiji's autobiography "My Experiments with Truth", to be available in Braille. The total number of prints of Aaj Bhi Khare Hain Talaab, has crossed 100,000 copies as of 2009.
Readers are thus welcome to further reprint, digitise, store, extract, copy, translate, transmit or use the books in any form they wish. The translated versions in other languages include Bengali, Urdu, Marathi, Gujarati, Punjabi, English and also now in Russian that can be downloaded from below.
Please do tell us about any such efforts you make or feedback you have on the books, at contact@indiawaterportal.org, and we will forward your mail to the author.
India Water Portal acknowledges the support of Sambhaav Trust and Anand Kumar Naidu, Bangalore, in making this publication available online, in an electronic form.
"The ancient ingenuity of water harvesting", a talk in English by Anupam Mishra, at the TED India 2009 Conference