India, July 3 -- In August 2025, a wall of mud and debris swept through Dharali in Uttarkashi. The cause: a moraine-dammed glacial lake, swollen by retreating ice and relentless monsoon rain, had burst its banks. Four lives were lost; fifty remained missing. It was not an anomaly. It was one installment in an accelerating pattern that demands a rethink of how India develops its mountains.

There is no denying the starkness of the figures. In the past two decades, glacial melting has nearly doubled in the Hindu Kush Himalaya region, with the area experiencing a 12 per cent decline in glacial cover between 1990 and 2020 (ICIMOD, 2026). There has been a 21 per cent decrease in glacial cover in the Ganga Basin, an icy shield that supports ove...