Close X
Friday, November 1, 2024
ADVT 
India

World's 'Highest' Village In Spiti Valley Runs Dry As Global Warming Hits The Himalayas

Darpan News Desk IANS, 01 Aug, 2017 01:29 PM
    With a backdrop of the snow-capped Himalayas stretched out across a vibrant blue sky, it is hard to dispute the sign as you enter Komik that declares it to be the world's highest village with a road.
     
     
    Others also boast the title — from Nepal's Dho Tarap to Bolivia's Santa Barbara. But at 4,587 metre (15,050 ft), this remote Buddhist hamlet near India's border with Tibet is no doubt among the planet's topmost motorable human settlements.
     
     
    Yet despite its coveted status, life is harsh for the 130 residents of Komik, a quaint collection of whitewashed mud-and-stone houses located in the desolate Spiti Valley.
     
     
    The region is a cold trans-Himalayan desert cut off from the rest of India for six months of the year when snowfall blocks mountain passes. Phone and internet connectivity is almost non-existent. Schools and clinics are a tough trek away.
     
     
    But Spiti's some 12,000 inhabitants, who eke out a living farming green peas and barley, have a much bigger concern: their main sources of water — streams, rivers, ponds — are drying up.
     
     
    "We are used to being in a remote place. We have our traditional ways of living," said farmer Nawang Phunchok, 32, as he sat tying bundles of a prickly desert bush together to insulate the local monastery's roof.
     
     
    "But these days the water is not coming like it used to. The seasons are changing. We see there is less water than before." There is little doubt India is facing a water crisis.
     
     
    Decades of over-extraction of ground water, wasteful and inefficient irrigation practices, pollution of surface water like lakes and rivers, and erratic weather patterns attributed to climate change, have left many parts of the country thirsty.
     
     
    But while government, charities and media increasingly focus on the drought-stricken farmers in the plains, their Himalayan counterparts — ironically living in a region often called the "Water Towers of Asia" — also need help, say conservationists.

    MORE India ARTICLES

    12-year-old girl gang-raped, filmed in Uttar Pradesh's Barabanki

    12-year-old girl gang-raped, filmed in Uttar Pradesh's Barabanki
    A 12-year-old girl was allegedly abducted and gang-raped at a village here, with the accused men also filming the act on their mobile phone, police said on Friday.

    12-year-old girl gang-raped, filmed in Uttar Pradesh's Barabanki

    UP Highway Horror: Preliminary Medical Report Rules Out Gang Rape Of Four Women

    UP Highway Horror: Preliminary Medical Report Rules Out Gang Rape Of Four Women
    Gautam Budh Nagar Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Luv Kumar on Friday said that no proof of rape has been found in the medical reports of the Jewar-Bulandshahr highway gang-rape victims.

    UP Highway Horror: Preliminary Medical Report Rules Out Gang Rape Of Four Women

    Congress Leader Shashi Tharoor Files Defamation Case Against Republic TV's Arnab Goswami

    Congress Leader Shashi Tharoor Files Defamation Case Against Republic TV's Arnab Goswami
     The Lok Sabha MP from Thiruvananthapuram has also sought a direction from the high court to restrain the TV channel from broadcasting any show relating to the death of his wife till the investigation is completed by the Delhi Police.

    Congress Leader Shashi Tharoor Files Defamation Case Against Republic TV's Arnab Goswami

    Arvind Kejriwal To Visit Punjab On May 29

    Arvind Kejriwal To Visit Punjab On May 29
    Delhi Chief Minister and AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal is set to visit Punjab on May 29 to meet party leaders and volunteers, over two months after the party received a drubbing in the Punjab Assembly polls.

    Arvind Kejriwal To Visit Punjab On May 29

    Woman Caught Selling Child For Rs. 1 Lakh In Maharashtra's Palghar

    Woman Caught Selling Child For Rs. 1 Lakh In Maharashtra's Palghar
    The police sent a decoy customer to buy the three-year-old child from the accused, who was then caught while accepting the money.

    Woman Caught Selling Child For Rs. 1 Lakh In Maharashtra's Palghar

    2 Sisters, Along With Their Young Children, Commit Suicide By Jumping Before Train

    2 Sisters, Along With Their Young Children, Commit Suicide By Jumping Before Train
    The women, married to two brothers in Dharmpuri village in Alwar's Rajgarh town, had left their house early in the morning after a dispute with their husbands' parents

    2 Sisters, Along With Their Young Children, Commit Suicide By Jumping Before Train