New Delhi, March 3 -- Srinagar: In Srinagar's Safa Kadal, Nazir Ahmad Parray, a 65-year-old Kashmiri embroidery dealer, remembers winters when snow piled high on rooftops and lingered until March.

This year, February felt more like May. The sun is shining bright and the ground is dry. "We grew up playing in the snow," he says. "Now, we do not wait for snow to play. We wait for electricity. When snowfall is less, the canals run low and the hydropower plants slow down. That means more power cuts for us."

With climate change triggering consecutive snowless winters and declining precipitation in Jammu and Kashmir, the strain on the region's hydropower sector is growing, exposing the risks facing an energy economy built on snow-fed rivers. ...