The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC;) on January 31, 2024, issued a notification regarding the declaration of the Union Territory of Ladakh as an Air Pollution Control Area. The following has been stated: In exercise of the powers conferred by section 6 and Sub-section (1) of section …
Padma Wangyal, 29, is quite an exception. His grandfather pioneered the cooperative societies movement in Ladakhi agriculture. In a region where the average landholding is a mere 1.38 hectares, Wangyal's family owns about 20 hectares. Wangyal attended school and college in Delhi. Like most young Ladakhis, he dreamt of joining …
Ladakh was opened to tourism in 1971. Since then the tourist inflow has increased several times over (see graph: Welcome to Ladakh). Though Ladakh gets more foreign tourists, domestic tourists have increased recently. The biggest tourist activity is trekking and jeep safaris; the biggest tourist attractions of Ladakh are its …
THE acid test of a politician's commitment to his/her polity is the ability to stay above the dominant trend and to fashion the public imagination along a path of common welfare. This is a rarity in politics. Always has been. Politicians across the world take the easier course. So, instead …
There exist, in India today, at least two ways of resolving water-related conflicts. One is the way the conflict over river Cauvery is being managed. The river of woes for Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalitha and her Karnataka counterpart S M Krishna, not a single day has passed in …
Huge tourist inflows often spell doom for a region's ecology. But things may turn out quite the opposite for Ladakh, as the Leh Autonomous Hill Council (lahc) plans to make visitors share conservation costs. The responsibility is, however, to be shouldered by foreign tourists only. The lahc proposes to charge …
the world's highest observatory has been commissioned in Hanle, a remote village in Ladakh. The observatory is situated 4,500 metres above sea level. For astronomers, the observatory's height is crucial for getting a clear view of the space. This observatory, likely to be named the Chandra, is billed as the …
located at altitudes of 4,000-5,000 metres, the wetlands in the Changtang area of eastern Ladakh attract a large variety of wildlife as well as humans with their livestock. This area covering thousand of square kilometres lies within the boundaries of the Changtang Wilderness Area or the proposed High Altitude Cold …
there was a time when the double-humped Yarkandi camel served as a vital means of transport on the 6,400-km historic 'silk route'. Camel caravans carried tea, silk and porcelain of China to the bazaars in the Middle East and as far as the Byzantine empire and Rome. Traders from Central …
Retired civil engineer Chewang Norphel makes zings (small tanks fed by glacial meltwater) and artificial glaciers. The latter involves channelling glacier water to the shadow area of a mountain. He puts in half-inch-wide iron pipes along the edge of the depression where the water collects. After seeping into the pipe, …
THE world's highest observatory will be set up at Hanle, Ladakh. It will be remote-controlled from Hoskote near Bangalore via satellite link. The prestigious project is being undertaken by the Bangalore-based Institute of Astro-physics (IIA). Located at an altitude of 4,517 metres above the sea level, compact in design and …
LADAKHI tribals have started dreaming of going blonde, having blue eyes, owning 2 shiny cars and wearing skin-hugging jeans! There is a worrisome increase in the incidence of violence between Buddhists and Muslims, as well as within the communities themselves. The sole culprit, according to "Deep ecologist" Helena Norberg-Hodge, is …
"CULTIVATION in Ladakh is backbreaking because the water for irrigation has to hauled manually," says Soso of Phiang village, who is a clerk for the Ladakh Scouts. "But now life is easier, thanks to the irrigation pumps set up by the Ladakh Ecological Development Group." The narrow valley of the …
EVEN IN a freezing Ladakhi winter some houses stay comfortably warm, without either coal or electric heating. That's because these houses face the sun and they are well insulated, featuring heat-absorbing surfaces in dark shades. They are the products of a new architectural technique called passive solar architecture, which keeps …
Genesis: The work of LEDeG was initiated by Helena Norberg-Hodge, a Swedish linguist who first came to Ladakh in 1975, just after the region had been opened up to tourism. In the 1970s, Ladakh emerged from a virtual isolation of about 25 years. The first of the many visitors were …
