Dying rivers: Washed away by our sins

Nitin Sethi, TOI Crest, May 15, 2010, 04.57pm IST


Geetika Narang walks around Connaught Place in Delhi, asking random people two simple questions: "Where do you get your water from and where does your shit go?" She is assisting Pradip Saha make a documentary: Faecal Attraction. It's on the death of the Yamuna. "My water? I guess, from Yamuna," says a slightly embarrassed middle-aged man caught by a TV camera. "And the shit?" Geetika persists. "Hmm, there only," he says, as he shies away from the question. Most others are less sure. "Hain, shit? I don't know, man, all of that happens automatically, I don't know." "Goes in the air." "Goes into water." "How do I know where it goes from the sewer?"


http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Dying-rivers-Washed-away-by-our-sins-/articleshow/5934774.cms

1 % ganga

1% Ganga: The Ganga at Varanasi is no more

Manjari Mishra, TOI Crest, May 15, 2010, 04.54pm IST


The myth goes that when King Bhagirath asked Ganga to come down to earth, she put her foot down and said no. Then Vishnu intervened. He promised that all the sins accumulated by mortals would dissolve the moment sages entered her waters for ablutions.


http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/1-Ganga-The-Ganga-at-Varanasi-is-no-more/articleshow/5934809.cms

hyderabad - water problems

Water problem gets worse in city Special Correspondent
"Hyderabad: A demonstration with empty pots may be an annual ritual for public representatives, but for many residents in the State capital they are becoming a harrowing fact. With summer peaking, the elixir of life is getting scarcer by the day. Notwithstanding what the Water Board says, the supplies have suddenly turned short and erratic."

http://www.hindu.com/2010/05/03/stories/2010050358600100.htm

how a hedge fund kept the bubble going

The Magnetar Trade: How One Hedge Fund Helped Keep the Bubble Going

by Jesse Eisinger and Jake Bernstein, ProPublica - April 9, 2010 1:00 pm EDT

"In late 2005, the booming U.S. housing market seemed to be slowing. The Federal Reserve had begun raising interest rates. Subprime mortgage company shares were falling. Investors began to balk at buying complex mortgage securities. The housing bubble, which had propelled a historic growth in home prices, seemed poised to deflate. And if it had, the great financial crisis of 2008, which produced the Great Recession of 2008-09, might have come sooner and been less severe.

At just that moment, a few savvy financial engineers at a suburban Chicago hedge fund [1] [1] helped revive the Wall Street money machine, spawning billions of dollars of securities ultimately backed by home mortgages."

http://www.propublica.org/feature/the-magnetar-trade-how-one-hedge-fund-helped-keep-the-housing-bubble-going

china, india water future

India sweats over China's water plans
By Sudha Ramachandran

"BANGALORE - China's dam-building spree has lower riparian countries worried. There is concern in India's northeast and Bangladesh that its construction of dams on the Yarlung Tsangpo River (known as the Brahmaputra in India) and possible storage and diversion of its waters will leave little water for them, rendering the region parched."

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/LE01Df05.html

peace in the middle east?

Peace that could happen (but won't)
By Noam Chomsky

"The fact that the Israel-Palestine conflict grinds on without resolution might appear to be rather strange. For many of the world's conflicts, it is difficult even to conjure up a feasible settlement. In this case, it is not only possible, but there is near universal agreement on its basic contours: a two-state settlement along the internationally recognized (pre-June 1967) borders - with "minor and mutual modifications," to adopt official United States terminology before Washington

departed from the international community in the mid-1970s."


http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/LD29Ak01.html

indian film hits a note

My Name is Khan too, say Syrians
By Sami Moubayed

......"Unexpectedly, the blockbuster hit this year is a Bollywood film, My Name is Khan, starring seasoned Indian actor Shahrukh Khan and the immensely capable and beautiful actress Kajol Devgan, two of the top figures in the Indian motion picture industry.

At first glance this may seem strange - an Indian film doing well in Syria and the Arab world - but a closer look reveals that one of the most successful films of all time in Syria was 1961's Jungleestaring Shammi Kappour with the hit song Suku, Suku.

Khan's film, however, is different from what most Arab audiences have experienced; it does justice to Islam and with award-winning Indian music it portrays events that are still strong in the memory, especially the younger generation. It talks about September 11, 2001, America and the aftershocks of the terrorist attacks on the Muslim community at large, both within the US and abroad. "


http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/LE01Ak01.html