India: The Indian offer of jointly re-measuring the height of Mt Everest, in the aftermath of the dreadful 2015 earthquake in Nepal that lead to speculations in the scientific community that height of the world’s highest peak is gradually diminishing, has been rejected by Nepal.
Although, Nepal has stated that it will seek assistance in exchange of crucial data from both India and China. As per some policy analysts in New Delhi, China could have been behind this move of Nepal because Mt Everest is situated at the border between Nepal and China. But Nepal has made it clear and put all Indian reservations at rest by stating that it intends to carry out the exercise on its own, without either Indian or Chinese involvement.
“They have not responded to our proposal. Now they are saying that they are not involving either India or China. They will be re-measuring Mt Everest on their own,” Major Gen Girish Kumar, the Surveyor General of India, told PTI.
At the Geospatial World Forum in January 2017, Dr. Swarna Subba Rao, then Surveyor General of India, said that India would soon re-measure the height of Mount Everest.
“We are sending an expedition to Mount Everest. Everest height was declared, if I remember correctly, in 1855,” Dr. Rao said. “Many others also measured it. But the height given by the Survey of India, even today, is taken as the correct height. It is 29,028 feet. We are re-measuring it.”
Mt Everest, which is known by different local names by both Nepalese and Chinese, is named after Sir George Everest, the first Surveyor General of India, who first measured its height and established that it is the world’s highest peak.
In 1955 India again measured the height of the Mt Everest while China measured it in 1975 and latest in 2005.
