In an astounding move, NHPC published a Tender Notice for ‘Chenab-Beas Link Tunnel Project (Link 3)’ on the 20th May 2026 [1] and immediately cancelled it on the 23rd May 2026. No details of this project were online before this sudden announcement and its retraction, nor does the project have legally required environmental, forest, tribal ministry clearances or Gram Sabha resolutions in support.
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Panzath Springs Festival: Kashmir’s Living Tradition of Water & Fish Conservation
(Feature Image: An aerial view of the cleaning and fishing festival. Image Source: Awaz The Voice.)
Over time, the Panzath fishing festival has emerged as a remarkable community-led initiative aiming to protect and celebrate the sacred Panzath Naag (springs) in Anantnag district of Jammu & Kashmir. The historical springs have immense cultural value and serve as a potable and irrigation water lifeline for over three dozen villages.
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Raj Naun: Can Stories Save our Springs?
How can we drink this cool water?
For we will see you in it for all our life
Night of atonement, oh girls, oh birds.
~ Sukrat, an elegy for Queen Suhi who was sacrificed for Chamba’s water[1]
Raj Naun, the Royal Fountain House in Chamba is not what I imagined it to be. After reading and thinking about it obsessively for over a year what lies ahead is not a homage to water but a structure in ruins. The Raj Naun has vaulted ceilings, arches and two beautifully carved waterspouts to channel a robust Himalayan spring. But the spouts are dry, the chamber is full of garbage, bottles of alcohol, stacks of firewood, packets of chips lie around. There is that unmissable stench of urine.
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Ravi ka Kinara Kaisa hai? River Ravi through its people
Flowing under many names: Vedic Parushni, Puranic Iravati, Greek Hydraotes, River Ravi is arguably the most storied of the five rivers meeting the Indus.
Ravi’s flow from the glacial heights of Himalayas to the fertile plains of Punjab has been embellished in songs and stories for centuries. Heth Vage Ravi Dariya or “Below flows the River Ravi” is a ubiquitous phrase in songs and poems.[1] On the banks of Ranjit Sagar Dam on Ravi, Manbhavan Singh Kahlon, himself a poet-activist muses, “We Punjabis have always written poetry around our rivers. Perhaps even too much, I sometimes think. But most of Ravi’s poetry has been left back in Pakistan.” Pakistan, on the other hand, thinks most of Ravi’s water has been left back in India.
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Jhelum and Pashmina: A River Woven into a Shawl
“Quae loca fabulosus lambit Hydaspes“
What places the magnificent Jhelum washes!
Ode 1.22, Horace, Circa 3rd BC[i]
With these lines begins M. Aurel Stein’s authoritative Ancient Geography of Kashmir, written in 1899.[ii] Stein was deeply smitten by Kashmir and its rivers and was the first to translate Kalhana’s epic Rajatarangini—literally River of the Kings—into English[iii].
Jhelum—or Behat, Vyeth, Vitasta, Hydaspes—has indeed washed some legendary places like Srinagar, Baramulla, Anantnag and Sopore. But it has also “washed” something very particular, something that is as much the fruit of the Jhelum as it is of Kashmir itself: the feather-light Pashmina shawl.
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Gaddis: Storytellers of the Ravi Basin
As we stood on a ridge near the Lakke Wali Mata shrine, a tributary of the Ravi roared below in a deep gorge. Across it rose a shaded, Devdar (Himalayan Cedar)-covered mountain slope, etched by a steep brown trail. As we stood there observing the headwaters of Ravi, we noticed that the trail was moving.
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The Day Salun Village Fell: Impacts of Cascading Hydropower Projects in the Ravi Basin
Salun village, perched roughly 50 feet above the Ravi River, had its moment of fame on the 26th August 2025 — a moment that also became its last. On the dark, rainy afternoon, the small village with homes, rajma fields, apple orchards and cattle sheds collapsed into the flooded River Ravi like a house of cards. In a matter of 30 minutes, ancestral homes with warm hearths, blankets for the coming winter, old report cards and wedding albums, adhar cards and bankbooks-entire archives of living-were erased. Villagers, who managed to escape in time stood in awe and saw their village going extinct before their eyes.
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DRP 010925: Punjab floods need independent inquiry
(Feature Image: Punjab WRD minister Barinder Kumar Goyal asserted that the timely release of water by the BBMB in June could have significantly reduced the damage caused by the floods.)
It is clear from the following details that the massive floods that Punjab experienced and parts continue to experience even now has a lot to do with the way Bhakra, Pong and Ranjit Sagar dams were operated. There was sufficient actionable information that was available to take advance water release action. Had these actions been taken, the proportions of the disaster could have been reduced. The risk of further floods remains considering the IMD forecast of heavy rains in catchments of these dams during the remaining weeks of SW Monsoon 2025.
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Aug 2025: Ravi Flood Damages Madhopur Barrage Gates in Punjab
(Feature Image: 2 gates of the Madhopur Barrage washed away on Aug 27, flooding parts of Pathankot & Gurdaspur.)
A severe flood spell in Ravi river has damaged at least three flood gates of Madhopur barrage in Pathankot district of Punjab. The incident occurred in the evening of Aug 27, 2025 amid an effort to open the jammed gates of the barrage. The situation became critical after 2.12 lakh cusecs of water discharged from the upstream Ranjit Sagar Dam (RSD) dangerously increased the flood level at the barrage on Aug. 26.
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Himachal Pradesh: Why CWC’s Forecasting is Unavailable Amidst Flood Disaster?
(Feature Image: Screenshot of inactive hydrograph for Solang station on Beas river in Mandi district. Source: CWC Flood Forecast website)
Despite disastrous flood events causing significant destruction to human lives and infrastructures for past three years, the state of Himachal Pradesh has not seen much required improvements in flood monitoring and forecast servicesby the Central Water Commission’s (CWC) to help minimize the destruction toll.
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SANDRP 