PM to inaugurate Sindhu festival today

By Gargi Parsai

LEH, JUNE 6 The Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, is arriving in Leh tomorrow by a special flight to inaugurate the three-day long Sindhu festival. He will be accompanied by the Home Minister, Mr. L.K. Advani, the Defence Minister, Mr. George Fernandes, the Tourism and Culture Minister, Mr. Ananth Kumar, and the Minister of State for Civil Aviation, Mr. Chamanlal Gupta, among others.

Large contingents of the Army, the Indo-Tibetan Border Police and the Jammu and Kashmir Police, have been commissioned to ensure that the function runs smoothly.

The Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister, Dr. Farooq Abdullah, is personally supervising the security arrangements. A helipad has been constructed on the banks of Sindhu for the Prime Minister's copter to land. Indian Airlines is operating special chartered flights, in addition to the daily Alliance Air service. Mr. Vajpayee will lay the foundation stone of the Cultural-cum- Tourist Centre of the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council here and of a Central Institute of Buddhist Studies at Shey, about 15 km from Leh, on the banks of Sindhu.

A joint reception committee has been formed comprising representatives from the Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, Muslim and Christian communities to showcase the ``truly national integration'' flavour of the festival. The Ministry of Tourism has taken special measures on the eve of the function . The tour agencies are offering Kargil and the Buddhist festival of Hemis as added attractions. After the post-Kargil lull, tourism season has started picking up. Groups of foreign tourists have started arriving.

The first group to arrive was from Europe. According to Ms. Fatima Begum, the Managing-Director of the Jammu and Kashmir Tourism's Caravan Hotel here, the season promises to be busy. There have been package bookings from groups in Germany, Spain, France and the United Kingdom at A-class hotels.

The favourite spots in this picturesque region are the monasteries, the Leh Palace, and Khandangla, the higher motorable road in the world. Of course, trekking on the Himalayas is an added attraction.

At a height of 11,500 feet, with night temperatures falling to 6 degrees centigrade, tourists and the visitors from the plains have been advised to `go slow' during the first 24 hours to acclimatise to the low oxygen levels. Doctors have been deputed to monitor the tourists' health.

One of the longest rivers in the world-comparable to the Nile, the Tigris-Euphrates and Hwang Ho-Yang Tse Kyang- the Sindhu is written about in the Rig Veda and is as such a part of India's long civilisation.

Rising in South Western Tibet, at an altitude of 16,000 feet, the trans-Himalayan Sindhu or Indus enters the Indian territory at Demchhok near Leh and after traversing a large chunk of Ladakh flows down to Pakistan. After flowing 11 miles beyond Leh, Sindhu is joined by its first tributary, Zanskar, which helps green the Zanskar valley.

When it enters the plains, Sindhu is joined by its famous five tributaries-the Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas and Sutlej.

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