India Opens Himalayan Peaks to Foreigners

Foreigners will be allowed to climb nearly 100 high-altitude Himalayan peaks for the first time on the Indian side of Kashmir, an official said Friday. The move by the Indian government to allow foreign climbers follows a significant decline in violence by insurgent groups in the region since India and Pakistan started a peace process in 2004, said Farooq Ahmed Shah, a state tourism official. The move is aimed at helping to boost tourism, an important source of income for Kashmiris and their saucer-shaped valley of fruit orchards, lakes and wildflowers. Before the start of the insurgency by separatists in 1989, hundreds of thousands of tourists flocked to the region — known as the Switzerland of the east — to enjoy the glacier-fed streams flowing through the forests and grasslands or lounge on houseboats floating on Srinagar's Dal Lake.