Articles by S. Gopikrishna Warrier

The word ‘hill forest’ often brings up an imagery of a tall cliff draped in dense greenery, rising from the plains, peaking high to vanish amidst the mist. Though that…

When Malayalam’s celebrated poet Sugathakumari, a pioneer of environmental activism in Kerala, reached the state’s tribal heartland Attappadi during the early months of 1980, the region looked like a barren…

The first case of COVID-19 infection was officially reported in India in January 2020 from Thrissur in Kerala. In December 2020, a 90-year-old Britisher became the world’s first person to…

The earliest record of grass and scrub jungle in south Tamil Nadu comes from the Sangam literature which termed them as Mullai and the drier parts as Paalai lands. In…

Pusa Decomposer, a microbial spray, developed by the Microbiology Division of the Indian Agriculture Research Institute (IARI), Delhi, is the harbinger of hope for an end to paddy residue burning…

The mountainous Nilgiris district in Tamil Nadu is now witnessing an ecosystem collapse mainly due to extreme weather events. Floods that are happening almost every year are causing major landslides…

In 1991, the year when India launched its economic reforms, I travelled to the Narmada valley. The Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) – the anti-Sardar Sarovar dam movement – had organised…

After over three decades of research, an Indian variety of coloured cotton may be commercially released by 2021. A decision will be taken once the last phase of the agronomy…

The President of United Nations General Assembly, Tijjani Muhammad-Bande, is convening the United Nations Summit on Biodiversity on September 30, 2020. This is being held on the margins of the…

According to legend, King Solomon had a brief encounter with a “valley of ants” and his admiration for them led him to value all life forms. The resilience of ants…

In the past few weeks, four districts of eastern Vidarbha region in Maharasthra flooded. This is a region with four major rivers, dozen-odd dams, almost 50 percent river basin area…

Some 126 years after British police officer Fred Fawcett’s chance discovery of the famous Edakkal Caves and their ancient rock carvings in Wayanad district of Kerala, the mountain which houses…

Global biodiversity is in steep decline, the WWF has warned in its flagship Living Planet Report 2020. The numbers of mammals, birds, fish, plants and insects have fallen an average…

As COVID-19 cases rapidly rise in India (more than 4.4 million cases now), the annual scourge of dengue fever is also slowly raising its head. India is labelled as ‘hyper-endemic’,…

The rains have eased in Thrissur in Kerala. The sun stays longer than overcast skies. Flowers have opened bright - different sizes, different colours. The pollinators are busy, moving from…

The long suffering residents of Chennai have been living with two dead rivers, the Adyar and the Cooum, flowing through the heart of their city. These two rivers meander sluggishly…

With Kerala all set to face yet another assembly election in the coming year (2021), a series of policy decisions taken by the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government, to clear…

On July 1, what should have been a routine maintenance check in Unit 5 of the Thermal Power Station- 2 (TPS-2) of the NLC India Limited (NLCIL), formerly the Neyveli…

Bhojdari, in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra, is a village in the rain-shadow region of the Western Ghats; it is in the upper catchment and has no river, dam or canal…

Tribal leader V. K. Geetha from Vazhachal forest village has inherited a unique family legacy -- of getting displaced in the name of development. The proposed Athirappilly Hydro Electric Power…