A Special Investigation Team (SIT) constituted by the Supreme Court of India will look into allegations of animal trafficking and mismanagement at Vantara – the famed private rescue and rehabilitation centre owned by billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s son, Anant Ambani.

The Court passed its order on August 25, after hearing two petitions which alleged Vantara was acquiring animals unlawfully. Vantara, which houses the Greens Zoological Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre, was celebrated by the Prime Minister as being “a safe haven for animals while promoting ecological sustainability and wildlife welfare.” But the facility fast came under scrutiny for hosting a large number of exotic species sourced from countries as far as Brazil, Mexico, and Guyana.

In March, the German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung, in collaboration with the Venezuelan media outlet Armando, published an investigation estimating the total number of animals at Vantara to be around 39,000, based on two global trade databases. Most of the acquisitions occurred over the last year, according to the investigation. In 2024, an investigation by Himal magazine found that the captive status of sub-adult elephants sent from Arunachal Pradesh to Vantara could not be established due to lack of DNA testing.

The International Convention on Trade of Endangered Species of Flora and Fauna (CITES) was notified about animal transfers to Vantara by several wildlife NGOs, and agreed to send a delegation to inspect the facility at a meeting held in February.

In its order, the Supreme Court said that it “considers it appropriate… to call for an independent factual appraisal,” into the allegations against the facility.

The SIT will probe Vantara’s acquisition of animals from India and abroad, “especially elephants,” the court said. It will also assess Vantara’s compliance with laws such as the Wildlife Protection Act, CITES, and look into complaints regarding the facility’s climatic conditions. Vantara shares a plot with Reliance Industries’ petroleum refinery in Jamnagar, in the arid state of Gujarat.

“The SIT in reporting about the above may call for and receive information from petitioners, officials, regulators, intervenors, or any other person including journalists who may wish their allegations to be examined,” said the court.

Members of the SIT include chairperson Jasti Chelameswar, former Chief Justice of India, as well as Raghavendra Chauhan, former Chief Justice of Uttarakhand and Telangana, Hemant Nagrale, former Commissioner of Police, Mumbai, Anish Gupta, Additional Commissioner Customs. The SIT is expected to submit its findings to the court on September 12,

In a statement to The Hindu, Vantara said it “remains committed to transparency, compassion and full compliance with the law.”

“Our mission and focus continues to be the rescue, rehabilitation and care of animals. We will extend full cooperation to the Special Investigation Team and continue our work sincerely, always placing the welfare of animals at the heart of all our efforts,” said Vantara.

 The Court will review the case on September 15.

Banner image: Representative image by Yathin S Krishnappa via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0).

Mumbai has been experiencing continuous rainfall for several days. Heavy rainfall over the last two days has caused waterlogging in several areas, resulting in flooded roads, stalled vehicles, and submerged railway tracks. The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) issued another red alert on Wednesday, extending the warning for a fifth consecutive day.

According to Shashikant Mishra, a scientist at IMD, Mumbai has recorded significant rainfall since August 16, with Santacruz and Colaba registering 875.1 mm and 394 mm, respectively. In the last 24 hours, Santacruz recorded 209 mm, while Colaba saw 107.4 mm. Other areas, such as Vikhroli, Byculla, Juhu, and Bandra, also reported heavy rainfall. Other parts of Maharashtra reported similar conditions.

“In the last 24 hours, Maharashtra has registered heavy rainfall,” he said during the routine bulletin. The IMD has forecast further rainfall in Maharashtra, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, including coastal regions like Saurashtra.

On August 19, it had already issued warnings of heavy rain in Mumbai, leading to waterlogging, disruption to road, rail, air and ferry transport, as well as interruptions in municipal services such as water and electricity. Red alerts remain in place for Mumbai and several coastal areas in Maharashtra and Gujarat.

This ongoing downpour has overwhelmed the city’s infrastructure, with Mumbai already receiving 2,310.8 mm of rainfall during this monsoon, significantly disrupting daily life.

According to media reports, city transport services experienced multiple disruptions. Two monorail trains came to a sudden halt on Tuesday, and authorities had to rescue hundreds of passengers in two separate incidents. Railway services were severely affected, with flooding reported on tracks of Central Railway’s harbour line and the main line between Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus and Thane. Services resumed after the water receded.

Several long-distance trains were cancelled or diverted. Air travel was also hit, with multiple flights delayed or diverted. Authorities declared holidays for schools and government offices, urging remote work and restricting travel.

As per the reports, several rivers, like the Waldhuni and Ulhas rivers, remain swollen. Earlier, the Mithi river crossed the danger mark, prompting the evacuation of hundreds of families from Kurla’s slum areas to local municipal schools.

