Brief by Shorts91 Newsdesk / 10:49am on 15 Dec 2025,Monday India
A nuclear-powered listening device lost in the Himalayas 60 years ago may threaten the Ganga River. In 1965, the CIA and India's Intelligence Bureau placed a plutonium-fueled radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) atop Nanda Devi to monitor China's nuclear program during the Cold War. Caught in a blizzard, the team cached the device; it vanished by the next season, likely buried by avalanche. A 1978 survey found no contamination but couldn't locate the RTG. The concern: Nanda Devi's glaciers feed the Ganga, serving hundreds of millions downstream. Experts fear accelerating glacier melt could eventually expose the device, potentially releasing radioactive material into the sacred river system.(PC: India Today)
