A little prelude first, Yamuna is one of the most polluted rivers in the country and I am going to limit this post to my experience while more data is freely available on the internet.. The upper Yamuna which is a bit more cleaner because drinking water is derieved from it while as i said before lower Yamuna is nothing but a slimy drain.

While searching for the venue to hold the next forum we were looking for the most polluted parts of Yamuna, its known that their are around 15 thick canals draining effluents in the river while the effluent treatment plants are lying around doing nothing.
The most interesting thing I noticed was on the first venue which was below the bridge and obviously (we shudda known), Official secrets act was invoked where cameras are not allowed to take pictures of bridges and buildings and stuff(not going into too much detail).. To cut the long story short, show couldn be done there.

While talking to the local divers (who fish out dead bodies and other stuff and i wonder if they are ever paid...), it came to my attention that there was a small slum there which was evacuated and was now nothing but forest.. The diver told us that the politicians blamed the slum dwellers for "polluting the river" and got em evicted as soon as possible... I could beat the irony!! The river was still dirty and slum dwellers were gone some place else.. reason for another political "gandagi hatao" manifesto...

Other venues were just as bad until we did zero on the one we needed.. Some thing happened on the show (once it started) like people who had suggestions about making a dam which would help...Seriously, Missing the point again... Looks like Dams are solutions to all the problems in India ...Bijli, and Pani and polluted rivers... Of course, I don't have a say and as much as these people are concerned.. I think, there are severe issues here.

The first one is Political.. Changes in Policies, Like industrial effluent control policies.. With the entire rampant industrial growth policies (SEZ: special economic zones... ahhm ahhm more pollution for rivers.., Nuke deal, Power plants..), Rivers will be gone before we realise they are no more there..Yamuna makes me cringe.. I see how we have left no space for birds, dogs, bees and cows in these rivers.. We have weighed em down with our problems and we conveniently blame those who cannot speak for themselves, the poor, the cows, the dogs and the birds...

Its time we rethink, we dont have much time ahead of us. I dont say we discard everything we have created but put stuff on hold.. Let the environment reconcile with it self.. The first thing we have to do is Re think!!!