...Watersheds, Watersheds, Watersheds Water is essential to have for any living thing, any given day. Most humans use, consume, or waste the most amount of water. Humans have the mindset that water will never run out, when in fact that is just the case. Our water is slowly vanishing, being contaminated, or wasted. There are key factors to take into consideration when determining how our water is doing not only internationally, but globally. When it comes to water, the World Health Organization (WHO) is one of the main corporations responsible for passing along the information on how the water security is doing. There are more ways to infect water than to help it. The WHO clearly states on the front page of the water section of their website, “The amount of fresh water on earth is limited, and its quality is under constant pressure. Preserving the quality of fresh water is important for the drinking-water supply, food production, and recreational water use. Water quality can be compromised by the presence of infectious agents, toxic chemicals, and radiological hazards” (WHO). This is just an emphasis on the importance of being aware of the preservation of water and how it easily it can affect anything when infected. The WHO does everything in order to ensure the safety of the water and creates opportunities to become informed about the water one drinks. Water has a huge affect on anything living. Water has the same impact on the United States as it does globally. If water...
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...The rivers of Bangladesh mark both the physiography of the nation and the life of the people. About 700 in number, these rivers generally flow south. The larger rivers serve as the main source of water for cultivation and as the principal arteries of commercial transportation. Rivers also provide fish, an important source of protein. Flooding of the rivers during the monsoon season causes enormous hardship and hinders development, but fresh deposits of rich silt replenish the fertile but overworked soil. The rivers also drain excess monsoon rainfall into the Bay of Bengal. Thus, the great river system is at the same time the country's principal resource and its greatest hazard. The profusion of rivers can be divided into five major networks. The Jamuna-Brahmaputra is 292 kilometers long and extends from northern Bangladesh to its confluence with the Padma. Originating as the Yarlung Tsangpo River in China's Xizang Autonomous Region (Tibet) and flowing through India's state of Arunachal Pradesh, where it becomes known as the Brahmaputra ("Son of Brahma"), it receives waters from five major tributaries that total some 740 kilometers in length. At the point where the Brahmaputra meets the Tista River in Bangladesh, it becomes known as the Jamuna. The Jamuna is notorious for its shifting subchannels and for the formation of fertile silt islands (chars). No permanent settlements can exist along its banks. The second system is the Padma-Ganges, which is divided into two sections: a...
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...of persuading or informing their readers. In his text, “The Ganges’ Next Life,” written in the New Yorker in 1998, American author and journalist, Alexander Stille, draws attention to controversial social and environmental issues that third world countries, specifically in this case being India, must endure due to poverty-stricken conditions. Stille successfully employs various rhetorical strategies throughout his text in order to effectively make his argument. Stille applies rhetorical questions, contrasting imagery, the building of a connection to his audience, and using data. These strategies adequately serve to implement the appeals of ethos, pathos, and logos to provide Stille’s argument about how it is crucial for the water to be cleaned. A strategy that Stille uses to prove his argument is rhetorical questions. Rhetorical questions infer an idea that may be challenged by the audience. Stille asks his audience, “Will India (and other parts of the Third World) master its problems, or will it descend into a nightmarish Malthusian struggle over diminishing natural resources? ... Will its [India’s] ancient rituals, such as bathing in the Ganges, survive beyond the next century?” (599). Stille asks these questions without an expectation of an answer. These rhetorical questions serve as a guide, leading us to Stille’s broader claim of the importance of the Ganges River to everyday Indian life. This River is central to everybody and it revolves around every aspect of...
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...Phase 2Individual Project Elaine Thornton Colorado Technical University HUMN250-1303B-11 World Values and Cultures Professor Bunch September 2, 2013 In India, Hindu residents create large funeral pyres on the River Ganges for their dead. This ritual burning of the dead is not done for everyone as some individuals are buried in a certain manner. Holy men are buried sitting upright while young children are not cremated as they are still considered pure. This may also be the reason why pregnant women are also not cremated. Individuals that passed away due to an illness or violence, such as leprosy, small pox, cobra bites, murder and suicide are also buried rather than cremated in the funeral pyres. One aspect of this ritual that can cause those that are outside of the Hindu religion to frown upon it is no longer practiced in most places as it was outlawed by the British in 1829 which is called sati. According to Renard (2001), “Incidents of sati still occasionally make headlines, but increasing social action on behalf of women’s rights continues to improve the situation all over India” (p. 302). Sati is the ritual suicide of a wife throwing herself or being thrown onto her dead husband’s funeral pyre to join him in the afterlife. The burial rituals that a society sets for itself help to build identity because a person is constantly in contact with the community that the person belongs to when they are born or...
