• Menu
  • Menu
  • News
  • Subscribe now
    Digital subscription Print+Digital (Bundle) ePaper subscription
  • Logout
Digital subscription
Print+Digital (Bundle)
ePaper subscription
Trending
UAE holidays 2023 Golf in UAE Ramadan Hong Kong trade
  • Latest News
  • UAE
    • Crime
    • Education
    • Environment
    • Government
    • Health
      • Why Worry
    • Transport
    • Science
    • Ramadan
      • UAE Ramadan Prayer Time Table 2023
      • GCC Prayer Timings
    • Weather
    • Ask the Law
    • Reader Complaint
  • Living In UAE
    • Visa+Immigration
    • Housing
    • Phone+Internet
    • Banking
    • Transport
    • Health
    • Education
    • Relocate
    • Ask Us
    • Safety+Security
  • Business
    • Banking
    • Aviation
    • Property
    • Energy
    • Analysis
    • Tourism
    • Markets
    • Retail
    • Corporate News
  • Best Buys
    • Electronics
    • Home and Kitchen
    • Offers
    • Consumables
    • Lifestyle
  • Your Money
    • Saving and Investment
    • Budget Living
    • Taxation
    • Expert Columns
    • Community Tips
    • Cryptocurrency
  • Food
    • Cooking and Cuisines
    • Guide to Cooking
    • Videos
  • Friday
    • Beauty
    • Wellbeing
    • Art & People
    • Home
  • Games
    • Daily Crossword
    • Sudoku
    • Word Search
    • Spell It
    • Play
  • Parenting
    • Pregnancy & Baby
    • Learning & Play
    • Child Health
    • For Mums & Dads
    • Ask Us
    • Games
  • World
    • Gulf
      • Bahrain
      • Kuwait
      • Oman
      • Qatar
      • Saudi
      • Yemen
      • Games
    • Mena
    • Europe
    • Africa
    • Americas
    • Asia
      • India
      • Pakistan
      • Philippines
    • Oceania
    • Offbeat
    • Coronavirus
    • Special Reports
    • Corrections
    • 2022 in review
  • Opinion
    • Op-Eds
    • Letters
    • From the Editors
  • Special Reports
  • UAE Success Stories
  • Play Games
  • Magical Dubai
    • Dubai Life
    • Live the Luxury
    • Culture and History
    • Adventure
    • Staying Connected
  • Photos
    • News
    • Entertainment
    • Lifestyle
    • Business
    • Sports
  • Sport
    • UAE Sport
    • Horse Racing
      • Dubai World Cup
    • Cricket
      • IPL
        • Chennai
        • Delhi
        • Punjab
        • Kolkata
        • Mumbai
        • Rajasthan
        • Bangalore
        • Hyderabad
        • Gujarat
        • Lucknow
        • Live Scores
        • Point Table
        • Top Scorers
      • ICC
      • T20 World Cup 2022
    • Motorsport
    • Football
    • Tennis
    • Rugby
    • Golf in UAE
      • UAE
      • World
      • Photos & Videos
      • Course Reviews
      • Learn to Play
      • Gear
  • Entertainment
    • Hollywood
    • Bollywood
    • Pakistani Cinema
    • South Indian
    • Arab Celebs
    • Music
    • TV
    • Books
    • Theatre
    • Arts+Culture
  • Expo 2020
  • Going Out
  • Auto
  • Lifestyle
    • Health+Fitness
    • Community
    • Fashion
  • GN Reach
  • Jobs
  • Tech
    • Electronics
    • Gaming
    • Media
  • Videos
    • How-To
    • Best Of Bollywood
    • News
    • Entertainment
    • Business
    • Sport
    • Community
    • Technology
  • Travel
  • GN Focus
    • Special Features
  • Mind Your Migraine
  • 50 MENA Leaders
  • The Kurator
    • Share
    • Dare
    • Flair
  • Gold-Forex
  • Gratuity Calculator
  • Notifications
  • Gold/Forex
  • Prayer Times
  • Cinema Listing
  • GN Store
  • About Gulf News
  • Contact us
  • Work with us
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • Advertise with us
  • Reach by GN
  • GN Focus
  • Gulf News epaper
  • Sitemap
  • Have your say
  • Printing Services
  • © Al Nisr Publishing LLC 2023. All rights reserved.
    Photo essay: River Ganges flows with history and prophecy for India

