Buddha Dariya, in Punjab’s Ludhiana city, was once a clear stream of water, flowing into one of the largest rivers of the state, the Sutlej. Today, it is a stream…
In May 2022, in the case T.N. Godavarman Thirumulpad versus Union of India, the Supreme Court passed a landmark order, marking a pivotal development in judicial jurisprudence on the precautionary…
Several women scientists from Kashmir are at the forefront of research to tackle changing climatic patterns that threaten local ecologies, livelihoods and networks that sustain them. Scientists Nasheeman Ashraf, Ulfat…
It was a busy Sunday afternoon in mid-July and Ravindra Swapnil Prajapati's showroom selling electric two-wheelers in Vidisha, Madhya Pradesh was overflowing with customers. For the 50-year-old poet-turned-businessman, the journey…
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…
Read part 1 of this series to understand Karnataka's port-based development spree and what it means for the people living on the coast. In part 2, find out how a road…
Read part 1 of this series to understand Karnataka's port-based development spree and what it means for the people living on the coast. Part 3 looks at one such minor…
Karnataka is on a port-development spree. The 320-kilometre coastline, spread across three districts – Uttara Kannada, Udupi, and Dakshin Kannada – is dotted with 12 minor ports, and one major…
Roshan Lal, 66, is livid. He is yet to come to terms with the damage caused to a forest near his village, that caught fire on June 12. Lal, an…
The summer of 2022 has been particularly harsh all over India, with unrelenting heat spells signalling evolving climatic systems. With March being declared as the hottest in the India Meteorological…
Opening the courier packet, I was disappointed with how slim the latest book from Amitav Ghosh, The Living Mountain: A Fable of our Times, was. At 35 pages, it was…
In October 2021, an eight-storeyed building in Shimla collapsed after heavy rains triggered a landslide. The building was evacuated well before the collapse. But the tragedy exposed the pressure being…
The industrial zone in the Kundli area of Haryana’s Sonipat district has provided a livelihood to many over the last 40 years. From a sleepy village, Kundli turned into a…
Hardeep Kaur, 36, and her husband Chamkaur Singh, 39, owned two acres of agricultural land in the Bathinda district of Punjab, a northern Indian state. With a fierce heatwave in…
Following pressure from conservationists and NGOs, Nepal's government recently adopted guidelines to make infrastructure such as roads, dams and railway lines wildlife-friendly. But not all wildlife have been included, with…
Illegal and unscientific sand mining from rivers is generally seen as a threat to the environment, especially aquatic life. But there is another dark side to this that is neither…
Stephen Midzi, the biodiversity conservation manager of South Africa’s iconic Kruger National Park, thinks it is a good thing to allow rivers to be what rivers should be. Midzi is…
Rows of grey cement blocks look like gravestones in an abandoned cemetery. The dilapidated single-storeyed house, adjacent to a field, seems like a setting for a horror film. Less…
The word "biodiversity," to some, first brings to mind the elephants, tigers and deer in intact forests. To some others, it's the vast coral reefs and vibrant fish in clear…
“No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn,” says author Hal Borland. But it seems in 2022, spring forgot its annual appointment with northern India as a usually pleasant…
