Durga puja art exhibits spur dialogue on conservation
Underpinned by the message of “good-over-evil”, Durga puja or the worship of goddess Durga, is one of the most important event in the religious calendar in east India. In contemporary times,…
Environmental headlines
Mongabay is a non-profit provider of conservation and environmental science news.
Despite promises and allocations the Ganga flows polluted and fettered
Four and a half years ago when the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government came to power, several environmentalists felt a little reassured that Ganga river will no longer be ignored…
Home gardens and polluted fields are helping conserve this perfume source
The primary source of agarwood and one of the world’s most expensive trees, the evergreen agar tree (Aquilaria malaccensis Lam.) is a step away from extinction in the wild. In…
Bihar’s wetlands are on a ventilator, but there is still hope from the ground
Seventy-year-old Narayan Sahni reminiscences the days when he used to catch around 8-10 kilograms of fish from the Kanwar Lake in Bihar almost every day. The catch was enough to…
[Commentary] Hot and dry: What plants do when pushed to their very limits
About 10 percent of the world’s land surface experienced drought in 2005. The number is set to skyrocket over the twenty-first century to about 40 percent, as the globe warms…
When drought and extreme heat strike forests at the same time
The frequency of extreme weather events is going up around the world, and droughts and heatwaves are no exception. When the globe warms by 3-4 degrees - a possibility during…
India’s policy flip flop on the lion and cheetah
It is a tale of two large carnivores. While authorities have dragged their feet over finding another home for the lion to ensure its survival in case of unseen dangers,…
[Book review] “Were conservation a Facebook status, it would read: It’s (very) complicated”
While on a trip to Palamu (Jharkhand) in October 2010, I visited a hamlet where a leopard had killed a cow the night before. When we reached the spot, there…
Do we need flexible spaces for humans and animals?
Often a defining feature of any landscape, a “boundary” as perceived by humans, is almost never seen as a limit by other species. On the other hand, a road or…
Manipur’s native fishes in troubled waters
Hailing from a fishing village in Manipur’s Loktak Lake, which has seen indigenous fish varieties flounder in recent decades, Tongbram Amarjit Singh’s dream project since his school days was to…
