Western Himalayas

The Himalayan states - are they India's crown jewels or distant cousins?
People in India revere the Himalayas but most may not know much about its people. A common platform to highlight issues that the mountain peoples face is the need of the hour.
Chicu Lokgariwar
Pushkin Phartiyal
Posted on 04 Jul, 2013 10:25 AM

Left, right, up, down...bump, bump, bump! That was me… being thrown about on all sides of the jeep that I was in. No, I wasn’t off-roading! I was on an investigative mission to Pinrow, a village in Nainital district, Uttarakhand from my home. I was investigating the impact of the state government's push for 100% of child births to happen in the hospitals.
Nandadevi at sunrise
Uttarakhand - ravaged by God or Governance?
We've blamed nature and we've blamed God, but who's really to blame for the lack of understanding of a region's characteristics and poorly-planned 'development'?
Chicu Lokgariwar
Ravleen Kaur
Posted on 26 Jun, 2013 07:23 AM

If you thought that Uttarakhand was a land populated solely by tourists, I wouldn’t blame you. After all, that’s been the focus of the media in relation to who’s been affected by the recent floods – pilgrims at the Char Dhams and at Hemkund Sahib. The numbers are staggering, no doubt.
House washed away by the Uttarakhand floods
Celebrating Uttarakhand
The Uttarakhand Himalayas are home to several small but significant attempts by locals to conserve the region's forest and water resources.
Ramesh Pahari
Sacchidanand Bharti
Prabhat Upreti
Puran Bhist
Shekhar Pathak
Posted on 17 Jun, 2013 05:14 PM

Throughout history, the Uttarakhand Himalayas have been a source of timber and water to the rest of the nation. However, this has led to severe depletion of resources in the state. Today, the mountain communities find it hard to meet their basic needs of fodder, fuel and water.
Soil and water conservation rejuvenates forests
Book review - ‘Conserving resources in the Himalayas’
The Himalayas, rich in natural resources is now under stress due to overuse. These 21 essays contain information about conservation efforts made in the region, especially Uttarakand.
Kaushal Kumar Sharma
S.K. Bandooni
V.S. Negi
Posted on 09 Jun, 2013 07:29 AM

Uttarakhand is blessed with an immense amount of natural resources such as forests, wildlife and water, but if you are looking for some research-based information that quantifies, classifies and organizes this information, there isn’t much out there.
A man tries to beat out a wildfire in pine forest
Offer of grant progamme for journalists - The Himalayan Climate Change Adaptation Programme (HICAP)
The HICAP grant programme seeks to encourage journalists from the Hindu Kush Himalayan region to report on climate change across the five sub-basins
Posted on 29 May, 2013 09:20 AM

HICAP

Organiser details
Call for participation- Digital Photo Contest on 'Water and Life', ICIMOD , June 5, 2013
A photo contest on the theme of ‘Water and Life' celebrates ICIMOD's 30th anniversary. It also coincides with the United Nation’s International Year of Water Cooperation 2013.
Posted on 12 May, 2013 11:56 AM

A village creates magic…and a river!
Sukha Raula (dry ravine) to Gad Ganga – the transformation in Ufrenkhal
Chicu Lokgariwar
Sacchidanand Bharti
Posted on 30 Apr, 2013 09:23 AM

Ufrenkhal – the village
Driving towards Ufrenkhal, a village in Pauri Garhwal (Uttarakhand), I see a lush, green mountain covered with deodar, banj and utees trees. Little did I realize that this diverse and dense forest, which is alive with wildlife, is very new. 40 years ago, this vast area was a firing range!
Ufrenkhal in Uttarakhand
"Integrate understanding of hydro-geology into planning of watershed management programmes" - A report on the training workshop on groundwater management in the Himalayas, organized by People’s Science Institute, in December 2012 at Dehradun
Ever wondered why there is so much fuss about groundwater getting scarce by the day and its quality deteriorating like never before ? And does the liquid and solid waste that my home releases into the environment everyday influence groundwater ? These questions and many more were answered in a recent training workshop organized by People’s Science Institute, Dehradun from 12th to 22nd December 2012. The training was conducted with the aim of promoting the integration of hydrogeology into mainstream watershed management with a focus on issues of equity, quality and sustainability. This was the third in this series of workshops organized by PSI after December 2011 and June 2012, with the focus on groundwater management in the Himalayan states of India.
India Water Portal
Posted on 15 Jan, 2013 12:38 AM

Why a training on managing groundwater ?
Forced displacement: A gendered analysis of the Tehri dam project, Uttarakhand - An article in EPW
This paper by Vandana Asthana in the Economic and Political Weekly (EPW) examines the lived experiences of displaced women based on the empirical findings of research that looks at women displaced by the construction of the Tehri Dam and their relocation elsewhere.
Vandana Asthana
Posted on 10 Jan, 2013 08:18 PM

This paper by Vandana Asthana in the Economic and Political Weekly (EPW) examines the lived experiences of displaced women based on the empirical findings of research that looks at women displaced by the construction of the Tehri Dam and their relocation elsewhere.

Don't cut my oak trees: A film on afforestation in Uttarakhand by the Himalaya Seva Sangh
"Don't cut my oak trees, they give me water"."We get cool air from them, we get cool water".
"Don't cut my oak trees, they give me water".

So goes the plaintive title song of this short movie. Produced by the Himalaya Seva Sangh, the film on afforestation relies heavily on interviews with Dr.Shekhar Pathak of PAHAR and self-help group members from Mukteshwar, Sunadi, and Indwal.
Himalaya Seva Sangh
Posted on 30 Dec, 2012 07:40 PM

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