Himalayan glaciers in India are melting, which is one of many impacts of climate change the country is facing.
Water scarcity may also threaten India's agriculture sector - with crop production expected to drop with rising temperatures.For more financial news, go to the From prime ministers and millionaires to labourers and ascetics, Hindu faithful dream of trekking at least once in their lives to Gaumukh, where the waters of India's holiest river, the Ganges, emerge from a Himalayan glacier.
Seventy-five years after independence, India has overtaken former coloniser Britain to become the world's fifth-largest economy.Now, it is experiencing increasingly frequent droughts, floods and water shortages."The Ganges is our culture, heritage, identity, and if it disappears, so will our life and existence," said Sanjeev Semwal, 53, a Hindu priest in Gangotri, the town below the glacier.
A glacial burst in the region killed at least 72 people last year, and around 5 000 others died in 2013 when heavy rains led to flooding near another Hindu pilgrimage site.It has 17% of the world's population but only 4% of its water resources, and the government's NITI Aayog public policy centre says about 600 million people already face"high to extreme water stress".
Poverty remains widespread in India and nearly 45% of households do not have piped water connections.
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