River of Life, River of Death: The Ganges and India's FutureIndia is killing the Ganges, and the Ganges in turn is killing India. The waterway that has nourished more people than any on earth for three millennia is now so polluted with sewage and toxic waste that it has become a menace to human and animal health. Victor Mallet traces the holy river from source to mouth, and from ancient times to the present day, to find that the battle to rescue what is arguably the world's most important river is far from lost. As one Hindu sage told the author in Rishikesh on the banks of the upper Ganges (known to Hindus as the goddess Ganga) - 'If Ganga dies, India dies. If Ganga thrives, India thrives. The lives of 500 million people is no small thing.' Drawing on four years of first-hand reporting and detailed historical and scientific research, Mallet delves into the religious, historical, and biological mysteries of the Ganges, and explains how Hindus can simultaneously revere and abuse their national river. Starting at the Himalayan glacier where the Ganges emerges pure and cold from an icy cave known as the Cow's Mouth and ending in the tiger-infested mangrove swamps of the Bay of Bengal, Mallet encounters everyone from the naked holy men who worship the river, to the engineers who divert its waters for irrigation, the scientists who study its bacteria, and Narendra Modi, the Hindu nationalist prime minister, who says he wants to save India's mother-river for posterity. Can they succeed in saving the river from catastrophe — or is it too late? |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 68
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... Population Growth Is Not a Dividend Water and Wells: Why the Taps Run Dry Dams and Droughts: Engineering the Ganges A Bollywood Star: Ganga on Film Exotic River: Foreigners on the Ganges Storms and Sandbanks: Boats on the Ganges 16 ...
... Population Growth Is Not a Dividend Water and Wells: Why the Taps Run Dry Dams and Droughts: Engineering the Ganges A Bollywood Star: Ganga on Film Exotic River: Foreigners on the Ganges Storms and Sandbanks: Boats on the Ganges 16 ...
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... population. In a way, I was right. No one I met knew anything about boats in Delhi, although my interest was further piqued by an old photograph reprinted in the Hindustan Times showing weekend dinghy sailing on the Yamuna in the 1970s ...
... population. In a way, I was right. No one I met knew anything about boats in Delhi, although my interest was further piqued by an old photograph reprinted in the Hindustan Times showing weekend dinghy sailing on the Yamuna in the 1970s ...
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... population is of Indian origin.) Less than a year after becoming India's prime minister, Modi was praying at a Hindu holy site in Mauritius, a lake in a volcanic crater called Ganga Talao (also known in French simply as Grand Bassin) ...
... population is of Indian origin.) Less than a year after becoming India's prime minister, Modi was praying at a Hindu holy site in Mauritius, a lake in a volcanic crater called Ganga Talao (also known in French simply as Grand Bassin) ...
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... population in 2016 was about 1.3 billion, more than a sixth of the planet's total, and the country will soon overtake China to become the most populous nation on earth, with the United Nations estimating that the number of Indians will ...
... population in 2016 was about 1.3 billion, more than a sixth of the planet's total, and the country will soon overtake China to become the most populous nation on earth, with the United Nations estimating that the number of Indians will ...
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... populations of humans on earth for millennia is now under threat. Where its waters are not diverted for irrigation and hydro-electricity, they are befouled by sewage and poisoned by pesticides, industrial waste, carcinogenic heavy ...
... populations of humans on earth for millennia is now under threat. Where its waters are not diverted for irrigation and hydro-electricity, they are befouled by sewage and poisoned by pesticides, industrial waste, carcinogenic heavy ...
Contents
Holy Waters | |
How to Build a Megacityand Save the Ganges | |
Dolphins Crocodiles and Tigers | |
Why Population Growth Is Not a Dividend | |
Why the Taps Run | |
Engineering the Ganges | |
Ganga on Film | |
Foreigners on the Ganges | |
Boats on the Ganges | |
Calcutta and Bengal | |
Indias Capital for a | |
Broken Promises | |
Toxic River | |
Superbug River | |
Mission Impossible? How to Clean the Ganges | |
Notes | |
Bibliography | |
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Common terms and phrases
Allahabad antibiotics Asia August bacteria Bangladesh banks bathe Bay of Bengal Bihar boats Bollywood British Calcutta canal cent century Chambal city’s cleaning the Ganges climate change country’s dams decades Delhi delta dolphins downstream east effluent environmental factories Financial fish floods flow Ganga Ganges water Gangetic Gangotri Gaumukh gene gharials ghat glacier goddess groundwater Haridwar heavy metals Himalayas Hindu holy Hooghly human Indus industrial Interview irrigation Kanpur kilometres Kolkata Port Trust Kumbh Mela living mangrove million Modi’s monsoon mouth Mughal Muslim Narendra Modi north India official Pakistan Patna pilgrims pollution population prime minister problem projects pumping religious resistance river sadhus Sagar Saraswati says September 2016 sewage treatment Shiva Singh Sinha stream Sunderbans tanneries temple Thames there’s tigers toilets told town toxic treatment plants tributaries Uma Bharti upper Ganges upstream Uttar Pradesh Varanasi Victor Mallet village waste waterways wildlife Xuanzang Yamuna