Ganges River: India's dying mother | Hacker News Reader

Ganges River: India's dying mother

bbc.co.uk

39 pointsblahedo13 comments

Dirty is not dead for rivers. The water is still useful for irrigation and industry, and electricity, which is most of its economic use. And the source of the water doesn't die from downstream dirt...

Indian regime has to build a 5000 km fence along Ganga river perimeter.

Wow, someone needs to talk to an interaction designer. That "scrolling" behavior gives me a headache.

I actually enjoyed it. May have been my device size though(note 3).

ditto. Obnoxious layout thing, whatever you call it.

on the contrary, i found it to be a great experience. i dunno which browser / device you are using.

This story actually showed me how I've been doing parallax scrolling effects wrong this whole time. Showing two fixed background images at once with a scrolling transition between them is kinda neat, and something not possible with my previously flawed understanding of how to implement the effect.

When done right, the effect provides an intuitive break to process one morsel of data before starting the next. It's like a web page's version of a chapter marker, allowing for compartmentalization while maintaining simple navigation.

"Hindus revere the Ganges as a god. They believe she came down from heaven to cleanse the Earth, and that bathing in her waters can wash away a person’s sins."

What a bunch of bullshit by some random westerner who does not understand jack shit.

It is quite common knowledge that in the divine sense of Ganga, she originates from the dreadlocks of Lord Shiva and thus is a manifestation of purity in some sense. Mount Kailash is generally understood as the abode of The Destroyer (of evil).

Do write about the pathetic state in which the river is in. That is being factual. Don't bring in the religious angle. That is just stepping into territory that is very difficult to grasp from a western perspective.

ummmm no.

http://www.ancient.eu/Ganges/

ummmm...yes. ancient.eu.

That is just one myth. I have heard atleast 2-3 from my paati. They are all stories. That is what the author/you doesn't/don't get.

edit: lol...someone butthurt and downvoting.

Having just spent some time at Varanasi, it is definitely widely believed bathing in the river and having your cremated ashes thrown in it has religious benefits. In just 1 day over 200 people were cremated at a temple close to where we were staying to have their ashes dumped in the river. I think it would be hard to just ignore the religious angle.

Actually it was the Swami who was quoted as saying "People think Ganga can take care of my sins".

Yes, it was a mistake to call it god, but I think that can be excused. At least almost every religious Hindu still believes that bathing in Ganges can wash away his/her sins, so that part is correct. Bringing religious angle is important here to show that it should be even more important for us to keep it clean.

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