Three decades ago, in 1992, the Constitution 73rd (on Panchayat Raj) and 74th Amendment Acts (on Nagarpalika or urban local bodies) were enacted. These were the first definitive steps to…
This summer it will be thirty years since the Rio Earth Summit. Unlike the earlier decadal anniversaries, this year the United Nations is not celebrating an event to mark the…
About three years ago, the silence of a quiet evening was broken for Dinesh Das as an adult male wild elephant entered the courtyard of his tin-roofed house in Rani,…
In the mountainous district of Wayanad in Kerala, the Meenangadi grama panchayat has launched a process for turning their area carbon neutral. The measures, planned and implemented by the local…
At a time when India’s standing forests are under threat – with 14 percent of the country’s tree cover being lost in 2019-20 alone, according to Washington-based Global Forest Watch -…
Located in Amarpur block of district Dindori in Madhya Pradesh, Lalpur village is widely divided into two hamlets, Banwasi Tola and Muqaddam Tola. While Banwasi Tola depends on poultry as…
Many things signal the imbalance of the natural world. For Tokugha Sumi, a school headmaster, a village council member and the son of the headman of Sapotami village in Nagaland,…
While the world as we know it has changed, following the coronavirus pandemic, what hasn’t changed is starting the new year with hope and optimism. Even as we approach 2022…
On Monday, the Indian government referred the Biological Diversity Act Amendment Bill (2021) to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC). The Bill was developed to amend certain provisions of the Biological…
Located in the West Kameng district of Arunachal Pradesh, the 100 square kilometre Sessa Orchid Sanctuary is home to more than 200 species of orchids including several endemic and rare…
All the children and men in a village taking a day off once a year to go fishing together may sound like a tale from bygone days, but this Kashmir…
"Pristine wilderness" — a natural zone free of people — as a conservation idea is an erroneous construct, a new study says. It fails to reflect the reality of how…
The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006, commonly known as the FRA, is a landmark legislation in the history of independent India, as…
“Powerbaaz”. “Main boss”. No, these descriptions don’t refer to any power-hungry politician or underworld don. It’s how the indigenous Warli people of Maharashtra see their animal god, the Waghoba. The…
Born into a marginalised family in 1937 in Kerala, his umbilical cord looked almost like a bloated seed of a common mangrove tree. So, his parents who worked as farm…
On the outskirts of a bustling New Delhi, the quiet village of Mangar in Haryana has long held a secret in its caves: ancient paintings. Growing up grazing livestock in…
Harasa Bhoi, in her early 40s, is a vegetable seller in Odisha’s religious town of Puri. She owns a small shack on the Grand Road, locally called the ‘Bada Danda,’…
The oran (sacred grove) is an integral part of Rajasthan’s culture. Rich in biodiversity and usually with water bodies within, orans are akin to oases in the dry state. The…
A sudden whirlpool in the usually calm waters surrounding the hills of Meghalaya can mean only one thing – a school of frenzied chocolate mahseer, locally also known as Na.rong,…
The Konkan Fruit Fest (KFF) is an initiative of Miguel Braganza and his team from Botanical Society of Goa, to preserve endangered food biodiversity by providing fruit growers a forum…