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...generation - more than the population of the entire world at the beginning of the 19th century. This would mean 2.5 billion liters of sewage, or double today's quantity, discharged into the river each day by the year 2020. Even more ominous are the forecasts for industrial pollution. According to a report in the Economic Times, a Bombay-based daily, industrial discharge into the Ganges is growing at the rate of 8 percent per year. At this rate, by 2020, nearly 2 billion liters of industrial effluents, as well, would enter the river every day - and close to 4 billion by the year 2030. In any life process, whether that of an individual organism or a large ecosystem, gradually increasing stress does not result simply in gradually increasing impairment; at some point the whole process collapses - as is now happening in the Ganges. If this continues much longer, the Ganges will become incapable of serving its traditional waste-removal function, or of providing usable water for industries or homes. Already, 40 million workdays and millions of rupees in health services are lost each year due to diseases the river carries. With a collapse of basic freshwater services, those losses could explode. Moreover, among the hundreds of rivers and other fresh water bodies of India and South Asia, the abuse of the Ganges is not an isolated case. Nearly 70 percent of India's available water is polluted. Waterborne diseases like typhoid and cholera are responsible for 80 percent of all health problems and...
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...rain and river as well as drinking water. The symbolic meanings of different kinds of water vary. The Ganges is probably the most obvious and important form of water in the film. In the film, India is divided by Ganges into two totally different worlds: on one side of the Ganges, in a widow house, a group of widows are imprisoned by traditions of the religion and live a life of self-denial to atone for the sin of having lost their husbands; on the other side of the river, the Brahman which is the highest of the four Hindu castes has the privilege of interpreting the religion unceremoniously to gain sexual gratifications. However, the Ganges also connects these two worlds as Kalyani is sent across the river to serve as a prostitute. So the Ganges, to widows, is the holy water which one would desire at her dying moment. But it is simply a “green channel” for Brahman to gain their sexual gratifications. It is this holy water that bring Kalyani troubles of not being able to marry Narayan. On the other hand, the rain, another essential form of water in the film, brings Kalyani unexpected love. In the sequence that Narayan meets Kalyani because of an “accident”, it rains heavily. The rain not only symbolizes the unexpected love between Kalyani and Narayan but also the water that purify their souls and wash away negatives that they have lived through. Later in this raining sequence, Kalyani and Chuia play happily together; Narayan smiles all his way home. Compared to the Ganges which has...
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...The Impact of River-Water Sharing on Bangladesh Tatulia, one of the small villages in Bangladesh, is a representative of what problems occur due to the unavailability and shortage of clean water to the Bengali people. Can you imagine a 60 year-old woman, Aleya, who lived most of her life in Tatulia saying good-bye to her precious home due to such problems? Aleya says, “ Over the last few years, we have faced acute problems of safe drinking water; we have to drink arsenic-contaminated water!” Due to the fact that Bangladesh’s primary resources are tied to water consumption, Bengali officials are trying to study and implement many projects to increase the availability and quality of water and to manage it efficiently. A major predicament is that Bangladesh’s changing weather and flat topography produce severe flooding in the monsoon season and excessive drought during the dry season. This in turn affects the enhancement of its agricultural sector and damages its industrial sector. An immediate question comes to mind: why isn’t Bangladesh adopting some kind of project to collect the water in the flood season and use it in the dry season? The answer to this may hinge on Bangladesh’s neighboring countries, such as India, and their effect on the presence of water resources in the country. The present work focuses on the issue of Bengali-Indian relationships with regard to water sharing. Such issues include adopting water projects and treaties that allow for...
