The road to Khardung La begins in the Indian town of Leh on the northwestern fringe of the Himalayas. Exhaust-spewing army trucks rattle up the side of dry rock, past Buddhist monasteries clinging to the craggy mountainside and alongside small farms barely scraping fertility from the earth. Khardung La, the highest motorable mountain pass in the world, is more than 18,000 ft. above sea level, the air so thin that...

The BBC's Chris Morris travels to the main source of the Ganges river to find out why the glaciers are melting. As the first light of dawn lit up the snow-covered mountain peaks, we trekked through a barren landscape 4,000 metres up in the Indian Himalayas, heading for the Gangotri glacier, the main source of the River Ganges. About 2km from our destination, we passed a rock inscribed with the...

Monsoon this year has failed most of India, causing drought in even well-irrigated and rainfed areas. Ravleen Kaur reports how our food preferences are making us vulnerable to drought Hari Achal Singh has been a farmer for as long as he can remember. And that’s as long as India has been independent. He recalls his childhood when his family depended on rain for irrigation. “We grew arhar (red gram), bajra...

Hydrodollars-in-spate may choke off the artery to a whole region    On August 11, the theatre of the absurd came to Tezu, headquarters of the Lohit district in Arunachal Pradesh. A public hearing, as required by environment laws, was organised that day to discuss with the locals the impact of the 1,750 MW Lower Demwe dam, being built by Athena Power Pvt Ltd. It was notable for its meaninglessness, since the...

KEY TRENDS    • Extreme temperature shocks reduce farmer incomes by 4.3 percent and 4.1 percent during kharif and rabi respectively, whereas extreme rainfall shocks reduce incomes by 13.7 percent and 5.5 percent *&    • It is estimated that to cover 50 percent (5 million ha) of the total acreage under rice-wheat cropping system (RWCS) in India, about 60000 Turbo Happy Seeders and 30000 super SMS fitted combines will be required; at present, there are only about 3000...