-Down to Earth The issue is about carrying capacity of the fragile region, which is even more at risk because of climate change The flash flood in high Himalayas, which has claimed lives and wiped out two hydroelectric plants on the Ganga, should be a grim reminder of the mistakes we continue to make. There is no rocket science here about why this devastation happened. The Himalayas are the world’s youngest mountain...

-TheNewsMinute.com Experts say that the narrative that a country must choose between environment and development itself is wrong. Merely days after the fatal landslide in Kerala’s Pettimudi in Idukki district in August last year, the spotlight was back on the Gadgil report on the Western Ghats. The report, submitted to the government of India in 2011, had designated the Pettimudi region among the most sensitive ecological zones in the Western Ghats and...

-CounterCurrents.org The tragedy in Uttarakhand has again highlighted the extreme vulnerability of dam workers who toil often in very hazardous conditions in very remote parts of the country, away from public gaze. In particular the hazards faced by workers are very serious at several dam construction locations in the Himalayan Region. While better safety conditions for dam workers are needed everywhere, this need is particularly acute in the Himalayan Region. In recent...

-The Tribune A rare incident, they say; temperatures rising in the Hindu-Kush Himalayan Region Experts are citing climate change as the reason behind the flood caused by a glacier breaking off in Uttarakhand, a “rare incident” by any measure according to them. Prima facie this looks very much like a climate change event as the glaciers are melting due to global warming, says Anjal Prakash, the lead author of the ongoing 6th Assessment...

-The Indian Express Scientists say these large concentrations of earthquakes are “release of stress’’ building up in the region and that in the near future, there is likelihood of an earthquake of high magnitude in the region. About 45 km from the new Kailash Mansarovar road, connecting Dharchula in Uttarakhand to Lipu Lekh on the China border, scientists at Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology have unearthed large concentrations of micro and moderate...