Around 5000 B.C., the Aryans, a nomadic tribe from the Steppes of Central Asia entered India through the Punjab and brought with them the Hindu religion based on the 4 great texts called The Vedas. For the Aryans, their most sacred river was the now extinct Saraswati, which they revered as their mother river. However, by the end of the second millennium, as the Aryans spread southward to cover the entire Indo-Gangetic plain, the Ganga or Ganges replaced the Saraswati as the most sacred river.

Of all the places along the Ganga, Benares is perhaps the oldest living city in the world.

The Ganges at Benares may appear muddy and dirty and is the receptacle of all the sewage and waste of the city, the ashes of the dead and the diseases of the millions who bathe in it. However, what is important is not the bacterial purity of the river, but its ritual and symbolic purity.

Because of the overwhelming reverential impact of the Ganges on hundreds of millions of Hindus, a real life paradox today haunts the citizens of Benares. For how long can they continue to ignore the gap between the ritual purity of the river and it’s actual level of cleanliness. This gap was largely ignored by the residents of Benares during the 20th century. Today, this divide is so wide that combined with global warming and climate change, it threatens the very life of the river.

The source of the Ganga is the Gangotri glacier.

The combined impact of global warming, deforestation and rampant tourism has resulted in the glacier receding almost a kilometer in the last three decades.

According to projections, given this rate of recession as a benchmark, most of the glaciers in the Himalayas will melt away in the next thirty to forty years.

Perennial rivers like the Ganga will be reduced to a rain fed seasonal stream that will stand no chance of regeneration. This could happen within 30 years.

In such a situation, towns and cities along the Ganga will be abandoned when the river runs dry. India’s beliefs and culture will die within this lifetime.

With India’s economy poised to grow at almost ten percent annually, drastic measures need to be taken to prevent a climate change catastrophe. This has to be a concerted effort combining steps taken by government agencies, private industries and citizens of the country. It is time to wake up and worry like mad. “Dard-E-Ganga” looks at all these issues and is a chilling wake up call for all Indians.

Renowned Bollywood character actor Rajesh Vivek has done the Hindi voice over.

Series Title: Dard-e-Ganga
Format: HD
Aspect Ratio: 16:9
Duration – 1 x 60 minutes
Language: Hindi

 

The Cradle of Terror is a 45-minute documentary that examines Pakistan’s role in promoting and sustaining the forces of terror under the grab of Jihad and also looks at the role that the Pakistani state played in Nuclear Proliferation, under the auspices of Dr. A.Q Khan.

Series Title: The Cradle of Terror
Format: Digi Beta
Duration: 1 X 45 Minutes
Language: English

 

“Nuclear Tango-why a hero fell from grace” is an hour long documentary that investigates and puts together why Dr. A.Q. Khan, the father of the Pakistani nuclear weapons program was made to take the rap and accept responsibility for having orchestrated the Pakistan –North Korea nuclear relationship.

The film establishes the critical role that Pakistan has played in nursing North Korea to establish itself as a potent nuclear power with a delivery capability. This assistance was guided by the Chinese Government, through the identified efforts of General Xiong Guangkai, Deputy Chief of the Peoples Liberation Army, who in CIA parlance, was the case officer for this exchange between the Pakistani’s and the North Koreans.

The Chinese helped Pakistan put together the machinery to manufacture nuclear weapons through the uranium enrichment route and directed Pakistan to divulge this to North Korea. As a quid pro quo, the Chinese assisted the North Koreans in developing ballistic missiles and instructed them to route this to Pakistan. In this manner, the Chinese avoided getting sanctioned by the Clinton Administration, yet succeeded in their strategic goals of maintaining the “nuclear heat” on Japan, India and South Korea.

Furthermore, the spin-off of this mother of all conspiracies was the diffusion, to Al-Qaida and Libya and Iran of this dual use technology and the wherewithal to deploy it productively, both as weapons of terror and mass destruction by the Pakistani ISI (Inter Services Intelligence) controlled politico-military establishment in Pakistan.

Because the Libyans blew the whistle on the Pakistanis and revealed that the Libyan nuclear program was developed exclusively with Pakistani help, the issue of this proliferating and clandestine nuclear trade became public. The rest is history. Though Dr. Khan was censured for the eyes of the world, the truth is that as a loyal citizen of Pakistan, he willingly became the fall guy.

Series Title: Nuclear Tango – Why a hero fell from grace
Channel – Israel Broadcasting Authority
Format – HD
Aspect Ratio: 16:9
Duration – 1 x 50 minutes
Language: English