    Photos

    Login / Sign Up
    Logout
    Saturday, April 1, 2023
    Gold / Forex

    Photos News

    • News
    • Entertainment
    • Lifestyle
    • Business
    • Sports
    All Sections

    Photo essay: River Ganges flows with history and prophecy for India

    For more than 2735kms, the Ganges flows across the plains like a timeline of India's past


    Published:  August 11, 2020 13:39 AP  and  compiled by Balaram Menon, Senior Web Editor

    1 of 28
    Copy of India_Ganges_Photo_Essay_64107.jpg-1e21b~1-1597137546724
    Smoke rises from chimneys of leather tanneries in Kanpur, an industrial city on the banks of the river Ganges, India, Tuesday, June 23, 2020. Kanpur city produces an estimated 450 million liters of municipal sewage and industrial effluent daily, much of which flowed directly into the Ganges until recently. Today that number is lower, though it's not clear by how much, after a Ganges cleanup project closed some drains and diverted industrial pollution to treatment plants. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri) Image Credit: AP
    2 of 28
    Copy of India_Ganges_Photo_Essay_06006.jpg-01a17~1-1597137602514
    Today, little of the ancient construction remains, except for mounds of rubble that tannery workers pick through for bricks to build shanties atop what was once the fortress of the great King Yayati. | Above: A worker drinks water as processed rawhide are laid to dry at a tannery in Kanpur. And Kanpur, where Yayati built his fort, is a city known for its leather tanneries and the relentless pollution they pump into the River Ganges. Image Credit: AP
    3 of 28
    Copy of India_Ganges_Photo_Essay_05118.jpg-54124~1-1597137607201
    For more than 2,735kms, from the Gangotri Glacier in the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal, the Ganges flows across the plains like a timeline of India's past, nourishing an extraordinary wealth of life. It has seen empires rise and fall. It has seen too many wars, countless kings, British colonials, independence and the rise of Hindu nationalism as a political movement. | Above: A holy man meditates near Gaumukh, a snout of the Gangotri Glacier at an altitude of 4000 meters in Uttarakhand. Image Credit: AP
    4 of 28
    Copy of India_Ganges_Photo_Essay_73828.jpg-46690~1-1597137524328
    In India, the Ganges is far more than just a river. It is religion, industry, farming and politics. It is a source of water for millions of people, and an immense septic system that endures millions of gallons of raw sewage. | Above: Hindu pilgrims walk on a pontoon bridge before dawn at Sangam, the confluence of rivers Ganges, Yamuna, and mythical Saraswati during Magh Mela, a festival that attracts millions of pilgrims every year, in Prayagraj. Image Credit: AP
    5 of 28
    Copy of India_Ganges_Photo_Essay_72504.jpg-a6e6a~1-1597137533307
    To Hindus, the Ganges is "Ganga Ma" — Mother Ganges — and a center of spiritual life for more than a billion people. Every year, millions of Hindus make pilgrimages to the temples and shrines along its shores. To drink from it is auspicious. For many Hindus, life is incomplete without bathing in it at least once in their lifetime, to wash away theirs sins. Image Credit: AP
    6 of 28
    Copy of India_Ganges_Photo_Essay_33199.jpg-84b41~1-1597137583501
    But all is not well with the Ganges. Pollution has left large sections of it dangerous to drink. Criminal gangs illegally mine sand from its banks to feed India's relentless appetite for concrete. Hydroelectric dams along the river's tributaries, needed to power India's growing economy, have infuriated some Hindus, who say the sanctity of the river has been compromised. | Above: Women wash their household items by a drainage flowing into the river Ganges in Varanasi. Image Credit: AP
    7 of 28
    Copy of India_Ganges_Photo_Essay_27605.jpg-c7a49~1-1597137587579
    And over the past 40-some years, the Gangotri Glacier — source of almost half the Ganges' water — has been receding at an increasingly frightening pace, now losing about 22 meters (yards) per year. Image Credit: AP
    8 of 28
    Copy of India_Ganges_Photo_Essay_41150.jpg-868b1~1-1597137575076
    For millennia, the Gangotri's glacial melt water has ensured the arid plains get enough water, even during the driest months. The rest comes from Himalayan tributaries that flow from the colossal chain of mountains. | Above: The confluence of Alaknanda and Bhagirathi rivers, which is officially accepted as the start of the River Ganges, is illuminated at twilight in the town of Devpraya. Image Credit: AP
    9 of 28
    Copy of India_Ganges_Photo_Essay_86937.jpg-d068a~1-1597137515217
    As the Ganges flows across the plains, its once clean and mineral-rich water begins collecting the toxic waste from the millions of people who depend on it, becoming one of the most polluted rivers in the world. | Above: Funeral pyres burn at Manikarnika Ghat, one of the oldest and most sacred place for Hindus to be cremated, on the banks of river Ganges in Varanasi. Image Credit: AP
    10 of 28
    Copy of India_Ganges_Photo_Essay_63573.jpg-56a02~1-1597137550470
    Millions of liters (gallons) of sewage, along with heavy metals, agricultural pesticides, human bodies and animal carcasses, are dumped into the Ganges every day. | Above: Mourners wait for the cremation of their loved ones at the flooded Manikarnika Ghat, one of the most sacred places for Hindus to be cremated, on the banks of river Ganges in Varanasi. Image Credit: AP
    11 of 28
    Copy of India_Ganges_Photo_Essay_36175.jpg-1ee66~1-1597137579206
