September 19, 2006: Pollution in India

This IotD stands on its own, but I picked it for today because it's ironically similar to some of yesterday's shots.

This guy is swimming through pollution, not soap bubbles, in the Yamuna River near New Delhi, northern India.

According to the Yamuna Action Plan website, the biggest problem is raw sewage. The population of the metropolitan area has grown so quickly that it's overwhelmed the systems to handle their waste. Since this shot is recent it would appear that the "Action Plan" at that site has not been all that effective.

Eeh?It took me a really long while to see what the picture is...either my eyesight is bad or....Didn't see a man(looked on the right side only) until I read everything...whoa...that is...sewage?.....tsk tsk....they should REALLY do something....

Providing electric / improved wood based crematoria to minimize the river pollution on account of disposal of unburnt dead bodies.

They must dump a lot of ashes in the river.


The foam pouring out of the discharge station, at the treatment plant in saharanpur, doesn't look like the worry about it. :eek:

Well, the vegetation around the discharge looks pretty happy, anyway.

Why would someone swim through sewage? Is he being chased?

Possibly it's the only way to get to the other side. I don't imagine there's much in the way of public bridge funding.

Bathing in important rivers is usually a sacred rite. The Yamuna is a tributary to Ganga (the Ganges), which is worshipped as a goddess.

Pie wrote:

Bathing in important rivers is usually a sacred rite. The Yamuna is a tributary to Ganga (the Ganges), which is worshipped as a goddess.

Real nice job they did on the goddess there.

Clodfobble wrote:

Possibly it's the only way to get to the other side. I don't imagine there's much in the way of public bridge funding.

If he can wait a couple more years, I think there's a good chance he can walk across.

The River Ankh - I mean, uh, Yamuna.

Ibram wrote:

The River Ankh - I mean, uh, Yamuna.

If it were the Ankh, he'd be walking....

Well depends, in the earlier books its a little less solid..

(and I know, cause I just downloaded the ENTIRE series and I'm rereading them in order)

YellowBolt wrote:

Real nice job they did on the goddess there.

Yep. There's a lot of national shame over this issue...:greenface

When I was a kid, the waterfall in my hometown churned up tons of nasty brown foam like this. It would be a few feet deep and smell pretty bad. I'm not sure what changed, but it's much cleaner now. The detergents in the water got reduced somehow. Do/did paper pulp mills use lots of detergents?

Pie wrote:

Bathing in important rivers is usually a sacred rite. The Yamuna is a tributary to Ganga (the Ganges), which is worshipped as a goddess.

The goddess of biohazard? Of toxic waste?

Wikipedia wrote:

In Hinduism, the river Ganga (Sanskrit and Hindi गंगा Gaṅgā) or Ganges River (as called by westerners) is considered sacred. It is worshipped by Hindus, and personified as a goddess in Hinduism, who holds an important place in the Hindu religion. Hindus believe that bathing in the river on certain occasions causes the remission of sins and facilitates the attainment of salvation. Many people believe that this effect obtains from bathing in Ganga at any time. People travel from distant places to immerse the ashes of their kin in the waters of the Ganga; this immersion also is believed to be meritorious as the ashes are believed to go to heaven. Several places sacred to Hindus lie along the banks of the river Ganga, including Haridwar, Varanasi and Kashi.

Wikipedia wrote:

The largest religious gathering on Earth. Around 70 million Hindus from around the world participated in Kumbh Mela at one of the Hindu Holy city Prayaga (also known as Allahabad) (India).

Wait, its technically the river Ganja (Ganga)?

The Yamuna is a tributary of the Ganga. No "ganja" here! :rasta:

yes, but how is 'Ganga' pronounced? Ganja?