evidence: "The land is so barren and the passes so high that only the best of friends and fiercest of enemies come by" — reads a Ladakhi saying at Kumar post on the Siachen Glacier located at an altitude of 15,632 feet. The saying captures the conflict on the icy glacier between India and Pakistan. April 13, 2024 marks four decades since the Indian Army pre-empted Pakistan and occupied the glacier on the Saltoro ridge, overlooking the Nubra valley in the Karakoram ranges. Extreme weather is the biggest enemy on the glacier. Around 1,150 soldiers have lost their lives, majority of them to the vagaries of extreme weather. [...] Siachen is a legacy of the Partition between India and Pakistan. While the Line of Control (LoC) was delineated and accepted by both sides upto NJ-9842 as part of the 1972 Simla agreement, the glacier itself was left unmarked. India claims the area based on the Jammu and Kashmir Accession Agreement of 1947 and the Karachi Agreement of 1949, which define the ceasefire line beyond NJ-9842 as running "Northwards to the glaciers". On the other hand, Pakistan interprets it as ‘North-Eastwards’ to claim the area beyond the Saltoro Ridge and beyond Siachen as its own. This would give Pakistan direct connectivity to China as well as strategic oversight over the Ladakh region and the crucial Leh-Srinagar highway, posing a serious threat to India.