SIACHEN Snowballing
"If the Indo-Pak conflict over Siachen continues, the Indian soldiers will soon be fighting on melted glacier floor,' says Syed Iqbal Hasnain of the School of Environmental Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
"When there are reports of glaciers all over the Himalaya receding, Siachen can be no exception,' he says. For more than three decades now, the two countries have been fighting over Siachen. Moreover, it is the only glacier in the world where a war is going on.
"Heavy military activity in the accumulation zone of the glacier must have affected the micro climate and dynamics of the glacier. The armies of the two countries have also constructed helipads there. And, to top it all, the soldiers incinerate their wastes,' says Hasnain.
Though the Indian government does not allow monitoring of the glacier by civilian scientists, Hasnain says with conviction that the glacier must have receded phenomenonally.