| Saturday, January 12, 2008 10:08 [IST] | |
Gangtok: Sikkim, comprising 0.5 per cent of India's landmass, has 84 glaciers, the largest number as compared to any other state or union territory. The present number of glaciers at 84,with the mapping exercise still underway to find about out more ice caps in the state has grown by about four times over the past six years as the figure of glaciers stood at 21 at that time, a senior scientist of the science and technology department, which has been carrying out mapping of the glaciers and other landscapes of the state, told PTI. The glaciers have been mapped by using remote sensing application system and capturing data through satellite, he said. The rise in the number of glaciers belied the impact of the global warming phenomena in this region with the scientist pointing out that the impact of global warming has never been a factor in the climate of the border state with the state being landlocked and surrounded by the mountainous landscape on all sides. While most of the glaciers are found in the north district, the Zemu glacier in West Sikkim, which lies in a u-shape, is the largest such ice cap with an ice mass spread over 26 km, he said. The department has plans to map the lakes and forest cover of the state through remote sensing application system, besides sending a team to the interior parts of the state to collect information on the number of glaciers, lakes and forests, the scientist said. The state government had set up a nine-member commission under the leadership of a scientist, T S Singh, last year to find out the impact of global warming phenomena on the topography of the mountains. Source : PTI | |
By Seira Tamang As noted by various scholars, Hinduism, the Nepali language, the monarchy and a rastriya itihas (a chronicle of progress in which the dark era of Rana rule is contrasted with the enlightened, progressive and modern period of Panchayat rule) formed the core of the Panchayat regime’s national culture. The formation and consolidation of this national culture have required the expunging of uncomfortable facts and stories that might raise ambiguities and questions. While the selection of what and who is and is not acknowledged to exist (or at least exist in historically important ways) in official Nepali history is complex, social scientists have begun to provide more comprehensive historical accounts of the past through oral histories and re-readings of historical documents. Such accounts reveal how ordinary people lived in the past, and offer ways to think through how ‘history’ is crafted, shaped and managed in order to reflect ‘the reality’ best suited to the status quo, ...
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