Not made any excerpts, just links to two articles on water.
Maybe a respite in India vs Pakistan, Are Dalits Indo Aryans type esoteric discussions.
Water in India
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sbarrkum
I am 3/4ths Sri Lankan (Jaffna) Tamil, 1/8th Sinhalese and 1/8th Irish; a proper mutt. Maternal: Grandfather a Govt Surveyor married my grandmother of Sinhalese/Irish descent from the deep south, in the early 1900’s. They lived in the deep South, are generally considered Sinhalese and look Eurasian (common among upper class Sinhalese). They were Anglicans (Church of England), became Evangelical Christians (AOG) in 1940's, and built the first Evangelical church in the South. Paternal: Sri Lanka (Jaffna Tamil). Paternal ancestors converted to Catholicism during Portuguese rule (1500's), went back to being Hindu and then became Methodists (and Anglicans) around 1850 (ggfather). They were Administrators and translators to the British, poets and writers in Tamil and English. Grandfathers sister was the first female Tamil novelist of modern times I was brought up as an Evangelical even attending Bible study till about the age of 13. Agnostic and later atheist. I studied in Sinhala, did a Bachelor in Chemistry and Physics in Sri Lanka. Then did Oceanography graduate stuff and research in the US. I am about 60 years old, no kids, widower. Sri Lankan citizen (no dual) and been back in SL since 2012. Live in small village near a National Park, run a very small budget guest house and try to do some agriculture that can survive the Elephants, monkeys and wild boar incursions. I am not really anonymous, a little digging and you can find my identity. View all posts by sbarrkum
Sadly water just like climate change is seen in India as more of a “future/elite” issue and i feel the choke hold which farmers in India have on certain policies (free water, free electricity) will lead to no solution.
“A 2017 study found that at the current rate of global warming, two-thirds of the Himalayan glaciers could be lost by 2100. This will hit North India the hardest,”
There is another effect of the glacier melting, coupled with climate change. That’s submersion of land mass in Bangladesh , which i feel will have more political consequences than water. Folks will migrate towards India, whose consequences we are already seeing in surrounding states. Since Bangladesh-India relationship is not like India-Pakistan relationship it will be major issue in coming years
Ground water depletion in the northern states is absolutely alarming: not just
Delhi, but Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan are seeing a mean depletion rate of 4 +/- 1 cm a year:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/26736936_Satellite_Based_Estimates_of_Groundwater_Depletion_in_India
There are simple, low-tech solutions for more sustainable agricultural water consumption (Israeli style drip irrigation) that need to be more aggressively promoted. There’s also that grand plan to interlink major rivers to ameliorate local annual variations in the monsoon:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/linking-of-30-rivers-put-on-fast-track-to-tackle-water-woes/articleshow/64671511.cms
This should provide some relief but may not kick in soon enough to avoid a decade or more of extreme water stress in the North. Getting all the environmental (and various other) clearances has held this program up for decades. The logistics behind civil engineering projects in India are not a joke. Here’s a WSJ piece on the challenges experienced in building the Mumbai metro (or, why India isn’t China take 768934)
https://www.wsj.com/articles/through-monsoons-around-slums-under-templesmumbai-builds-its-first-subway-11546803877
“This should provide some relief but may not kick in soon enough to avoid a decade or more of extreme water stress in the North.”
The whole river linking thing which you linked according to some experts in a red herring which will lead to even more disaster. I dont really know whether its just some agenda driven thing (like the whole genetically modified crops-Mostanto) thing or is it genuinely disastrous/ better.
It’s india man. For every good idea that stands to benefit a huge swath of the population you’ll always find ‘experts’ shitting on it.
Exhibit 1337 of why I’m pessimistic about India…
Falling water tables, a looming premature demographic collapse, intractably anemic education and manufacturing sectors…we’re fked as a country.
You can either abandon ship or you can stay the course and aim to figure out a solution through ingenuity/diligence/luck.
Pessimism doesn’t make sense.
+1
Population growth (India’s now getting close to replacement levels of fertility), food security before that, the AIDS catastrophe that never materialized, skewed gender ratios (primarily in the north) that are now bouncing back, crisis after predicted existential crisis, India has confounded the naysayers and always pulls through.
Water security is a big problem, but solutions are available, it’s just a question of political will. However dysfunctional politics may seem in India, at the highest echelons, it’s a technocracy and problems get solved.
Shortly after independence, many western observers predicted the impending collapse of a republic founded on universal adult franchise where little over 10% of the population was literate. Pessimists gonna navel gaze. Doers gonna do.
India won’t be either broke or “China”, we will muddle along