Is India facing its worst-ever water crisis? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is India facing its worst-ever water crisis?

#51

Post by pigpaws » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 2:59 PM UTC

ocean3 wrote: post #39

cholantesh wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proper cremation can be expensive, so poor persons often take part in an ad hoc ceremony in which they may not properly burn the body before sending it down the river. This is in addition to infanticide and other unsavory reasons for disposing of bodies...

People don't dump bodies in rivers where in live. As i said India is huge. The cultural practices vary from region to region.

understood, however if someone upstream poisons their water supply, be it farm/agriculture, industrial runoff, etc.. it still effects you and your family downstream. If there is too much, everything starts to deteriorate.

Re: Is India facing its worst-ever water crisis?

#52

Post by cholantesh » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 3:06 PM UTC

ocean3 wrote: post #39

cholantesh wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proper cremation can be expensive, so poor persons often take part in an ad hoc ceremony in which they may not properly burn the body before sending it down the river. This is in addition to infanticide and other unsavory reasons for disposing of bodies...

People don't dump bodies in rivers where in live. As i said India is huge. The cultural practices vary from region to region.

Not where I'm from either (Chennai, though my dad is from Thanjavur), but in the area around the Gangetic plain, this might be a common practice, and it is deleterious to humans and the environment.

Re: Is India facing its worst-ever water crisis?

#53

Post by snambi » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 3:09 PM UTC

phkahler wrote: post #49

rrrazdan wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is confused about the death of the river. The problem is clearly with Indian people itself, including me. There is a lot going on at the ground level and there is a lot more that should be done. I used to be as exasperated as you, but I have come to peace that this is all attributable to poverty. You cannot expect "rational" behaviour from people fighting for their next meal? As average incomes grow, people ar…

>> I used to be as exasperated as you, but I have come to peace that this is all attributable to poverty. I think it's all due to overpopulation - which it can be argued is a result of poverty too. As long as the world refuses to address exponential population growth, we will continue to run into resource shortages on this finite planet.

Yes, it is over-population. 100 years ago, india had 200 million population, it felt like it had virtually infinite resources. So, abuse of natural resources, were not felt. But the same abuses are felt by everyone, when the population is 1.2B. The habits of poeple needs to be adjusted when the population is 5x compared ~100 years ago.

Re: Is India facing its worst-ever water crisis?

#54

Post by ocean3 » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 3:13 PM UTC

pigpaws wrote: post #51

ocean3 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People don't dump bodies in rivers where in live. As i said India is huge. The cultural practices vary from region to region.

understood, however if someone upstream poisons their water supply, be it farm/agriculture, industrial runoff, etc.. it still effects you and your family downstream. If there is too much, everything starts to deteriorate.

Sure. People living there would be affected. But i don't know common those practices are. Might be just North India. I am from South. There are many difference between North and South states and within Southern states and districts.

Re: Is India facing its worst-ever water crisis?

#55

Post by abrons » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 3:13 PM UTC

pigpaws wrote: post #20

While no one can deny the effects of changing climate, why has no one brought up the piss-poor management of the water they DO have? The river is used for drinking, as an open toilet AND as a 'burial' ground and people seem confused as to why it doesn't support the life it once did - and people mention it as an AFTERTHOUGHT. ah - we don't want to insult their culture, now do we? Come on. If you're going to address th…

The article describes the "reckless extraction of groundwater" and links to a report of farmers breaching embankments to save crops, putting village drinking water supplies at risk.

The word climate appears twice in your comment, but just once once in the article.

In my experience much of the outrage about political correctness says more about the commenter than the source, and that seems to be the case here.

Re: Is India facing its worst-ever water crisis?

#56

Post by snambi » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 3:15 PM UTC

arethuza wrote: post #43

hourislate wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

India is the richest country in the world. You don't grow to 1.3 billion people because your hungry and poor or don't have resources. How could a people even breed themselves to 1.3 billion with the lack of resources? These stories are someones fabrication. There is plenty of water in India or their population wouldn't be growing.

"India is the richest country in the world." Using what measure? Using total GDP it seems to be 8th or 9th (behind, for example, Italy) and per capita it is pretty low 120th or worse.

You need to adjust for the currency. Rupee is artificially lowered to boost exports. Italy has 58M people. India has 1.25B people. This is approximately 25 times. So, India needs at-least 25x food, cloths, housing etc. If you take actual quantity and calculate using dollar terms, it would result in india being much bigger economy than Italy.

Re: Is India facing its worst-ever water crisis?

#57

Post by snambi » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 3:19 PM UTC

known wrote: post #48

arethuza wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"India is the richest country in the world." Using what measure? Using total GDP it seems to be 8th or 9th (behind, for example, Italy) and per capita it is pretty low 120th or worse.

If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2325502/Map-shows-wo...

I'm not sure how true this. India is only place where jews were never persecuted. jews, ahmadis, zorastrians lived peacefully in india, when they were persecuted everywhere. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism#In_South_Asia

Re: Is India facing its worst-ever water crisis?

#58

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 3:23 PM UTC

pigpaws wrote: post #46

dharmach wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you READ "the article"? Where it talks about "using the river as a burial ground"?

second paragraph down - "For the vast majority of the poor, however, their bodies are floated into the Ganges, exposed to the elements." now, if you want to be pedantic, no - they did not use the term "burial ground". That was me being nice and not saying "cesspool".

[deleted]

Re: Is India facing its worst-ever water crisis?

#59

Post by sremani » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 3:26 PM UTC

pigpaws wrote: post #20

While no one can deny the effects of changing climate, why has no one brought up the piss-poor management of the water they DO have? The river is used for drinking, as an open toilet AND as a 'burial' ground and people seem confused as to why it doesn't support the life it once did - and people mention it as an AFTERTHOUGHT. ah - we don't want to insult their culture, now do we? Come on. If you're going to address th…

Last time I checked no one was putting corpses in Krishna, Godavari, Narmada, Bhramaputra. Its one fucking river (Ganges and that too near Banaras), and this genius on cultures is telling it like it is.

Water management and Waste management are never India's strong suit, but when Culture Geniuses show up and give the Glenn Beck pep talk it just diverts the issue. You can taunt all my culture you want, I am happy to listen about the monumental stupidity and every day superstition, but to take some practices as basis for Cluster fuck of a management problem is at the best dishonest.

Re: Is India facing its worst-ever water crisis?

#60

Post by sremani » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 3:50 PM UTC

simula67 wrote: post #42

pigpaws wrote: post #20

While no one can deny the effects of changing climate, why has no one brought up the piss-poor management of the water they DO have? The river is used for drinking, as an open toilet AND as a 'burial' ground and people seem confused as to why it doesn't support the life it once did - and people mention it as an AFTERTHOUGHT. ah - we don't want to insult their culture, now do we? Come on. If you're going to address th…

> we don't want to insult their culture, now do we? Please do. Sometimes it takes someone outside of a system to see how flawed a system is. Also, it sometimes gives ammunition to people trying to bring about change ( 'Even foreigners think xyz is bad' ). As an Indian citizen I feel people outside should be allowed to criticize India.

Yes, this is not an insider vs outsider thing, just like an Insider is emotional, more often than not the outsider does not have all the context/nuance and over-simplifies the problem and/or the solution.

I always appreciate all kinds of people being critical of India. There are many shortcoming cultural and ethical among Indians and India.