lit a candle 4h agoMy mother called me in Calgary this morning before I had even had my coffee, just to tell me Prof Kanth had passed. I did geography at Kashmir University in the early 2000s and he was Head of Department then. He used to say you cannot understand a valley until you have walked its old moraines, and I still think of that line when I am out hiking here. 70 is no age. My condolences to his wife and children.
Their story
Professor Tasawoor Ahmad Kanth, known across Kashmir simply as Prof TA Kanth, was a geographer and academic who spent his whole working life at the University of Kashmir in Srinagar. He served there as Professor, Dean and Head of the Department of Geography and Regional Development, and was widely regarded…
Professor Tasawoor Ahmad Kanth, known across Kashmir simply as Prof TA Kanth, was a geographer and academic who spent his whole working life at the University of Kashmir in Srinagar. He served there as Professor, Dean and Head of the Department of Geography and Regional Development, and was widely regarded as one of the most respected teachers and researchers the department produced. He died early on the morning of Sunday 15 November 2026, at the age of 70, after battling cancer for several months.
Kanth's research centred on the physical geography of the Himalaya. His work covered glaciers and glacial geomorphology, climate change, Himalayan ecology, landslides and wider environmental studies, and it added to the understanding of a mountain region whose glaciers, slopes and rivers are increasingly exposed to a warming climate and to natural hazards. For students in Kashmir, where those questions are part of everyday life, his teaching connected the discipline directly to the landscape around them.
According to the University of Kashmir's own list of department heads, he led the Department of Geography and Regional Development from 2001 to 2005, following Professor Rais Akhtar. He also served as Dean, and in later years acted as coordinator of the department's University Grants Commission Special Assistance Programme and organised academic conferences hosted by the department. Over more than three decades he taught successive generations of postgraduate students and guided many research scholars, a number of whom went on to academic careers of their own.
Reports of his death recalled that, despite requests from the university, he declined an extension of service when he reached retirement. His farewell drew an exceptionally large gathering of former students, research scholars and colleagues, many of whom travelled from different parts of the world to mark his contribution to scholarship and to the university.
Kanth lived in Hyderpora, Srinagar, where his funeral prayers, the Nimaz e Janazah, were offered at noon on the day of his death. He is survived by his wife, herself a retired professor, two married daughters and a son. Kashmir Life and the Kashmir News Service reported that his death had left a void in Kashmir's academic and research community.
Biography adapted from Kashmir Life, Kashmir News Service (KNS) and the University of Kashmir Department of Geography and Regional Development.
Photos
1by People Forever
same department, few years after you, that moraine line was practically scripture in his lectures