WHEN you live up there in the Himalayas, how do you make yourself heard in Delhi? In an era of instant communications, the possibilities are many. But chances also are that you might end up walking the entire distance to the capital in the hope that someone notices.

Ask Sonam Wangchuk and 152 others who trudged all the way from Ladakh to Delhi with their demand for greater freedom to govern themselves in their villages and protect the fragile ecology of the mountains among which they live.