There are three commercially important tuna species in the Indian Ocean, and all of them are at risk. One of the prickliest issues for tuna fisheries in the world is…
A seawater-powered lantern with an output in watts; a small hut powered by one to five kilowatts of ocean energy; or a town that could run on megawatts harnessed from…
In April 2021, Cdr. Gopakumar K. and his colleagues from the National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) reached the central Indian Ocean with Varaha-1, a deep-sea mining machine. The 9.5-tonne…
Tropical cyclones are fairly common weather systems, clocking a global average of around 80 storms annually. However, with rising global temperatures and subsequent increase in sea surface temperatures, the…
Every year, around the first week of June, a vast expanse of roiling grey clouds advances from the Arabian sea and makes landfall in Kerala to the tune of rumbling…
The Indian summer monsoon is a vast weather event that is crucial to the 1.39 billion people that live in India, as most of the rainfall (70-90%) that the country…
It was a calm October night over Sri Lanka’s northern seas, the silence broken only by the sound of a rapidly approaching motorboat from India. In Kalpitiya, a town further…
Marine biologist Charles Anderson saw swarms of globe skimmer dragonflies landing at the Maldives during autumn, before they took off towards East Africa. Back in 2009, these observations led Anderson…
For the past two decades, the catch and trade of seahorses has been banned in India. However, a new study reveals that 13 million seahorses are estimated to have been…
Similar to some other countries such as China, the quest for minerals in the deep sea has been on India’s radar for some time now. Recently, in June 2021, it…
India is a mega-biodiverse nation. It is home to 7-8% of the recorded species of the world. Its marine ecosystems are equally biodiverse: of the 32 animal phyla known to…
Lakshadweep resident and researcher R.M. Hidayathulla, who drew attention to the disappearance of a small, uninhabited atoll island in the archipelago in the Arabian Sea in 2017, has closely witnessed…
A Spanish tuna fishing vessel, the Playa de Anzoras, named after a beach in Spain, sailed under the Spanish flag until January 9, 2014. On January 10 that year, the…
A study published the journal Endangered Species Research, assessed the state of dolphin bycatch in tuna gillnet fisheries in the Indian Ocean. The results are grim. Tuna fisheries is a…
Every year during the dry season between December and March, a dirty haze appears over South Asia and China. It is a potent mixture of pollutants borne out of wood…
The coasts are in turmoil again. It is neither storms nor monsoonal winds that are affecting the coast at present. The turbulence is because the Ministry of Environment, Forest and…