I will never forget the two chaotic nights I spent with the wildlife biologist Rauf Ali in the jungles of Mundanthurai, a hilly tract in southernmost Tamil Nadu. In spite…
Coral reefs in the Gulf of Mannar (GoM), off the coast of Tamil Nadu in southern India, seem to be recovering after a mass coral bleaching event in 2017. At…
Most rivers in South India, begin as small streams in forested mountains. The Western Ghats is filled with such streams. As they flow downhill they join other streams and gain…
Montora, a docile Indian elephant, enters the small, muddy brown lake. She rolls about, letting the water slide on her back. Her mahout shouts out to her in Bengali. His…
Till a few years ago, the decision to remove 16,500 trees from the heart of Delhi, for the purpose of development, would perhaps have not raised any eyebrows. Now, thanks…
Community-led conservation initiatives from northeast India were in the spotlight at this year’s India Biodiversity Awards. Community reserves managed by Singchung Bugun Village Community Reserve Management Committee in Arunachal Pradesh…
Sixty five-year-old Maria sits at the doorstep of her demolished house. The only thing that remains of the house is a wall attached to the door. Every morning, she comes…
India relies heavily on groundwater for crop irrigation and for drinking in many regions. Studies have shown high levels of fluoride, nitrate, and arsenic in groundwater in some parts of…
Despite international conventions emphasising the importance of gender in achieving conservation objectives, research suggests that the recognition is superficial and particularly, in the case of the Third World development discourse,…
A skeleton of a common minke whale that was found stranded along the Myanmar coast in 1804 to a century-old quinine tablet-producing machine— fascinating exhibits are on display at Asia’s oldest museum,…
When rich forests in biodiversity hotspots are carved out as protected areas it is presumed that the notification will help conserve them. But high human density, road building and other construction…
Bright blue-and-yellow melon butterflyfish (Chaetodon trifasciatus) that exclusively feed on corals, tweak the way they eat, to survive on bleached reefs of the Lakshadweep archipelago, in the Arabian Sea waters,…
It was while studying the breeding and courtship behaviour of short nosed fruit bats that biologist Parthasarathy Thiruchenthil Nathan began to examine roosting sites around every house from the ancient…
For trekkers on the Annapurna circuit trail, the village of Manang is where the road ends and the trails up to the high mountains begin. Far from the paths walked…
Take a disaster-prone area, add some lax administration and generous helpings of construction projects and voila! What do you get? Uttarakhand, the north Indian hill state which is a perfect…
The humble chickpea, often sidelined as an “orphan” crop, is not short of attention anymore, thanks to the “omics” era and a growing awareness on intake of sustainable and non-processed…
Three organisations from India have been selected as sustainable energy heroes at the international Ashden awards. The Chhattisgarh State Renewable Energy Development Agency (CREDA) which uses solar to change the…
In February 2010, India imposed a moratorium on commercial cultivation of the genetically modified (GM) Brinjal crop till a consensus on the safety of transgenic crops was achieved. More than…
Amid concerns over a dip in mango production this year due to climate change and pest woes, a mango database developed by Indian scientists aims to help plant breeders select…
When talking about biodiversity, it is that of the forests, oceans and large biomes that often get the most attention. Correspondingly, charismatic species such as tigers, elephants, apes, birds, snakes,…