On 8 June, 24 students from Andhra Pradesh were swept away in the Beas river after a dam upstream released water suddenly. In less than two minutes, water level rose by over six feet, drowning all of them. The students — 18 boys and six girls — were on their way to Manali from Shimla, as a part of their college trip, and had stopped at the river’s bank to take pictures. To add to the magnitude of the disaster, only seven bodies were recovered till four days after the incident. Prominent anti-dam activist Himanshu Thakkar, in an interview to Tehelka’s G Vishnu, claims that the students would have been alive had we learnt from past lessons. Edited Excerpts from an ...

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