River of Life, River of Death: The Ganges and India’s Future
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Reception 6:30pm
Presentation 7:00pm
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India is killing the Ganges, and the Ganges, in turn, is killing India. The waterway that has nourished more people than any on earth for three millennia is now so polluted with sewage and toxic waste that it has become a menace to human and animal health. Author Victor Mallet delves into the religious, historical and biological mysteries of the Ganges, and explains how Hindus can simultaneously revere and abuse their national river. Starting at the Himalayan glacier, where the Ganges emerges pure and cold from an icy cave known as the Cow's Mouth and ending in the tiger-infested mangrove swamps of the Bay of Bengal, Mr. Mallet encounters the naked holy men who worship the river to the engineers who divert its waters for irrigation, the scientists who study its bacteria and Narendra Modi, the prime minister who says he wants to save India's mother river for posterity. Can the battle to rescue what is arguably the world's most important river succeed?
Victor Mallet is a journalist, commentator, and author with three decades of experience in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. He is currently Asia News Editor for the Financial Times and was Bureau Chief in South Asia for four years in New Delhi from 2012 to 2016. Mr. Mallet’s new book about the Ganges, River of Life, River of Death: The Ganges and India's Future, was published by Oxford University Press in October 2017. His highly praised book on the Southeast Asian industrial revolution and the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, The Trouble with Tigers, was released in 1999. Mr. Mallet has written numerous editorials, columns, and features on security, politics, economics, and business. He twice won the Society of Publishers in Asia award for opinion writing. In India, Mr. Mallet was twice awarded the Ramnath Goenka Award for Excellence in Journalism as a foreign correspondent. He obtained his Bachelor’s degree in English from Merton College, Oxford University.
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