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...At Varanasi, the Ganges flows at its bloom and that is what I had wanted to enjoy and I had never lived near any expanse of water, me the very sight of water thrills me to Varanasi Had gone all of us, my parents and my elder brother, when was just about seven years old. Since I was always fon4 0f any water expanse, the thought of going to a place where I would be able to be near and see the Ganges made feel very excited. Within my mind I had already planned to 80 to the Ganges and enjoy the trip. Theie, at Varanasi, we were a group of six of us all of the same group I being the youngest. Every day we used to Play and go out together. One day while we were playing, mZ elder brother who is also very fond of water planned with the others that, the next day we would visit the Ganges, and there go for a boating spree. My brother and I knew that, if We told our parents about the plan they would not allov us to go alone, so, we kept it a secret from them. The next morning we just told them that we were all going out for sightseeing in the town, and they obviously allowed us so now all the six of us got together and went to the venire of the river. At the banks of the Ganges, there were a number of ghats and a number of boats plying through the length and breadth of the water. The very sight of the Ganges excited me and I eagerly waited to enter a boat and start rowing. When enquiries were made, we were told that people go upto the middle of the river for different purposes...
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...Mesopotamia’s soil was fertile, which was uncommon, thus allowing humans a reason to settle in the region and begin farming. At the start of 5,800 B.C.E., people were living in this area known as the Fertile Crescent, taking advantage of the rich soil. The runoff from nearby mountains, regularly deposited nutritious silt onto the river floodplain, causing the richness in the soil. The Fertile Crescent region spanned from modern-day Kuwait and Iraq and northward to Turkey. Neolithic humans were mainly hunters and gatherers who did sporadic farming, before the settlement of Mesopotamia. The uncommon fertile land of Mesopotamia allowed humans to settle in one place to farm. Not only was Mesopotamia’s soil fertile, but the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers also played a major role in the regional geography that affected how the Mesopotamian development. The region of Mesopotamia had a semiarid climate, which didn’t receive a lot of rainfall, with less than ten inches per year. As a result, this made farming difficult. However, the Tigris and Euphrates, two major rivers in the region, provided a source of water that enabled wide-scale farming. The Mesopotamian Civilization received the ability to stretch the river’s water into farm...
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...Kumbh Mela is a sacred festival that only happens once every twelve years, which is celebrated by millions of Hindu pilgrims living in India. It has been noted to be one of the largest and most peaceful gatherings in human history where Indians who practice Hinduism migrate to the Ganges River to wash off their sins to be purified. The two videos that were to be watched were very different from each other, but showed the difference between the insider and outsider perspective very well. In the promotional video made by the Indian government for the Kumbh Mela festival, we hear lively music and see a lot of celebration only surrounding the Ganges River. From an insider’s perspective, we can see that the Kumbh Mela festival would attract Indians to bathe in the Ganges River to be purified of their sins so that they can live life as a new person. The Indians in the promotional video were smiling and you could tell that this was a sacred ritual for them. On the other hand, the documentary with Diego Bunel, shows the whole Kumbh Mela festival from an outsider’s perspective, because it was explaining what the Hindus believe in and why they were practicing their traditions. There were a couple of times were Diego and his film crew were told not to film and he was told that outsider’s were not allowed to witness the shearing of the hair on the heads during the naga sadhu preparation. We can see that Diego proceeded to try and peer over the fences to see what was happening even when he...
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...Table of Contents Section A – Ancient India Timeline of History The Importance of the Gupta Dynasty The Importance of the Mughal Dynasty The Taj Mahal and its Importance The Importance of the Ganges River The Caste System Section B – Contributions from India to Trinidad and Tobago Why did the Indians come to Trinidad How did they come to Trinidad The Legacies they left behind Timeline of History 400 BC Gautama 'Buddha' founds Buddhism 333 BC Persian rule in the northwest ends after Darius III is defeated by Alexander the Great. Alexander had established the Macedonian Empire after inheriting the Persian Achaemenid Empire. 326 BC Ambhi, king of Taxila surrenders to Alexander. Porus who ruled parts of the Punjab, fought Alexander at the Battle of the Hydaspes River. 321 BC Mauryan Empire is founded by Chandragupta Maurya in Magadha after he defeats the Nanda dynasty and Macedonian Seleucid Empire. Mauryan capital city is Patliputra (Modern Patna in Bihar) 305 BC Chandragupta Maurya defeats Seleucus Nicator of the Seleucid Empire. 304 BC Seleucus gives up his territories in the subcontinent (Afghanistan/Baluchistan) to Chandragupta in exchange for 500 elephants. Seleucus offers to marry his daughter to Chandragupta to seal their friendship. 273 BC Ashoka the Great, grandson of Chandragupta Maurya, ascends as emperor of the Mauryan Empire. 266 BC Ashoka conquers and unifies most of South Asia, along with Afghanistan and eastern Iran...