    At times, officials try to fix things but vast stretches of it remain dangerously unhealthy. Still, to Hindus, the river remains religiously pure. Image Credit: AP
    12 of 28
    Copy of India_Ganges_Photo_Essay_46208.jpg-cb092~1-1597137558797
    Every year, tens of thousands of Hindus bring the bodies of their loved ones to be cremated at the Ganges, in the city of Varanasi. A Hindu who dies in the city, or is cremated alongside it, is also freed from that cycle of birth and death. Image Credit: AP
    13 of 28
    Copy of India_Ganges_Photo_Essay_01100.jpg-6b06b~1-1597137611847
    After Varanasi, the Ganges continues its eastward journey through endless farmland as it nears the coast, eventually splitting off into ever-smaller rivers in the great wilderness of her delta. Image Credit: AP
    14 of 28
    Copy of APTOPIX_India_Ganges_Photo_Essay_01136.jpg-71088~1-1597137630089
    The biggest river, the Hooghly, heads south towards the sea, passing through Kolkata, the largest city in eastern India. Once the capital of the British raj, known as Calcutta, today the seething metropolis is home to nearly 15 million people. Eventually, its waters spill into the Bay of Bengal. Image Credit: AP
    15 of 28
    Copy of APTOPIX_India_Ganges_Photo_Essay_79894.jpg-f4603~1-1597137615672
    Up near the Gangotri glacier, a genial Hindu holy man who goes by the name Mouni Baba and spends much of his life in silent meditation sees all of mankind reflected in the river. "Human existence is like this ice," he said. | Above: Mouni Baba fetches water from a stream at the feet of Mount Shivling in Tapovan, at an altitude of 4500 meters in Uttarakhand. Image Credit: AP
    16 of 28
    Copy of India_Ganges_Photo_Essay_73823.jpg-7eb9f~1-1597137529026
    "It melts and becomes water and then merges into a stream. The stream goes into a tributary which flows into a river and then it all ends up in an ocean. Some (rivers) remain pure while others collect dirt along the way. Some (people) help mankind and some become the cause of its devastation," said Baba. | Above: A crowd gathers for a prayer ceremony dedicated to the river Ganges in Varanasi. Image Credit: AP
    17 of 28
    Copy of India_Ganges_Photo_Essay_09439.jpg-c45ab~1-1597137598717
    Devotees take ritualistic dips alongside elephants at the confluence of river Ganges and river Gandak to mark the beginning of the centuries old Sonpur mela, the largest cattle fair in Asia, in the state of Bihar. Image Credit: AP
    18 of 28
    Copy of India_Ganges_Photo_Essay_43823.jpg-f034e~1-1597137567194
    A man carries a bucket of water while people wash utensils, brush their teeth and bathe in the polluted waters of the river Hooghly, a distributary of the river Ganges, in the backdrop of the landmark Howrah Bridge in Kolkata, in West Bengal. Image Credit: AP
    19 of 28
    Copy of APTOPIX_India_Ganges_Photo_Essay_03454.jpg-bdd21~1-1597137627362
    Hindu women walk on silt, deposited by monsoon floods, along the banks of the river Ganges to perform daily morning rituals in Varanasi. Image Credit: AP
    20 of 28
    Copy of APTOPIX_India_Ganges_Photo_Essay_24708.jpg-de62a~1-1597137619478
    An elderly Hindu woman sits in solitude inside an ashram meant for those who come to die and attain salvation in Varanasi. Image Credit: AP
    21 of 28
    Copy of India_Ganges_Photo_Essay_56588.jpg-ae25c~1-1597137554523
    Hindu devotees prepare to immerse an idol of goddess Durga in the river Hooghly, a distributary of the river Ganges, in Kolkata. Image Credit: AP
    22 of 28
    Copy of India_Ganges_Photo_Essay_65391.jpg-46ef4~1-1597137542549
    A Hindu pilgrim is stranded on a mobile toilet after high tide submerged the camping area for pilgrims on the eve of Makar Sankranti festival on Sagar Island, an island lying in the Ganges delta. Image Credit: AP
    23 of 28
    Copy of APTOPIX_India_Ganges_Photo_Essay_04587.jpg-1fe07~1-1597137623071
    A worker who helps cremate bodies sits by the body of an elderly man, wrapped and weighed down by a large rock, before throwing the body into the river Ganges as per his final wish, on the banks of river Ganges in Varanasi. Image Credit: AP
    24 of 28
    Copy of India_Ganges_Photo_Essay_41679.jpg-1bb19~1-1597137571215
    Hindu pilgrims spend the night huddled together after being forced by high tide to flee from their camps on the eve of Makar Sankranti festival on Sagar Island, an island in the Ganges delta. Image Credit: AP
    25 of 28
    Copy of India_Ganges_Photo_Essay_71307.jpg-80a86~1-1597137537638
    People prepare to cremate the body of a Hindu woman on the banks of the river Ganges on the outskirts of Varanasi. Image Credit: AP
    26 of 28
    Copy of India_Ganges_Photo_Essay_45277.jpg-33c00~1-1597137563422
    Hindu pilgrims arrive to takes holy dips before sunrise during Makar Sankranti festival on Sagar Island, an island in the Ganges delta. Image Credit: AP
    27 of 28
    Copy of India_Ganges_Photo_Essay_73854.jpg-029dc~1-1597137519333
    A fisherman boat moves past a floating hotel on the river Hooghly, a distributary of the river Ganges, in Kolkata. Image Credit: AP
    28 of 28
    Copy of India_Ganges_Photo_Essay_21404.jpg-2a235~1-1597137591615
    The Milky Way glows above the 6856 meters tall Bhagirathi peaks as seen from Tapovan, at an altitude of 4500 meters in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand. Bhagirathi peaks feed the Gangotri Glacier, one of the origins of the river Ganges, whose glacial melt water has ensured the arid plains get enough water, even during the driest months. Image Credit: AP

