Club Lunch – River of Life, River of Death: How to kill – or save – the waterways of Asia

“River of Life, River of Death: The Ganges and India’s Future” has just been published – it is Victor Mallet’s new book on India’s sacred river. Mr. Mallet has spent years researching and writing about environmental issues across Asia. As well as celebrating the extraordinary cultural, religious and natural history of the Ganges, his book is a plea to save the river from human and industrial pollution and excessive exploitation of the water it carries across north India from the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal. He draws on the lessons of other river disasters – in London, continental Europe, North America and East Asia – to argue that a rescue is not only feasible but essential for India and for humanity as a whole. China’s damming of several of Asia’s great rivers near their sources on the Tibetan plateau – including the Brahmaputra/Yarlung Tsangpo, one of the great tributaries of the Ganges – is a serious concern for India and Bangladesh.

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, based in New Delhi, for the four years from 2012-2016. His highly praised book on the south-east Asian industrial revolution and the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, The Trouble with Tigers (HarperCollins), was first published in 1999. His new book about the Ganges, River of Life, River of Death: The Ganges and India’s Future has just been published by Oxford University Press.