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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Chhatradi: Thirty-Six Spring Fountains of the Ravi
“If you really want to see Panihars, you should visit Chhatradi” says the shy Aditya. He is 15 years old and studies in class X. We are standing on a busy and dusty bridge across a tributary of Ravi in Chamba, Himachal Pradesh. Beside us is the legendary Fulmutala spring fountain (Panihar). Hundreds of people come here every evening to collect cool and clear drinking water. Most have piped water supply in their homes but insist that waters of Fulmutala are peerless. Spring Fountains are a way of life in the Ravi Basin. And yet, very little is said about these beautiful places bringing together groundwater, rivers, ecology and culture.
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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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DRP 230326: Small Hydro environment friendly and help community development?
(Feature Image: Priyadarshini Small HEP on Manuni khad in Kangra, Himachal Pradesh damaged after flash flood in June 2025. At least 8 workers of the project were also killed in the disaster. Image Source: Gems of Himachal, post on X.)
The impression being given through the following PIB Press Release dated March 18 2026 that this scheme cleared by the Union Cabinet to promote small hydropower projects will promote environment friendly and socio-economically beneficial projects in North East and other hilly areas is incorrect and misleading.
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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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2025: People’s Resistance Against Hydro Projects in Himalaya
The local communities have continued their collective resistance against destructive hydro power (HEP) projects in North East and North West Himalayan states in India all through 2025. The ACT in Sikkim has condemned the EAC decision to rebuild the washed-out Teesta III dam. The SIFF along with dependent villagers and concerned citizen groups have opposed the forceful deployment of armed forces for SUMP surveys in Siang river basin.
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Dec 2025: Vishnugad Pipalkoti HEP Tunnel Accident in Uttarakhand
(Feature Image: Screen shot of FB video report on Vishnugad Pipalkoti HEP tunnel accident)
Collision between two loco trains inside the tunnel of Vishnugad Pipalkoti HEP in Uttarakhand around 9.30 pm on Dec 30 2025 has left over 60 workers injured. The accident occurred during change in work shift about 7km inside the tunnel near the tunnel boring machine (TBM). About 109 workers were working inside the 13km long tunnel at the time of the accident. The trains are deployed to transport the workers. The 444 Mw project is being built by Tehri Hydro Development Corporation (THDC) on Alaknanda river in Chamoli district. The construction work is going on since 2013-14.
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