The HKH Snow Update 2025 highlights a significant decline in seasonal snow across the Hindu Kush Himalaya region, with snow persistence 23.6% below normal — the lowest in 23 years. This trend, now in its third consecutive year, threatens water security for nearly two billion people. All twelve major river …
The bid to reafforest the Himalayas could actually backfire on its ecology. Exotic plants which have the ability to grow rapidly and used for the programme are having an anis on the soil, water and air ha paglon. Vir Singh, a noted ecolo G 8 Pant University of kullara iand …
MASSIVE quake to hit northern India, screamed a headline in a national daily on December 20, 1994. After being stumped by the Latur quake of 1993, Indian geophysicists are back to their obsession with the mysteries that the 3,000-km long Himalayan belt holds under its awesome heights. The latest shockwave …
IN THE past century, humans have polluted the oceans, poisoned rivers and lakes, made deserts of good, arable land, felled forests, and severely eroded the mountainsides. This book seeks to protect the best that remains of this superb wilderness. The implications of the uses and misuses of the biological diversity …
FOR people inhabiting the higher reaches of the Himalaya, life is tough. The terrain is difficult and an extreme cold pervades the area through the year. To top all this, whenever it snows, a fear of avalanches invades every heart. Now, steps are being taken towards mitigating this apprehension and …
The world's highest garbage dump -- and a pretty impressive one at that -- grows at the base of Mount Everest. It is a symbol of the Himalayan ecosystem, snowed under human junk, sundry garbage and an ecology faltering under raucous and rowdy "developmental" assault, which is beginning sorely to …
The setting up of a high-powered Himalayan Development Authority has run into rough weather. A committee headed by Planning Commission member S Z Qasim, set up in March 1992 to address the problems of the Himalayan region, has recommended the setting up of the Authority to check the ecological destabilisation …
A NEW variety of a human-made cereal called triticale that is nutritionally superior to wheat will be planted in India's hilly tracts in the next rabi, or winter crop, season. Developed after 7 years of efforts by a team of scientists of the Delhi-based Indian Agricultural Research Institute, the new …
CAPITALISING on more than 100 years of expertise in plant product chemistry, Dabur, one of India's largest Ayurvedic formulation manufacturers, has now ventured into modern pharmaceutical research and product development. Dabur recently announced that it had perfected a method to extract taxol -- a potent drug used to treat ovarian …
IN JANUARY, Doordarshan aired a documentary called The Green Brigade, which despite a typical Films Division tone, was informative, interesting and even balanced. It was on the Ecological Task Force (ETF) set up by the army to take up reforestation and ecological stabilisation in inhospitable regions. The ETF consists of …
The environment ministers of Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Burma and India are likely to meet soon to work out a clean-up programme for the Himalaya. The idea for the 'Save Himalaya' meet was mooted by Edmund Hillary, the first person to conquer Mount Everest, and M S Kohli, chairperson …
The ministry of environment and forests (MEF) has asked for an urgent clarification from its Nepalese counterpart on a Sino-Nepalese proposal to set up a natural reserve around the highest Himalayan peaks. China and Nepal have been working on the project for about 18 months and a US-based organisation, the …
SCIENTISTS are using the latest equipment and most modern techniques to measure to an accuracy of 10 cm the height of Mt Everest and test the validity of an American astronomer's announcement in 1987 that Mt K2 (Godwin Austen) is the world's highest peak. Giorgio Poretti, who is implementing a …
SOME HIMALAYAN species of Ficus -- the genus to which the pipal and the banyan belong -- yield fruit that have high nutritive value and are excellent for making into jams and jellies. Scientists say these species should be considered favourably for social and agroforestry programmes. P P Dhyani and …
WHEN I first visited the Alaknanda valley in the 1960s, there were few footprints on the path leading to the Hemkund-Lokpal shrine and the Valley of Flowers and nature was resplendent in all its pristine glory. But by 1969, when I set up a research station at Joshimath to study …
THE SPITI area of Himachal Pradesh is a cold desert, but surprisingly, agriculture is its mainstay. Transforming Spiti's lunar-like terrain into an agrarian success story was made possible by an ingenious system devised centuries ago to tap distant glaciers for water. But short-sighted developmental policies, though well-intentioned, now threaten both …
INEXPENSIVE and plentiful Himalayan hydroelectric power remains a dream, with Nepal's total installed capacity standing at only 250 MW. Most Nepalese lack electricity and those linked to the grid suffer periodic power cuts. However, judging by a recent seminar in Kathmandu on Cooperative Development of Himalayan Water Resources, turning the …
GROWING piles of garbage in the mountains have led the Himalayan Environment Trust to release a code of conduct for climbers. With the rise in the number of Himalayan expeditions, Jarge amounts of waste that are left on mountain slopes are becoming a major source of pollution. The new code …
IMAGINE dunking one's head in a rapid Himalayan stream and coming up with a mouthful of chemicals and weeds, instead of pristine water. This is not a totally unlikely scenario, according to the editors of this volume, a compilation of 26 articles on the freshwater ecology of the Himalayas. If …
THE traditional gharat (water wheel) has caught the technologist's eye and deceptively simple modifications to its design have made it at least 40 per cent more efficient and also enlarged its capability so that it can power several machines simultaneously. The gharat, in use for centuries in the Himalayan region, …
THE AVERAGE height of the Himalaya was once much higher, the Ganga flowed much further north along the foothills and the Indus flowed east into the Ganga. All this changed about two million years ago -- not all that long ago in geological time. In the early 20th century, German …
