[Commentary] The invisible bond: Wastewater management and water for all
In 2014, India launched the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) – one of the world’s largest drives for sanitation – which aimed to make the country open defecation free by 2019.…
Articles by gopi
Hills of peril: Southwest monsoon inflicts severe damage in the Nilgiris
A pristine valley located hardly 26 km away from the famous hill station Udhagamandalam (Ooty), Avalanche got its name from a massive landslide that took place here more than 150…
Preparedness remains inadequate even as floods become an annual affair in Kerala
The wounds of the 2018 floods had not fully healed when disaster struck Kerala again in August 2019 in the form of floods, landslips and debris slide. According to the…
Coonoor citizens and officials clean the streams and river in the hill town
On September 22, the World Rivers Day, Clean Coonoor, a local NGO, started the second phase of the Coonoor River clean-up drive. Coonoor is a small town of around 45,494…
[Commentary] Is Indian monsoon turning into a string of extreme weather events?
From the time settled agriculture started on the Indian subcontinent millennia ago, there was a dependence on the calendrical reliability of the rains as they sustained the crops. Every year…
In the Western Ghats ridges it is ice that keeps the shola-grasslands intact
Across the globe, naturalists have recorded distinct habitats that they call forest-grassland mosaics, where both ecosystems seem to co-exist. In the highlands of the Western Ghats forests and grasslands stand…
[Commentary] Is climate change the only reason for flooding in the Western Ghats?
Our earth has taken billions of years for its formation and to bring life forms on it. It is the only living planet that we are aware of. Every natural…
Kilns add to Jammu and Kashmir’s air and land pollution, brick by brick
Haji Abdul Gaffar, 74, recalls the time when his village (Batpora-Budgam) and all the adjacent villages used to be lush green and free of pollution. It was around 40 years…
Wild yak poop offers clues to the extinction of the woolly mammoth and woolly rhinos
From the trekking and tour companies named after it to cheese and tee-shirts, the image of the culturally important shaggy yak is ubiquitous as one trundles through Himalayan villages. The…
As floods repeat this year in Kerala, experts point to climate change
In Kerala, it looks like climate-change-induced floods are becoming an annual affair. Following heavy rains over the last one week, the state which once boasted consistent rains during the monsoon…