Banner image: A municipal worker helps a man push his bike through a waterlogged road following heavy rains in Mumbai. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)

A thirteen-year-old girl from Odisha’s Koraput district, Harsita Priyadarshini Mohanty, was awarded the 2025 International Young Eco-Hero Award on August 11 for setting up a seed bank aimed at preserving indigenous rice and millet varieties that are becoming increasingly rare.

Mohanty was awarded the Eco-Hero Award alongside eight others by Action for Nature, a U.S. based non-profit that works with young people across the world to care for the environment. “While leaders worldwide struggle to protect the environment, global youth activists constantly remind us that transformative change often starts small. From Burundi to San Antonio, Texas, this year’s Eco-Heroes are another powerful reminder that the future of our planet is in good hands,” said Beryl Kay, president of Action for Nature, in a statement.

Coming in second place, the award recognised Mohanty’s “self-funded efforts and deep commitment to sustainable farming.” In 2023, Mohanty set up the Harsita Priyadarshini Indigenous Seed and Grain Bank, providing local farmers with two kilograms of indigenous rice and millet varieties for free. After cultivation, farmers replenish the bank by “paying back” four kilograms of seeds. According to Action for Nature, 20 farmers benefitted in 2023 and 60 farmers in 2024.

“Earlier, in my native [place], there were 2,000 plus paddy seeds that could be found. But today due to global warming and climate change only 30 to 50 varieties can be found. Due to commercial development, farmers are interested in farming hybrid seeds and not indigenous seeds,” said Mohanty in a video presentation, adding, “After seeing this, I started my project to conserve indigenous seeds.” The bank preserves 180 varieties of paddy, 60 varieties of millet, and other types of “forgotten foods.”

Mohanty was inspired by Kamala Pujari, a tribal woman from the same district who won the Padma Shri in 2019 for conserving over a 100 varieties of paddy. “Compared to other young people I have worked with, Harshita is exceptionally motivated, focused, and consistent in her environmental work. She is also a natural leader and inspires others to act,” Jagannath Mishra, chairperson of the Koraput-based NGO Ekta, told Action for Nature.

Other winners of the prize – aged between 11 and 16 – won for their contributions to recycling and waste management, environmental advocacy, and restoring river banks, among other activities. The winners will present their work at a virtual event in San Francisco on September 13.

Banner image: Finger millets. Representative image by Dinesh Valke via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0).

A spokesperson from the South African government has said the country’s Minister for Forestry, Fisheries, and the Environment, Dion George, will conduct a review of the cheetah translocation project in India and “consider all the available science,” before proceeding with any further cheetah exports.

India signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the South African government for a period of five years in January 2023, where it was agreed that the latter would export cheetahs to India with the aim of reviving their population after they went extinct in 1952. A batch of 12 cheetahs from South Africa joined eight others from Namibia in February 2023.

But Project Cheetah, as it has come to be known, has drawn controversy from conservationists in India and abroad. Nine imported adults and nine out of 26 cubs born in India have since died due to kidney failure, skin infections, fighting, and extreme heat. Conservationists from South Africa have opposed the translocation, calling the mortalities “unjustifiable.”

The aim of the project is to establish cheetah meta-populations in select locations, to effectively revive their population and protect grassland ecosystems, the Indian government has said. In April, two South African cheetahs were sent to Gandhi Sagar Wildlife Sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh. The government is now reportedly looking to supplement the cheetah population from countries like Kenya and Botswana, apart from South Africa.

In a statement to Mongabay India, South Africa’s spokesperson Thoubile Zulu-Molobi said South Africa values regional cooperation, and that before further exports are considered, “the Minister will be visiting India to observe the previously exported cheetahs.” Exports will be reviewed on a case-to-case basis, informed by “scientific assessments” on the translocated cheetahs, and based on an analysis of population viability in South Africa, to ensure further exports are non-detrimental to native populations.

An official from the Union Ministry of Environment, who was not authorised to speak to the media, told Mongabay India that the South African government’s request was part of due diligence and not a deviation from the MoU. Under the MoU, India is obligated to provide quarterly progress reports of the project to South Africa.

“The visit is yet to be concluded and as of now, Minister George has been sent a formal invite,” said the official, adding, “India shall apply for the next batch of cheetahs from South Africa after receiving a green signal from the Government of South Africa, though this was conveyed to them by [an Indian] delegation which visited South Africa in June.”

Banner image: A female cheetah translocated to India from Namibia. Representative image. Image courtesy of the Cheetah Conservation Fund. 

Groundwater resources in the drought-prone Bundelkhand region are mostly “safe,” according to an assessment done by the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) in 2024.

