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Himachal Pradesh
The power reservoir
As focus on hydroelectric power is restored, nhpc braces itself to unleash its full potential as the nodal hydel body in the country Yogendra Prasad, chairman and md of National Hydro Power Corporation, is a man in hurry. He has reasons to be. For a long time and especially since …
What goes down ...
The stinky spectacle of hill-stations getting buried under their own garbage is turning more real. Look down the slopes and you will see mounds of coloured plastic bags, and tourist staples such as empty packets of potato chips and plastic water bottles. All of which is mixed with vegetable waste …
Boom
High altitude sickness
The Brits made India's hill-stations.
Invariably, a responsible officer of the colonial government chanced upon a scene of delirious beauty that completely seduced his senses. Ootacamund or Udagamandalam (Ooty) in the Western Ghats was
The Brits made India's hill-stations.
Invariably, a responsible officer of the colonial government chanced upon a scene of delirious beauty that completely seduced his senses. Ootacamund or Udagamandalam (Ooty) in the Western Ghats was
High risk
Evam Piljain, an 80-year-old Toda who's spent all her life in Ooty, feels distraught at the sight of her hometown. "I cannot sit in the verandah anymore,' she says. She moves to her drawing room and gazes wistfully at a photograph of Ooty taken in the early part of the …
Defying gravity
Scarcity amidst plenty summarises the water problem ailing hill-stations today. They receive good rainfall but there is no mechanism to collect runoff for later use. Result: water shortage every year.
How did the Brits manage it? They cashed on the terrain, and gravity, …
How did the Brits manage it? They cashed on the terrain, and gravity, …
View from the top
Planning is non-existent for India's hill-stations, admit hill municipalities. In the absence of a master plan, a free-for-all situation prevails where one constructs wherever one finds free space; if there is lack of space, one can simply add another storey to one's house. There is no tourist plan, which becomes …
Local travails
Incredible India. The land of mystic splendour. The hidden paradise. These are just three slogans to convince people to turn themselves into tourists and land up, every summer, in droves in hill-stations. Ooty's annual flower show attracts 0.2 million tourists over two days. In addition, it receives over 0.3 million …
Popular medicine
Pharmaceutical giant Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd's Rs 107 crore expansion plan in Himachal Pradesh's Sirmour district has become a bitter pill the company's being made to swallow. Farmers' suspicions, indeed outright distrust, have placed the company's initiative to expand the capacity of an existing plant at Ganguwala, Paonta Sahib, under a …
Food for all
The right-to-food campaign gets a fillip with the Common Minimum Programme of the new government incorporating far-reaching commitments on food security and the evolving constitutional doctrine that public welfare is a core obligation of the state. IT could be coincidence. Or it could be the case that committed public interventions …
In Short
high-smoking zone: The number of smokers in Himachal Pradesh (HP) is alarmingly high. This despite the state having the second highest literacy rate in the country. Forty-five per cent of HP's population consists of smokers, according to Surender Kashyap, the head of the chest and tuberculosis department at Shimla's Indira …