The reasons behind a spate of forest fires in the hills this year, though, could be multi-fold.
Sources said no vehicles were being allowed to leave Srinagar or Jammu on Friday as about one foot of snow had accumulated near the tunnel at Banihal. They said about 2,000 passengers, besides drivers and conductors of trucks and other vehicles, have been stranded on the highway for the past three days.
Forgot what happened in the week gone by? Here's a quick recap of what took place in 10 images.
Events that shaped the nation in the past 48 hours in images.
K N Prabhu, the doyen of cricket writers, salutes Sunil Manohar Gavaskar, who appeared for the first time in Test cricket 50 years ago today, March 6, 1971.
Rediff.com brings you some images of the Mahatma's statues erected around the globe.
'Today, our vast green pastures where local herders used to take their cattle to graze have been taken over by the Chinese.' 'The people in the Galwan Valley have lost their lands where their cattle used to graze.'
Breathless action is the only script 56-year-old Tom Cruise needs to work on as he jumps off from building to building with an agility and assurance that could put Spider-Man to shame.
The Jammu-Doda and Rajouri-Poonch routes were also closed.
'Both my father and brother are very strong. Their spirit is unbroken,' says Dr Farooq Abdullah's daughter and Omar's sister, Safiya Abdullah Khan.
'Often reviled, mostly ignored, sometimes venerated, he has taken it all in his stride.' 'He has stood by the nation through thick and thin,' says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
Defence Minister A K Anthony and Chief of the Army Staff General J J Singh along with National Security Advisor M K Narayanan were present at the meeting.
Besides Dr Singh, the meeting was attended by Defence Minister A K Antony, Army Chief J J Singh, National Security Advisor M K Narayanan and others.
The bitterness and wounds of the war, which claimed 2,420 Indian Army personnel, seemed to have been forgotten.
Today, the Ladakhis and Tibetans have been joined by the Sikhs, the Madrassis, the Garhwalis, the Rajputs, who are well trained psychologically and otherwise, to defend the nation, observes Claude Arpi.
Catch up on all the stunning images that made the headlines last week
Important for India was Xi's meeting with representatives of PLA officers and soldiers stationed in Tibet. The video of the encounter was interesting to watch, especially the large number of lieutenant generals and major generals, observes Claude Arpi.
India's Apurvi Chandela shot her way to a second successive gold medal and emerged as the 'Shooter of the Tournament' in the Swedish Cup Grand Prix in Savsjo, Sweden. The 23-year-old Chandela shot 208.9 in the final to clinch the top prize in women's 10-metre tri-series event. Chandela, who had secured a quota for the Rio Olympics, won her first gold medal of the tournament late Tuesday with a world record score of 211.2, to surpass the feat of Chinese Olympic gold medallist Yi Siling (211).
He said the coastal and deltaic regions of India are reported to be vulnerable to the risks of flooding.
There will be no single snappy phrase to describe the Sochi Olympics at the closing ceremony on Sunday, International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach said, breaking with the organisation's tradition of decades.
Iran are pinning their World Cup hopes on the midfield magic of 27-year-old Ali Karimi.\n
"One BRO personnel from the team is still missing," the sources added.
Kashmiris stranded in Jammu due to the closure of the Srinagar-Jammu national highway have demanded subsidised airfares from the government to help them fly back to Srinagar.
According to the Met department, Srinagar recorded 0.4 mm of snowfall till 0830 am.
Forgot the major events that shaped the news last week? Here's a quick recap of the incidents of the previous week.
The Srinagar-Jammu national highway, the only all-weather road linking Kashmir to the rest of the country, was closed for vehicular traffic as the valley including Srinagar experienced fresh snowfall on Wednesday.
Mumbai is also on the top-10 'improvers' list.
Bored at work? Tired of the same old life you live? The next 10 images you see will snap you of your boredom and transport you to a world like no other!
Former United States President Barack Obama has been free from the pressures of running the nation for two years now. However, while in office and even out of it, Obama has always enjoyed each moment. As he celebrates his 57th birthday (August 4), here are some of his lighter moments enjoying life.
Aakar Patel looks forward to Prime Minister Modi's speech at the bhoomi pujan for the Ram temple in Ayodhya next week. It will be entertaining and stirring, predicts Aakar, and make lots of promises that he most likely won't be able to keep.
'The missile mounted near Kailash-Mansarovar is called DF-21. It is a medium-range, 2,200 kilometres ballistic missile. Its advantage is that it can cover all cities of north India, including New Delhi'
A Muslim television reporter for a British news channel on Friday filed a complaint against a columnist for Rupert Murdoch's 'Sun' newspaper who singled her out for wearing hijab while reporting on the recent terror attack at Nice in France.
Tiger Zinda Hai returns to the same moronic space where it's all about slow-motion Salman, his checkered scarf, his fleeting shirtless-ness, his unrealistically beefed up body and a taken-for-granted indestructibility, says Sukanya Verma.
NASA has released new global maps of Earth at night.
The pilgrimage of a true GoT fan.
Sumit Bhattacharya lists what the leaked WhatsApp conversations reveal about the man named Arnab Goswami, and a certain PDG.
In photos: From the mountains to the ocean.
'I used to go to Sanjay Dutt, give him the scene, and then act it out.' 'He would say, 'Arrey, Girishbhai kar lunga'.' 'But I would insist: 'Nahin, main karke dikhane chahta hoon'.' He said this was the first time in his career that someone was acting out the scene for him!'
