Indian waters are very, very polluted. And the pipes are in bad shape, so when the rain season arrives, a lot of dirty stuff get inside.

I drink a little bit of public water in asia or africa from time to time because I'm lazy. 99% of the time it's fine. But when it's not, it's heavy brown pants time, and I'm much, MUCH more tolerant than the average white guy when it comes to food poisoning because I traveled so much. In some countries (E.G venezuala), you can get amoebas out of it. And it's really annoying.

So basically yes, bottled water (and check the seal), or soda.

In some countries (e.g mali, sri lanka), they have water pockets, basically small plastic "balloons" of water than you bite then drink from. It uses less plastic than bottles, but yeah, it still finds it's way into the sea.

At least in many cases, it's grounded in reality. For example, traveler's diarrhea[1] and hepatitis A[2] are fairly common for Westerns traveling. Hep A isn't a serious issue for locals, because of exposure from childhood - it's similar to how Westerners (in the US, at least) get the chickenpox as children, then rarely have it again in adulthood. But if they get it in adulthood, it's usually far more serious/complicated than the childhood variant. You're very likely to get exposure to Hep A if traveling to many countries, and if you haven't had a vaccination for it then you'll have a pretty crappy time of things as your body gets introduced to something that historically your body has been around since birth.

Hence recommending bottled water, as a precaution to prevent exposure. However, in reality everything around you has been washed, cleaned, laundered, or cooked in local water. And your shower/bath will not be in bottled water. So your exposure is still there, just lessened. Not to mention people that drink bottled water, but poor it into a glass of ice (which was created from non-bottled, local water).

[1] https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/travelers-dia... [2] https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/diseases/hepatitis-a

[1] https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/travelers-dia...

> How much is it because of reality and how much is because pf propaganda?

Being from that neck of the woods, it's reality. My brother (coming from the U.S. to visit) was hospitalized for days when he was 5-6 because he ate some food off a plate that had been washed in the local water.