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…
Shyam Sunder Jyani, who hails from the hot and sandy Thar desert region of India, greets you with an unexpected ode to greenery - “हरित प्रणाम”, he says, a Hindi…
In July 2017, the Haryana government had declared a 100-acre pond site at village Thana in its Kurukshetra district as the state’s first community reserve site, to conserve its rich…
For the past 14 years, artisan Deepak Dewangan has been weaving magic out of bamboo. Based in Kondagaon district of Chhattisgarh which falls under the Bastar division, Dewangan has been…
The World Environment Day on June 5 marks the formal launch of the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030), a decade where efforts to massively scale up the restoration…
Locally known as Thung Thung Karmu, the black-necked crane (Grus nigricollis) is not simply a bird but an emotion for the inhabitants of Sangti and Zemithang valleys in Arunachal Pradesh…
River Tillari originates at an altitude of 750 metres (2461 feet) on the gently west-tilted flatland at the Karnataka-Maharashtra border. It is dammed on the plateau and the water is…
Institutionalised conservation efforts in India started with the enactment of the Wildlife Protection Act in 1972 and the launch of the Project Tiger - to conserve the apex predator and…
As Mangalore resident Spandana walked on to Padukere beach in the first week of April, a menacing sign restricting the entry of anyone connected with the marina project on to…
“Twenty years ago, we did not have 10 litres of milk available in Lamkani village in Dhule district. Today, Lamkani sells about 3,000 litres of milk to Dhule every day,”…
When one thinks of the Thar desert, what comes to mind is a landscape full of sand. But there is more to Thar, the vast desert expanse located in the…
“Long time ago, there was no lake in this place. This used to be a huge valley where yak herders used to graze their animals. One day, an old woman…
With a school bag on her shoulder and a big shopping bag in her hand, 17-year-old Alby stares at the backbreaking path ahead. The two-kilometre untarred road from the bus…