About Ladakh

About Ladakh

Ladakh which was recently a part a part of Jammu and Kashmir is now a Union Territory of India. Now, the largest Union Territory of India is Ladakh. It covers an area of 59146 sq.km.

Ladakh is an area administered by India as a union territory, and constituting part of the bigger area of Kashmir, which has been the topic of dispute between India, Pakistan, and China since 1947. It’s bordered by the Chinese Tibet Autonomous Area to the east, the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh to the south, both the Indian union territory of Jammu and Kashmir and the Pakistan-administered Gilgit-Baltistan to the west, and the southwest nook of Xinjiang throughout the Karakoram Move within the far north. It extends from the Siachen Glacier within the Karakoram vary to the north to the primary Himalayas to the south. The japanese finish, consisting of the uninhabited Aksai Chin plains, is claimed by the Indian Authorities as a part of Ladakh, and has been beneath Chinese management since 1962. Till 2019, Ladakh was an area of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. In August 2019, the Parliament passed an act, as per which, from 31 October’19, Ladakh became a union territory of India.

About Ladakh: Economy

Prior to now Ladakh gained significance from its strategic location on the crossroads of essential commerce routes, however for the reason that Chinese authorities closed the borders between Tibet Autonomous Area and Ladakh within the 1960s, worldwide commerce has dwindled aside from tourism. Since 1974, the Authorities of India has efficiently inspired tourism in Ladakh. Since Ladakh is part of the strategically essential Kashmir area, the Indian army maintains a powerful presence within the area.

The most important city in Ladakh is Leh, adopted by Kargil, every of which headquarters a district. The Leh district comprises the Indus, Shyok and Nubra river valleys. The Kargil district comprises the Suru, Dras and Zanskar river valleys. The main populated areas are the river valleys, however the mountain slopes additionally assist the pastoral Changpa nomads. In distinction to the neighbouring Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh has a non-Muslim majority. The primary non secular teams within the area are Muslims (primarily Shia) (46%), Tibetan Buddhists (40%), Hindus (12%) and others (2%). Ladakh is likely one of the most sparsely populated areas in India. As its tradition and historical past are carefully associated to that of Tibet, it is called the “Little Tibet”.

There may be about 1,800 km (1,100 mi) of roads in Ladakh of which 800 km (500 mi) are surfaced. The vast majority of roads in Ladakh are sorted by the Border Roads Organisation. Kushok Bakula Rimpochee Airport

Main Airport of Ladakh is in Leh, Kushok Bakula Rimpochee Airport, from which there are day by day flights to Delhi and weekly flights to Srinagar and Jammu. There are two airstrips at Daulat Beg Oldie and Fukche for army transport. The airport at Kargil, Kargil Airport, was meant for civilian flights however is at present is utilized by the Indian Military. The airport is a political challenge for the locals who argue that the airport ought to serve its authentic objective, i.e., ought to open up for civilian flights. Since the previous few years the Indian Air Drive has been working AN-32 air courier service to move the locals through the winter seasons to Jammu, Srinagar and Chandigarh.^[88][89] A personal airplane firm Air Mantra landed a 17-seater plane on the airport, in presence of dignitaries just like the Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, marking the primary ever touchdown by a civilian airline firm at Kargil Airport.

About Ladakh: Cuisine

Ladakhi meals has a lot in frequent with Tibetan meals, essentially the most distinguished meals being thukpa (noodle soup) and tsampa, identified in Ladakhi as ngampe (roasted barley flour). Edible with out cooking, tsampa makes helpful trekking meals. A dish that’s strictly Ladakhi is skyu, a heavy pasta dish with root greens. As Ladakh strikes towards a cash-based economic system, meals from the plains of India have gotten extra frequent. As in different components of Central Asia, tea in Ladakh is historically made with robust inexperienced tea, butter, and salt. It’s blended in a big churn and often known as gurgur cha, after the sound it makes when blended. Candy tea (cha ngarmo) is frequent now, made within the Indian model with milk and sugar. Many of the surplus barley that’s produced is fermented into chang, an alcoholic beverage drunk particularly on festive events.

About Ladakh: Music and dance

Dancer in masked dance pageant

The music of Ladakhi Buddhist monastic festivals, like Tibetan music, typically includes non secular chanting in Tibetan as an integral part of the faith. These chants are advanced, typically recitations of sacred texts or in celebration of varied festivals. Yang chanting, carried out with out metrical timing, is accompanied by resonant drums and low, sustained syllables. Non secular masks dances are an essential a part of Ladakh’s cultural life. Hemis monastery, a number one centre of the Drukpa custom of Buddhism, holds an annual masked dance pageant, as do all main Ladakhi monasteries. The dances usually narrate a narrative of the struggle between good and evil, ending with the eventual victory of the previous. Weaving is a vital a part of conventional life in Japanese Ladakh. Each men and women weave, on totally different looms.

About Ladakh: Education

Based on the 2001 census, the general literacy rate in Leh District is 62% (72% for males and 50% for females), and in Kargil District 58% (74% for males and 41% for females). Historically there was little or nothing by the use of formal schooling besides within the monasteries. Normally, one son from each household was obliged to grasp the Tibetan script in an effort to learn the holy books.^[18]

The Moravian Mission opened a college in Leh in October 1889, and the Wazir-i Wazarat (ex officio Joint Commissioner with a British officer) of Baltistan and Ladakh ordered that each household with multiple little one ought to ship one among them to highschool. This order met with huge resistance from the native individuals who feared that the youngsters could be pressured to transform to Christianity. The college taught Tibetan, Urdu, English, Geography, Sciences, Nature research, Arithmetic, Geometry and Bible research. It’s nonetheless in existence at the moment. The primary native faculty to supply western schooling was opened by a neighborhood Society known as “Lamdon Social Welfare Society” in 1973. Later, with assist from Dalai Lama and a few worldwide organisations, the varsity, now often known as Lamdon Model Senior Secondary College, has grown to accommodate roughly two thousand pupils in a number of branches. It prides itself on preserving Ladakhi custom and tradition.

Colleges are effectively distributed all through Ladakh however 75% of them present solely major schooling. 65% of youngsters attend faculty, however absenteeism of each college students and lecturers stays excessive. In each districts the failure charge at school-leaving stage (class X) had for a few years been round 85–95%, whereas of these managing to scrape by way of, barely half succeeded in qualifying for faculty entrance (class XII). Earlier than 1993, college students had been taught in Urdu till they had been 14, after which the medium of instruction shifted to English.

In 1994 the College students’ Instructional and Cultural Motion of Ladakh (SECMOL) launched Operation New Hope (ONH), a marketing campaign to supply “culturally acceptable and domestically related schooling” and make authorities colleges extra practical and efficient.

Eliezer Joldan Memorial Faculty, a authorities diploma faculty, allows college students to pursue increased schooling with out having to depart Ladakh.

In December 2019, the union minister of state for dwelling affairs Mr G Kishan Reddy, in a written response has acknowledged in Parliament that the Authorities of India has accepted to ascertain a Medical College within the district of Leh