செவ்வாய், 2 ஜூலை, 2013

THE HIMALAYAN TSUNAMI

             ANOTHER CASE STUDY IN INDIAN HISTORY

STOP PLAY WITH NATURE



On February 26, 2013, a division bench of the Uttarakhand High Court in Nainital ordered the removal of structures built illegally within 200 metres of the Ganga embankment. Although pertaining only to a small section of the river controlled by the Haridwar Development Authority, Chief Justice Barin Ghosh and Justice Aloke Singh's succinct directions were clearly nudging the Vijay Bahuguna government to act against thousands of similar constructions along the banks and on the flood plains of the state's restless rivers. "Nothing was done,"  laments Roorkee resident Dinesh Bhardwaj, whose petition in 2000 had prompted the court's intervention.

Three-and-a-half months later, the rivers swelled furiously to finish the job. On June 16, Ganga, Yamuna, Bhagirathi, Alaknanda and Mandakini cleansed their own banks, sweeping away more than 100 small hotels, according to the Uttarakhand Hotels & Restaurants Association. The other structures-precariously positioned vacation villas belonging to the elite from Delhi and Mumbai, tourist lodges, pilgrim dharamshalas, roadside tea stalls, dhabas, and homes-will only be counted when the roads wrecked by the angry rivers are finally rebuilt.

Mountains exploited for profithave become increasingly prone to landslides over the last decade.



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