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

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

#61

Post by arethuza » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 3:54 PM UTC

snambi wrote: post #56

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.

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.

But doesn't that imply that comparing national GDPs is silly then - because presumably you could make that kind of argument about any country?

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

#62

Post by dang » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 4:10 PM UTC

dharmach wrote: post #28

Give up your Abrahamic bigotry. Rivers are not used as burial ground but in Hindu traditions body is cremated and then remains are put in river water.

> Give up your Abrahamic bigotry.

Personal attacks, name-calling, and religious flamewars, all of which this manages to combine, are not allowed on Hacker News. We ban accounts that do these things, so please don't do them.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11388947 and marked it off-topic.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#63

Post by akiselev » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 4:12 PM UTC

snambi wrote: post #56

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.

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.

India is richer than Italy because it has 25 times more people/food? That's absolute nonsense.

If you take actual quantity and calculate using dollar terms, this is what you get: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PP...

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

#64

Post by dang » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 4:13 PM UTC

pigpaws wrote: post #29

dharmach wrote: post #28

Give up your Abrahamic bigotry. Rivers are not used as burial ground but in Hindu traditions body is cremated and then remains are put in river water.

Ah - the name calling... did you even READ the article? have you done ANY research outside of a reddit thread? or are you just a troll? Here's an article for you. It even has pictures so you can follow along. http://www.vocativ.com/culture/photos/photos-of-the-dead-in-...

You've responded in the worst way, with more insults. Please don't do that again. If a comment is egregious, flag it; if you reply, please do so civilly.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#65

Post by senthil_rajasek » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 4:16 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…

This was an article about climate change and you have suggested that it's bad management of resources that has caused this crisis. California has been under a drought for a few years and there seems to be evidence suggesting fracking has polluted ground water in many parts of the U.S., so there is mismanagement of critical resources everywhere.Identifying the core problem which in this case seems to be climate change is critical and not throwing insults at other cultures.

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

#66

Post by arafa » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 4:21 PM UTC

senthil_rajasek wrote: post #65

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…

This was an article about climate change and you have suggested that it's bad management of resources that has caused this crisis. California has been under a drought for a few years and there seems to be evidence suggesting fracking has polluted ground water in many parts of the U.S., so there is mismanagement of critical resources everywhere.Identifying the core problem which in this case seems to be climate change…

Maybe California isn't under a drought anymore: http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2016/03/drought-buster-hits-ca...

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

#67

Post by arethuza » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 4:28 PM UTC

akiselev wrote: post #63

snambi wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

India is richer than Italy because it has 25 times more people/food? That's absolute nonsense. If you take actual quantity and calculate using dollar terms, this is what you get: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PP...

That's interesting - so if you ignore the EU as not really being a country the #1 is China.

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

#68

Post by kamaal » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 5:00 PM UTC

rrrazdan wrote: post #22

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…

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…

>>You cannot expect "rational" behaviour from people fighting for their next meal?

I completely refuse to believe this. Poor are no way to blame here.

Its pretty much the upper middle class, rich and industrial waste that is polluting the rivers.

In a city like Bangalore, most of the lakes have been destroyed to the point of no recovery. What were once places of recreation are now cesspool for all sorts of waste from high rising Apartment complexes.

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

#69

Post by kamaal » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 5:04 PM UTC

pkaye wrote: post #40

pigpaws wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not ALL attributable to poverty - There is no SINGLE factor (aside from Education). The poor are not the only ones using the river as a burial ground. do you understand what a single rotting body does to the water supply, let alone tens of thousands?

Hindus don't bury their dead. They cremate them. Now there are polluting aspects to cremation but it can be done better than burial using proper incineration equipment. I have observed that such environmentally friendly cremation services are becoming more common in India even in smaller cities.

Not all Hindus cremate their dead. In fact a small minority do. In South India, burials are what you will see in nearly all the cases.

Only a certain castes cremate. Everybody else buries and yes river burial too is not common.

Lets talk of reckless dumping of human waste, industrial waste into rivers and lakes.

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

#70

Post by akiselev » Wed, Mar 30, 2016, 5:14 PM UTC

arethuza wrote: post #67

akiselev wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

India is richer than Italy because it has 25 times more people/food? That's absolute nonsense. If you take actual quantity and calculate using dollar terms, this is what you get: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PP...

That's interesting - so if you ignore the EU as not really being a country the #1 is China.

Yes, in aggregate the PPP GDP of China is #1, just slightly ahead of the United States, both of which are just below the European Union (which, to be fair, is like the US but with each state having more sovereignty in the federal system).

The picture is complicated by the relative populations though. Per capita, the EU is $25k, China is $13k, US is $54k, Germany is $46k, and India is only $6k. Unfortunately, the PPP calculation is very complicated and controversial so I don't really know how valid or useful these numbers are. Unless we're going for a trivial definition, it also doesn't say much about availability of luxuries, infrastructure, stability of government/economy, etc. so it's not a 1:1 mapping of wealth.