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...Matt Mendez Religion Professor Heekin February 25, 2013 Deep River Shusaku Endo’s book, Deep River traces four tourists going on a spiritual journey to the country of India. These four Japanese people converge at the Ganges River, the holy river in Varanasi. This is where they want to reconcile themselves with their past experiences they had in their life. Isobe is a man that lost his wife from cancer and goes to India to try and find her reincarnated. Kigushi is another person traveling to India, who is a Japanese, World War 2 war veteran wanting to perform a ceremony for all the soldiers in Burma who died. These two characters endure a pilgrimage where a transformation is made in their life. Isobe was a man who had a wife, Kieko and a daughter but focused on his job everyday. He did not give or show affection to his wife and had several affairs. He did not think of his wife as a companion but rather just as a figure in his life. As the narrator states, “He was the kind of man who was embarrassed to reveal his own feelings openly in words or on his face, the kind of husband who hoped for a relationship in which his would understand him even if he did not utter a word” (12). His world changes when his wife gets diagnosed with a severe case of cancer and ends up dying. Keiko’s last words to Isobe are that she wants him to find her after she dies because she knows that she will be reincarnated. He can’t cope with the loss of his wife and finally realizes how much...
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...existence of many gods; thus is classified as polytheism. One might ask from where these sacred believes or religion first emerged. Mircea Eliade theorized that hierophany, a manifestation of the sacred, is the basis of the religion. In his book The Sacred & The Profane, Eliade analyzed this massive idea of religion with four categories—sacred space, sacred time, sacred nature, and sacred self—under the assumption that every religion possesses these four frameworks in common. Hinduism, the third biggest religion in the world following Christianity and Islam, also follows Eliade’s framework. According to Eliade, for religious men, the nonhomogeneous characteristic of the spatial aspect is shown in sacred places of the region. The river Ganges, also called Ganga in Hindi, has long been...
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...duration, height is generally 3m to 6m, blocks inland flood drainage.The combined annual flood wave from the Ganges, brahmaputra and Meghna rivers passes through a single outlet, the lower meghna tide levels in the bay of bengal, reducing the slope and discharge capacity of the Lower Meghna. The effects of these high river water levels extend over most of the country and are the main determinant of the drainage condition and capacity. The discharge from minor rivers is reduced and surface drainage by gravity is limited to land above the prevailing flood level. Flooding caused by this drainage congestion exists nearly everywhere except in the highland and hilly areas in the northern and eastern parts of the country. | | | | | | | | The factors for causing floods in Bangladesh are: (a) general low topography of the country with major rivers draining through Bangladesh including a congested river network system, (b) rainfall in the upstream country or in the mainland, (c) snow-melt in the himalayas and glacial displacement (natural), (d) river siltation/lateral river contraction/landslides, (e) synchronisation of major river peaks and influences of one river on the other, (f) human intervention of the environment, (g) tidal and wind effects on slowing down the river outflow (backwater effect), (h) construction of barrages and protective works along the banks of the river - some are very close to both the banks - in the upper reaches thus making the passage of water flow downstream...
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...VARANASI CITY On the banks of River Ganges lies the city of Banaras or Varanasi, one of the most established focuses of learning and information known to man. Likewise called Banaras and Kashi, Varanasi is frequently alluded as "the most seasoned living city on earth", "the city of taking in", "the sacred city of India", "the city of lights", "the religious capital of India" and "the city of sanctuaries". One of the most established persistently possessed urban areas on the planet and the most seasoned in India, Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh is viewed as sacred by Hindus, Buddhists and Jains. As indicated by Hindu mythology, the city was established by Lord Shiva. Hindus likewise trust that the city remains on Lord Shiva's weapon, the Trishool or the trident. Varanasi is likewise viewed as heavenly by Jains as it was the origination of seventh Jain Tirthankar Suparshv NathJi and 23rd Tirthankar ParshvaNathJi. Varanasi is one of the seven hallowed urban areas of Hindus. Known to have been in existence for over 3000-years, Varanasi is believed to be the oldest city in the world. Varanasi is known for its ghats and the ancient town has nearly 100 of them. DashashwamedhaGhat, ManikarnikaGhat and...
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