December 2025
In short: India's places in the news and physical geography this month — distilled for SI/Constable Prelims.
Current Affairs — India › Geography · 12 min read · Free to read · English & Telugu
Bilingual study notes for the Andhra Pradesh Police SI & Constable exams (SLPRB AP) by AP Police Hub, a product of Anvil Academy.
December 2025's geography round-up beyond this month's Science atlas — Sikkim's Cho La and Doka La passes opened for battlefield tourism, India's updated Seismic Zonation Map placing the entire Himalayan arc in a new highest-risk category, the Subansiri Lower Hydroelectric Project on the Brahmaputra system, and a rare desert snowfall in northern Saudi Arabia explained by the 'warming paradox.'
December 2025 — At a Glance
December 2025's genuinely fresh Geography content sat outside the usual 'places in the news' atlas — which this month was fully carried in the Science digest — inside physical-geography and infrastructure stories. Sikkim's Cho La and Doka La (Doklam) passes, both sites of historic India-China friction, opened for battlefield tourism under a new Army-Tourism Ministry initiative. India unveiled an updated Seismic Zonation Map placing the entire Himalayan arc under a new highest-risk category, based on a fresh probabilistic hazard method. The Subansiri Lower Hydroelectric Project — India's largest hydropower project — advanced on the Assam-Arunachal border. And, far from India, a rare snowfall turned northern Saudi Arabia's desert dunes white, illustrating the counter-intuitive 'warming paradox' behind such extreme-weather events.
1. The Himalayan Frontier — Passes in the News
Cho La and Doka La, both in Sikkim, were opened for battlefield tourism under Bharat Ranbhoomi Darshan — a joint Indian Army-Ministry of Tourism initiative letting citizens visit historic war zones and sites of military significance.
Cho La Pass
- Location — In the Chola range of the Eastern Himalayas, at 17,782 ft above sea level; the Nathu La and Jelep La passes also lie in the Chola range; connects Sikkim to China's Chumbi Valley.
- History — Site of the 1967 Indo-China skirmishes — one of the last major armed clashes between the two militaries before the 2020 Galwan standoff.
Doka La (Doklam) Pass
- Location — In East Sikkim, on the edge of the Doklam plateau, near the tri-junction of India, Bhutan and China.
- History — Site of the 2017 border standoff between Indian and Chinese troops, triggered by a Chinese road-building attempt on territory claimed by Bhutan — a 73-day face-off widely seen as a turning point in India-China border tensions.
2. India's Updated Seismic Zonation Map
What changed
- The update — India unveiled an updated Seismic Zonation Map as per the revised Earthquake Design Code released by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), based on a Probabilistic Earthquake Hazard Assessment (PEHA).
- New Seismic Zone VI — The map introduces a new, highest-risk category (Zone VI) covering the entire Himalayan arc, given its high tectonic activity and vulnerability — a shift from the earlier four-zone system (Zone V ~11% of area, Zone IV ~18%, Zone III ~30%, Zone II the remainder).
- Vulnerability & consistency — Places 61% (up from 59%) of India's land area under moderate-to-high hazard categories, with 75% of India's population in seismically active regions; automatically places any town straddling two hazard categories into the higher-risk zone, aligning boundaries with geographical rather than administrative realities.
Earthquake basics
Understanding earthquakes| Term | Meaning |
|---|
| Focus (Hypocentre) | The point inside the Earth where the energy of an earthquake is released, along a fault (a sharp break in crustal rocks). |
| Epicentre | The point on the Earth's surface directly above the focus — the first to experience the earthquake's waves. |
| Richter Scale | A magnitude scale measuring the energy released by an earthquake, expressed on a 0–10 numerical scale. |
| Mercalli Scale | An intensity scale, ranging 1–12, based on the visible damage an earthquake causes. |
3. The Subansiri Lower Hydroelectric Project & the Brahmaputra System
- What — India's largest hydropower project, comprising 8 units of 250 MW each, designed as a Run-of-the-River scheme; undertaken by the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC).
- Location — At North Lakhimpur, on the border of Arunachal Pradesh and Assam.
- About the river — The Subansiri is a major tributary of the Brahmaputra — one of the largest tributaries by discharge, rising in Tibet and flowing through Arunachal Pradesh into Assam.
4. Physical Geography Special: Snow in the Desert
Rare snowfall in Saudi Arabia's northern desert
- What — Parts of northern Saudi Arabia, including Tabuk and Al-Jawf, witnessed unusual heavy snowfall, turning desert sand dunes white as temperatures dipped below freezing.
- Why it can happen — Geography: northern mountainous areas like Jabal Al-Lawz experience much cooler temperatures. Atmospheric conditions: cold air masses from the Mediterranean or northern regions can push temperatures below freezing, and when this cold air meets moisture from rain-bearing systems, precipitation falls as snow instead of rain.
The 'warming paradox'
- The paradox — Experts from the World Meteorological Organization note that the Arab region is warming almost twice the global average. This leads to the 'warming paradox': a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, increasing the likelihood of intense and extreme weather events — including rare snowfalls.
- Historical cold waves in Saudi Arabia — In 1992, temperatures in Hail dropped to −9.3°C, the lowest on record; in 1973, a Siberian cold outbreak reportedly brought nearly 20 cm of snow to Riyadh.
Desert snowfall — a global rarity
- Elsewhere — While rare, deserts worldwide have recorded snowfall — the Sahara Desert (Algeria), the Atacama Desert (Chile) and the Mojave Desert (USA) — typically when cold air masses combine with sufficient moisture, making desert snow unusual but not unprecedented.