Nepal, May 16 -- The first edition of the Sagarmatha Sambaad - the foreign ministry's flagship dialogue initiative - kicks off in Kathmandu today (16th May). The three-day summit will focus on the existential issue of our time - Climate Change, Mountains and the Future of Humanity. This could be taken as an opportunity to separate the Himalayas from revenue generation activities.

The Himalayas have the most extensive ice reserve outside the Polar Regions, with over a billion people in the downstream basins, such as, Brahmaputra, Ganges and the Indus depending entirely on their waters for drinking, irrigation, and hydroelectric energy. The glaciers in the Himalayas are rapidly retreating, and the volume of ice is declining at a striking r...