Travel the great indoors for a glimpse of your city’s natural world
A lesser flameback woodpecker drums a tree trunk while a pair of brown-headed barbets collect berries for their nest, a shikra swoops down on a gecko and then feasts on…
Women act to make slums climate-resilient, one house at a time
Farida Sheikh remembers her house in the slums in Ahmedabad feeling like a furnace, where summer temperatures have reached up to 50 degrees Celsius. But for the last four years,…
Bringing freshwater turtles out of their shells and into the spotlight
For believers of Vastu Shastra and Feng Shui, the kachua (turtles or tortoises) attracts good fortune. Decorative items, rings and pendants depicting these creatures are common talismans and some homes…
Madhya Pradesh’s ‘fluoride warriors’ unleash citizen science to empower community
Pinky Alawa and Sapna Rawat cautiously approach a woman drawing water from a hand-pump in the hilly part of central India, in Alirajpur district in Madhya Pradesh. The pump is…
Most Indian birds declining, finds new report using citizen science data
For millennia, birds have been inherently intertwined in Indian culture, playing prominent roles in mythology, religion, art, and other aspects of human life. A new comprehensive report on the state of India’s…
Mysore city has a bird atlas to its credit
Mysore city (or Mysuru) in Karnataka sure knows its birds. A lesser-known secret of the city that wears a royal cape is its thriving birding scene. On any given day,…
[Video] Youth of northeast India use films to tell stories about their environment and communities
Through the use of the visual medium, the Green Hub Project in northeast India engages and empowers youth across eight states in the region, especially from remote tribal areas and…
Citizen science project records shoots and leaves to understand climate change
A school teacher in Meghalaya spent the last four days of his holidays travelling around 30 villages looking at trees. Resly Roy Pariong was scanning trees in backyards, gardens and…
Wetlands to wastebins, Mumbai’s diverse habitats house hundreds of bird species
Early on a Sunday morning, before the sun had even risen, hundreds of Mumbaikars stumbled out of their beds. They went crisscrossing through the city and then flocked to certain…
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…
