{"id":48065,"date":"2025-04-28T15:35:30","date_gmt":"2025-04-28T10:05:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=48065"},"modified":"2025-05-28T16:59:22","modified_gmt":"2025-05-28T11:29:22","slug":"cholistan-desert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/cholistan-desert\/","title":{"rendered":"Cholistan Desert"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Cholistan Desert Latest News<\/h2>\n<p>Recently, Pakistan&#8217;s Government decided to halt its ambitious canals project after widespread protests in Sindh.<\/p>\n<h2>Why in the News?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The\u00a0<strong>Green Pakistan Initiative (GPI)<\/strong>, launched in 2023, aims to modernise Pakistan\u2019s\u00a0<strong>agriculture sector<\/strong>\u00a0by providing\u00a0<strong>irrigation infrastructure<\/strong>, introducing\u00a0<strong>advanced technologies<\/strong>, and improving\u00a0<strong>agricultural productivity<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>The\u00a0<strong>Cholistan Canal<\/strong>, a major component of this initiative, was supposed to irrigate about\u00a0<strong>1.2 million acres<\/strong>\u00a0of land in\u00a0<strong>southern Punjab<\/strong>, particularly in the\u00a0<strong>Cholistan Desert<\/strong>, a water-scarce region.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>About Cholistan Desert<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>It is also known locally as\u00a0<strong>Rohi<\/strong>, and is located in the\u00a0<strong>southern part of Pakistani Punjab<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>It forms part of the\u00a0<strong>Greater Thar Desert<\/strong>, which extends into\u00a0<strong>Sindh province<\/strong>\u00a0of Pakistan and the\u00a0<strong>Indian state of Rajasthan<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>The name &#8220;Cholistan&#8221; comes from the\u00a0<strong>Turkic word &#8220;chol&#8221;,<\/strong>\u00a0meaning &#8220;sands&#8221; and the\u00a0<strong>Persian suffix &#8220;istan&#8221;,<\/strong>\u00a0meaning &#8220;land&#8221;.<\/li>\n<li>Historically, Cholistan was a\u00a0<strong>centre for caravan trade<\/strong>, leading to the construction of\u00a0<strong>numerous forts<\/strong>\u00a0during the medieval period.<\/li>\n<li>The\u00a0<strong>Derawar Fort<\/strong>\u00a0is the\u00a0<strong>best-preserved example<\/strong>\u00a0of these medieval structures.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Cholistan<\/strong>\u00a0covers an area of\u00a0<strong>25,800 km\u00b2 (10,000 sq mi)<\/strong>\u00a0across the\u00a0<strong>Bahawalpur, Bahawalnagar<\/strong>, and\u00a0<strong>Rahim Yar Khan<\/strong>\u00a0districts.<\/li>\n<li>About\u00a0<strong>81%<\/strong>\u00a0of the region is\u00a0<strong>sandy<\/strong>, while\u00a0<strong>19%<\/strong>\u00a0comprises\u00a0<strong>alluvial flats<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0<strong>small sandy dunes<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>The Cholistan Desert has an\u00a0<strong>arid and semi-arid tropical desert climate<\/strong>\u00a0with\u00a0<strong>very low annual humidity<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Water resources include\u00a0<strong>natural pools<\/strong>\u00a0called\u00a0<strong>Toba<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0<strong>manmade pools<\/strong>\u00a0called\u00a0<strong>Kund<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Cholistan Desert FAQs<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Q1.\u00a0<\/strong>Where is the Cholistan Desert located?<br \/>\n<strong>Ans.<\/strong>\u00a0The Cholistan Desert is located in the southern part of Punjab province in Pakistan, near the India-Pakistan border.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Q2.\u00a0<\/strong>Which major river once supported the Cholistan Desert?<br \/>\n<strong>Ans.<\/strong>\u00a0The now-dried-up Hakra River (believed to be part of the ancient Saraswati-Ghaggar river system) once supported human settlements in the Cholistan region.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source:\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/explained\/explained-global\/why-pakistan-has-put-its-ambitious-canals-project-on-hold-9968401\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">IE<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rohi, located in southern Punjab, Pakistan, is part of the Greater Thar Desert, extending into Sindh and Rajasthan, India. A unique desert landscape.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":48067,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[536,21,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-48065","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-cholistan-desert","9":"tag-prelims-pointers","10":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","11":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48065\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}