While the Himalayas steadily melt away and apple farming shifts to higher altitudes, the Indian government remains silent on the state of Himalayan glaciers and snow cover. 

An October 2009 report on Himalayan glaciers, details how Indian Himalayan glaciers are not melting at the rate projected in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports. 

The report challenges internationally-accepted views that the Himalayan glaciers are receding due to climate change. Its concluding remarks suggest “glaciers in the Himalayas, although shrinking in volume and constantly showing a retreating front, have not in any way exhibited, especially in recent years, an abnormal annual retreat…”. The report awaits ‘many centuries’ of data to conclude that glacier snout movements are a result of ‘periodic climate variation’, but still uses 'recent years' as an indicator of change. Something climate science does not do.

While the report came under fire from scientists studying the issue, who said it has completely missed out peer-reviewed scientific literature post-1980 – the period after which climate change became recognized as a serious issue, there has been no acknowledgment of the same by the Indian Government. 

To melt or not to melt