The Bundelkhand region comprises 14 districts across Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh which have historically experienced complex drought due to multiple factors, including changes in rainfall patterns and water extraction. However, Union Minister of Jal Shakti (Ministry of Water Resources), C.R. Patil, told the Parliament on July 24 that groundwater levels in ten districts of Bundelkhand region were found to be safe, while three were found to be critical, and one to be semi-critical. He was citing the CGWB’s 2024 Dynamic Groundwater Assessment data.

The CGWB categorises groundwater resources based on levels of water extraction and recharge. Groundwater resources are considered to be “safe” if the rate of extraction is 70% or less compared to annual recharge levels. It becomes “semi-critical” when the rate of extraction is between 70% and 90% of the annual recharge, and “critical” when between 90% and 100%. Groundwater resources are considered “overexploited” when the extraction exceeds 100% of annual recharge levels.

Even though the rates of groundwater extraction are largely safe, water is found at greater depths in several parts of Bundelkhand, deeper than three metres below ground level, exacerbating scarcity. The region is characterised by a dry, arid climate and a hard rock terrain, with low nutrition black soil.

In its Master Plan for Artificial Recharge to Groundwater, the CGWB recommended almost all the districts in Bundelkhand to attempt artificial recharge through the creation of check dams, percolation tanks, bunds, village ponds, and rainwater harvesting.

In the Jhansi district, artificial recharge of a shallow aquifer in one wet season served two dry seasons, and in some areas improved ground water levels by two-five metres. Despite evidence and expert recommendations for ground water recharge, the government has pushed for river interlinking as the solution to Bundelkhand’s drought. The river linking project envisions joining the Ken and Betwa rivers through a canal which will run through Bundelkhand and provide the region with an additional source of irrigation and drinking water supply.

The project will not only submerge 10% of the Panna Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh, but could inadvertently interfere with rainfall patterns over the long-term and worsen climatic stressors.

Patil was asked about the groundwater situation in Bundelkhand by Narayan Das Ahirwar, a Member of Parliament from the Samajwadi Parti representing the Jalaun constituency, falling in northern Bundelkhand, where reductions in rainfall between 1984 and 2023 have worsened droughts.

Banner image: A girl carries water in Bundelkhand. Image by Arjun Claire via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).

The Nilgiris in Tamil Nadu has a new species of gecko to its credit, a recent study published in the journal Bionomina reports. Named Dravidogecko coonoor, the animal, which is a part of the Dravidogecko genus endemic to the high-elevation regions of the Western Ghats, was identified from Coonoor in the Upper Nilgiris. The discovery adds to the growing list of endemic reptiles in the region, including Cnemaspis anandani, Cnemaspis nilagirica, Cnemaspis indica and Hemiphyllodactylus nilgiriensis.

Dravidogecko coonoor is a potentially threatened gecko species, whose population, as far as the studies could assess, exists entirely outside the protected area network. The lead author of the paper, A. Abinesh Anbazhagan, now based at the Pondicherry University, first encountered the species in 2019 during his MPhil studies at the Government Arts College, Ooty. “I was at Coonoor observing the night sky in an abandoned shed when the gecko landed on my shoulder,” recalls Anbazhagan. “It looked different from any known species. At the time, my MPhil was focused on geckos, and I had also come across a paper that described six new species of Dravidogecko. Their map marked Coonoor, but they had no specimen from here. But I had one on my hand.” While he started studying its distribution then, COVID-19 and a subsequent job at the IISc in Bengaluru came in the way.

Later, the species found mention in a 2021 paper under the name Dravidogecko coonoorensis, based on genetic divergence. However, the description did not meet the requirements of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN), as it lacked a formal, character-based diagnosis tied to physical specimens. Consequently, the name was rendered nomenclaturally unavailable.

Anbazhagan and colleagues waited for over a year for the authors of the 2021 study to validate the species name. When no follow-up occurred, they went ahead with formal description. “We retained the name to honour the original work,” he says.

The new Bionomina paper provides a full typification and morphological description of the species, based on four specimens collected from Coonoor in June 2019. The holotype and three paratypes were collected from buildings and vegetation in the Coonoor township, at elevations between 1750 and 1905 metres above sea level. Tissue samples were preserved for genetic analysis and the specimens have been deposited at the Zoological Survey of India’s Southern Regional Station in Chennai.

Dravidogecko coonoor is distinguished from its congeners by a combination of traits, including 24 to 26 ventral scale rows, 38 precloacal-femoral pores in males, and specific counts of subdigital lamellae. Field observations indicate the gecko is nocturnal, arboreal and often found in human-modified habitats such as building walls and tree trunks in plantation landscapes.

Banner image: Dravidogecko coonoor. Image by Rishi Kesavan.