The expert appraisal committee of the Indian Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change has recommended the grant of environmental and Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) clearance for a big infrastructure…
The government of India is going all guns blazing on the “holistic development” of the Great Nicobar Island with a multi-component mega project. An international container trans-shipment terminal, a military-civil…
Justin Sumit Kumar’s typical day is rather adventurous – he helps scientists track birds in dark caves, that are difficult to access, and surveys them. His work also requires him…
The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami devastated mangroves across Southeast Asia. In the Nicobar archipelago, consisting of 22 islands situated close to the epicenter of the 2004 Sumatra Andaman earthquake, mangroves…
Gliding through the water, a diver searches for small fragments of Turbinaria mesenterina or table coral, found in abundance near the islands of Goa in the Arabian Sea. Another diver brings…
Expanding the land area under agroforestry systems, which integrate trees alongside crops, is a promising strategy to offset greenhouse gas emissions and could help achieve India’s Nationally Determined Contributions to…
To the untrained eye discerning between evergreen and deciduous tree mosaics of the Andaman archipelago can be tough in the wet season but the patches clearly stand out in the…
Following several media reports published recently, a number of Right to Information (RTI) applications have been filed seeking information on various aspects of the Niti Aayog's development plans for Little…
A 58-page, undated “vision document” for the “sustainable development” of the Little Andaman Island in the Bay of Bengal was produced by the National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog,…
Giving weightage to the “holistic development” argument, an expert committee of the environment ministry has recommended a near-negligible eco-sensitive zone (ESZ) around Galathea National Park (GNP) in the Great Nicobar…
With busy doctors as parents, annual visits to wildlife sanctuaries and national parks in the Western Ghats punctuated Vanjulavalli Sridhar's childhood, sparking and nurturing her love for forests and wildlife.…
It was October 2013. Armed with special permission, researcher Dinal Samarasinghe was peering at preserved animal specimens at Kolkata's Zoological Survey of India. While the ZSI is a repository of…
A senior forest officer in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, was left with no work allocated to him, after he highlighted to the Indian government’s environment ministry that the construction…
The invasive Indian bullfrog, native to the Indian subcontinent, is currently an invasive species in the Andaman archipelago in the Bay of Bengal. Yet, little is known about the impact…
Off the coast of Red Skin Island in the Andamans, it was a colourful world that marine biologist Vardhan Patankar dived into in the summer of 2016. Here, corals wore…
Cyclone Bulbul, the seventh cyclone to hit India in 2019, battered the country and its neighbour Bangladesh’s coasts, killing at least 20 and displacing millions. But the damage could have…
For the underwater-dwelling tape grass Enhalus acoroides, pollination is an adventure where female flowers have their work cut out. The pinkish-green male flowers produce plenty of pollen, encased in long…
Among the jagged rocks, sinkholes and caves carved out of limestone, Baratang in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands also houses a species-rich, diverse forest that is quite different from the…
The Andaman & Nicobar islands, one of the Union Territories of India, are a group of islands between the Andaman Sea and Bay of Bengal. The islands receive over 3000…
John Allen Chau, a 26-year-old American missionary, who “illegally” paddled his way to the remote shores of North Sentinel Island in the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago, was recently killed by…
