Hard Numbers: India’s record drought, privatized waterways, dripping wet smartphones, big oil meets little water

Empty metal pitchers to fetch water.
REUTERS/Prashant Waydande

669: Already sweltering amid a heat wave, the capital of India now faces water shortages with the level at Delhi's biggest reservoir dropping to 669 feet, a record low. The city’s government, run by the anti-corruption AAP party, accuses the BJP-ruled Haryana state of deliberately withholding water from the Yamuna River, which it denies.

454 billion: Private corporations control 454 billion cubic meters of water around the world, about 5% of the global supply. This water grabbing is a major problem in Africa, where China, India, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE are investing big in water-intensive agriculture projects.

3,190: That smartphone in your hand is soaking wet – maybe (hopefully!) not literally, but it took 3,190 gallons of water to manufacture it. The production of chips and semiconductors – which are what make smartphones smart – is one of the world’s most water-intensive industries.

15.5 billion: Global fossil fuel, electric, and mining companies stand to lose up to $15.5 billion in the coming years due to water scarcity, according to a new report. Projects at high risk include the Keystone oil pipeline in Canada, the Pascua-Lama gold mine on the Chile-Argentina border, the Carmichael coal mine in Australia, and the Oyster Creek nuclear facility in the US.

More from GZERO Media

Acting Director of the U.S. Secret Service Ronald Rowe Jr. speaks during a press conference as the FBI investigates what they said was an apparent assassination attempt in Florida on Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump, in West Palm Beach, Florida, U.S. September 16, 2024.
REUTERS/Marco Bello/File Photo
Doctors, paramedics, and medical students from various medical institutions are attending a protest against what they say is the rape and murder of a trainee doctor, inside the premises of R G Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata, India, on August 12, 2024.
(Photo by Debajyoti Chakraborty/NurPhoto)

In August, the brutal rape and murder of a female medical resident in a Kolkata hospital set off aseries of protests by doctors and others who demanded a full investigation of the crime and stepped-up police protection in government-run hospitals.

Pro-Palestinian protesters rally for a cease-fire in Gaza during the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas in Dearborn, Michigan, on May 19, 2024.
REUTERS/Rebecca Cook

About 4 million people in the United States identify as Arab Americans, and they have a large presence in key swing states like Michigan and Pennsylvania. The war in Gaza looms large for them, with more than 80% in a recent poll saying it’s their top election issue. This is the latest in GZERO’s Bloc by Bloc voting demographics series.

Paige Fusco

The right and left have drifted away from the political center in response to pressure from extreme positions on the fringes of their movements. Welcome to the age of the politically homeless.

FILE PHOTO: Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, with Minister of Foreign Affairs Melanie Joly, and Minister of Public Safety, Democratic Institutions and Intergovernmental Affairs Dominic LeBlanc, takes part in a press conference about the Royal Canadian Mounted Police's investigation into "violent criminal activity in Canada with connections to India", on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada October 14, 2024.
REUTERS/Blair Gable/File Photo

When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s plane touched down in Honolulu on his way back from a summit in Laos last Friday, reporters on the plane learned that a caucus revolt was underway in Canada.

Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump speaks with Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait during an appearance with the Economic Club of Chicago on Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024, at the Fairmont Hotel in Chicago.
Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune/TNS/ABACAPRESS.COM

Democratic nominee Kamala Harris had a combative interview with Fox News on Wednesday evening in a play to shake off GOP votes from Donald Trump as the US presidential campaign enters its tense final two weeks.

FILE PHOTO: The Toronto Dominion (TD) bank logo is seen on a building in Toronto, Ontario, Canada March 16, 2017.
REUTERS/Chris Helgren/File Photo

Two US subsidiaries of Canada’s second-biggest bank agreed last week to pay $3 billion US in fines, pleading guilty to conspiring to money laundering in the United States and giving the bank a huge black eye.

FILE PHOTO: Police officers stand at the entrance to a building during a raid in Berlin-Friedrichshain. Security forces have searched several properties in Berlin, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein in connection with the ban on the terrorist organization Hamas and the international network Samidoun in Germany.
Paul Zinken/dpa via Reuters Connect

The United States and Canada both moved Tuesday to designate Samidoun as a terrorist entity, following Germany, which banned the group last year, and the Netherlands, which banned it last week.