-PTI/ The Telegraph Officials say 15,000 stranded pilgrims are shifted to the lower base camp of Panjtarni and 25 injured people are rushed to hospitals Srinagar: The death toll in the flash flood triggered by heavy rain near the Amarnath cave shrine rose to 16 on Saturday as the search continued without a break amid fears that many were still trapped under the debris. Officials said 15,000 stranded pilgrims were shifted to the...

-The Hindu     The catastrophe in the Himalaya is the result of deforestation, unchecked construction of dwellings and large-scale building of big dams A week is a long time in the Himalaya. In the late 1980s, I visited Arunachal Pradesh as a young researcher, with a keen interest in photography. I walked into the middle of the Dibang river, hop skipping over boulders, until my local tribal guide ordered me to return immediately....

Naseema Akhtar, 38, worries that her daily treks to collect clean water from the mountain springs around her village of Bonpora, in Kashmir’s Kupwara district, are getting longer. She is already doing more than seven km every day. "The higher up you go, the cleaner the water is likely to be, but there is a limit to how far one can climb to fetch a pitcher of water," she told IPS....