The precarious journey of Goa’s mining-affected and dependent people
Chandrasekhar Shirodkar, 48, returned from Saudi Arabia in the early 1990s. When he came back to Maem, a village in the north-eastern mining belt of India’s western state Goa, he…
Articles by Supriya Vohra
Supriya Vohra is an independent journalist based in Goa.
Draft National Fisheries Policy seeks big growth but ignores fishers
Aiming to accelerate the development of the fisheries sector, the Indian government has released the draft National Fisheries Policy 2020 that intends to integrate all components -- marine and inland,…
As captive elephants starve, lockdown brings problematic practice to the fore
In early April this year, a video was being circulated amongst animal rights activists in Karnataka. A mahout spoke to the camera, stating that since the lockdown, his 55-year-old captive…
Fishers try to stay afloat amid lockdown
Nilesh Nakhawa was out in the sea in his purse seiner for eight days. On March 23, the 41-year-old fisherman landed at Sassoon Docks, Mumbai, in the western state of…
Where is the water to wash my hands?
Yashoda, 52, lives in her mother’s house with her husband and four children, a dog called Babuli, a white cat that meanders around, a hen and her chicks. Her 150-year-old…
Marine subsidies are a mess, say small scale fishers of southern Karnataka
Till the 1950s, fishing operations in Karnataka were mostly of traditional, non-mechanised, small scale and subsistence nature. The Indo-Norwegian project in 1966 introduced the mechanisation of fishing crafts with a view of…
“There is no fish in the ocean”: Declining catch worries fishers in southern Karnataka
January 18th, 2020. It is a hot Saturday afternoon in Sasihithlu, a small fishing village in southern Karnataka. At 12:30 PM, the sun is directly above us, glaring through a…
Beached in Goa
On July 2 this year, two olive ridley turtles were found entangled in fishing nets at Cavelossim, a village in south Goa. “I was there on duty at the time,”…
Managing marine life strandings, while national protocol is awaited
On the evening of June 24, 2015, members of the Konkan Cetacean Research Team received an ominous call. A blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus), the largest animal in the world, was…
Gentle giants suffer for tourists in Goa
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…
