To beat harsh winters, Indian army looks to passive solar heating in Ladakh

With the mercury dipping to minus 20 degrees Celsius or lower during winter nights, and about minus 5 degrees Celsius at night during March and April, it becomes impossible to live without heating

Ladakh accounts for more than two-thirds of the land area of the Indian state of Jammu & Kashmir. As a high altitude cold desert, though, it hosts only about 5% of the state’s population. It does, though, host a large number of Indian Army personnel, as Ladakh is where two of the longest unresolved border disputes in the world – between India and China to the east, and between India and Pakistan to the west – are still ongoing. As a result, the Indian Army has to transport a very large amount of fuel to keep its soldiers warm in