The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) signed Memorandum of Agreement for conservation of plant genetic resources in the National Permafrost Repository at Chang-La, Leh, Ladakh (J&K).
So India now has its very own seed vault in the permafrost. The above is from an ICAR press release from a couple of days ago. But The Hindu reported on the Permafrost Repository as long ago as early last year. This photograph is from that article, so things may have changed since then.
It’s not altogether clear to me why India would wish to do this, when it can send safety duplicates of its material to Svalbard for free and under black box conditions, but anyway.
Can one have too many safe places to keep things? And it’s an awfully long way to Norway from there, if the end times come…