    Trending

    • In Pictures: Sheikh Hazza, Deputy Ruler of Abu Dhabi

      In Pictures: Sheikh Hazza, Deputy Ruler of Abu Dhabi


    • Pictures: Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan

      Pictures: Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan

    Latest In

    • Crypto exchange Bittrex to exit US

      34 minutes ago

    • Andrew Tate moved from detention to house arrest

      1 hour ago

    • Spell It: The seductive danger of beauty filters


    • Gaekwad and Gill shed different light on T20 batting


    • Pistorius denied parole a decade after killing Reeva


    Go back to top
    Network links:
    • Friday
    • Watch Time
    • getthat
    • Jobs
    • GN Store
    • About Gulf News
    • Contact us
    • Work with us
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Privacy Policy
    • Advertise with us
    • Reach by GN
    • GN Focus
    • Gulf News epaper
    • Sitemap
    • Have your say
    • Printing Services
    Find us on Social
    © Al Nisr Publishing LLC 2023. All rights reserved.
    This website stores cookies on your computer. These cookies are used to improve your experience and provide more personalized service to you. Both on your website and other media. To find out more about the cookies and data we use, please check out our Privacy Policy.
    Share on Facebook
    Share on Twitter
    Share on Whatsapp
    Share on Mail
    Share on LinkedIn
    Close
    Gulf News

    Get Breaking News Alerts From Gulf News

    We’ll send you latest news updates through the day. You can manage them any time by clicking on the notification icon.

    Subscribe No Thanks
    Continue reading Gulf News
    Dear Reader, please register to read gulfnews.com

    Dear Reader,

    This section is about Living in UAE and essential information you cannot live without.

    Register to read and get full access to gulfnews.com

    Create your account
    or login if you already have one
    First name is required.
    Last name is required.
    Please enter a valid email address.
    Password should have minimum 7 characters with at least one letter and number
    Passwords do not match

    By clicking below to sign up, you're agreeing to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy

    Login your account
    New to Gulf News? Sign up now
    Please enter your email address.
    Please enter your password.

    Forgot password

    or