THE HIMALAYAN UNIVERSE

Climate Change Impact in Jomsom of Mustang District It is an old news, but in an attempt to compile all the stories on climate change impacts in the Himalayas, the news article form Everest Journal.com is provided below:   Fright of climate change and its effects is making life of alpine people a nightmare. People of Mustang have also been experiencing terrible nightmares due to the effects of climate change in their livelihood and economy lately. Fluctuation of temperature and irregular pattern of rain and snowfall has severely affected the lives of Mustang. Mustang’s popular apple farming is on the edge of extermination due to no rainfall and no snowfall in the valley for an entire year. Due to increase in temperature, house flies and mosquitoes are plentiful nowadays while some years before they were rarely found. Locals are facing shortage of water because of rapid evaporation and water sources drying up drastically. Not only the Jomsom and lower Mustang, but even VDCs of ...

Washington, DC - NASA and the U.S. Agency for International Development have expanded their successful collaboration with international partners to launch an innovative, web-based environmental management system for the Himalaya region. The partners inaugurated this state-of-the-art regional monitoring system, known as SERVIR-Himalaya, at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development in Kathmandu, Nepal on Oct. 5. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and USAID's Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Bureau for Economic Growth, Agriculture and Trade Michael Yates attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony in Nepal. SERVIR features web-based access to satellite imagery, decision-support tools and interactive visualization capabilities, and puts previously inaccessible information into the hands of scientists, environmental managers, and decision-makers. The Earth observation information is used to address threats related to climate change, biodiversity, and extreme ...

Lin Ostrom did research on community based institutions developed to manage common pool resources, specially irrigation system and forestry in Nepal in 90s. I had chance to work with her briefly, and learned at that time it is the hard work, dilligence, observation, analysis, love and human response were wrought in her heart. She woke up at 3am every morning and started writing. The below paragraph is just a copy and paste from wikipedia.org, the link is given at the end. I will write my experience with her in another blog. In the mean time, entire internet is flooded with the news of her geting Nobel Prize for Economic Science. Just google "Elinor Ostrom" you will get plenty! Thank you In 2009, Ostrom became the first woman to receive the prestigious Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences cited Ostrom "for her analysis of economic governance," saying her work had demonstrated how common property could be successfully manage...

A great article on Mapping from recent issue of The Economist Source: The Economist Mapping a better world Jun 4th 2009 From The Economist print edition Software: Interest groups around the world are using mapping tools and internet-based information sources to campaign for change CONVINCING people about the evils of housing segregation can be tough, says Barbara Samuels, a campaigner for fair housing at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Maryland. “People say, ‘What’s so bad about living in an all-black neighbourhood?’ ” she explains. But using a map that displays all the vacant houses in a segregated neighbourhood, how few jobs exist there and how little public transport is available, “you can show graphically how people are segregated from opportunity,” she says. “Maps help you take complex information and portray it in a clear, intuitive manner. You can show segregation in a way that talking about it doesn’t do.” And compiling such maps is much easier than it used to be, ...

Physics solves problems: Nobel laureate Klitzing German Nobel Prize winner Klaus Bohn Klitzing said has physics has been able to solve many problems world has faced and is facing today and expressed hope that international conference of physics in Nepal would ‘contribute to good international connection’ on scientific researches. German Nobel Prize winner Klaus Bohn Klitzing addressing the conference. nepalnews.com/rm German Nobel Prize winner Klaus Bohn Klitzing addressing the ... Addressing the international conference on physics organised by Nepal Physics Society in Kathmandu Tuesday, Klitzing said moral science and education play an important role for the development of a modern country which is integrated with the international community. In his inaugural address to the conference, President Dr Ram Baran Yadav said application of the methods of physics is essential for eradication of poverty, adding that studies of science, being interwoven with human society, cannot be isolated. ...

NASA Satellite Detects large scale forest fires in Nepal On March 12, 2009, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite caught a glimpse of a relatively rare event: large–scale forest fires in the Himalaya Mountains of Nepal. Places where the sensor detected active fires are outlined in red. The numerous small fires in southern Nepal may not be wildfires, but rather agricultural or other land-management fires. The image is centered on Nepal, and it shows the towering Himalaya Mountains arcing through the small country. Many national parks and conservation areas are located along the northern border of the country, and the fires appear to be burning in or very near some of them. Five people were killed by the forest fire southwest of Annapurna in early March; according to a news report they were overtaken while in the forest gathering firewood. According to that report, Nepal commonly experiences some small forest fires each spring, which is the en...

Satellite built by Indian university to be launched in ISRO’s next flight Anna University becomes first Indian university to send satellite onboard ISRO PSLV Bibhu Ranjan Mishra / Bangalore February 17, 2009, 12:35 IST For the first time in the history of Indian space research, a satellite developed by a university in India will be launched by Indian Space Research Institute (ISRO) during the next flight of the polar satellite launch vehicle (PSLV). The launch vehicle tentatively scheduled for launch in March-April this year, will carry a small remote sensing satellite completely developed and fabricated by Chennai-based Anna University, sources in ISRO said. Christened Anusat, the 35-kg micro satellite developed by the students and researchers of Anna University with some hand-holding from ISRO satellite centre in Bangalore, will be an additional payload in the PSLV flight which will launch Risat, a radar imaging satellite from the Sriharikota spaceport. The high-resolution pictures ...