As communities in the Western Ghats prepare for the national elections, the Munnar-Devikulam region and its fragile ecology are turning hot subjects of political debate not only in Idukki constituency…
Forests in the northern Indian state of Haryana account for just 3.59 percent of its total geographical area. And a new threat looms which could reduce this cover further as…
Calling for an increase in efficiency and speed of environmental clearances and better coordination among ministries, a parliamentary committee has pushed for the development of the hydropower sector in India…
The recent Madras High Court order to evict encroachers from the banks of water bodies in the Nilgiris came as a shot in the arm for the citizens of Coonoor,…
The Hindu Kush Himalaya region that supports nearly 40 percent of the global population, directly or indirectly, is under severe stress with rising global temperatures. Even if the world manages…
In January this year, over a hundred trainee mountaineers rappelled down Tenzing Rock, a natural rock in India’s Darjeeling city, named after the legendary Sherpa Tenzing Norgay who with Sir…
In this season’s episodes of the popular Nepali tele-serial Singha Durbar which is patterned after Yes, Prime Minister, a fictitious female prime minister of Nepal grapples with all kinds of…
The Himalayas support about 20 percent of the world’s population. But the ecologically fragile region, the storehouse of the third highest amount of frozen water on earth, is highly vulnerable…
How should a country, blessed with mountain ranges like the Aravallis that are over two billion years old, treat them? Spread across four states, the 692-km-long Aravalli range is key…
After being criticised by the National Green Tribunal (NGT) for failing to finalise the ecologically sensitive area (ESA) in the Western Ghats region, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate…
Every year an average of about 100 million tourists visit the ecologically sensitive Indian Himalayan region (IHR), which is home to about 50 million people. In seven years, the number…
A recent stir launched by wildlife enthusiasts and activists in the Ladakh Himalayas over a major motorsport rally intruding upon ecologically sensitive areas of the cold desert, including high-altitude wetlands,…
In landslide-prone Giddapahar, a small hamlet nestled in the Darjeeling Himalayas known for its fragrant black tea, Bikash Thapa has become his community’s very own rain man. Aided by his…
Heavy, incessant rainfall is a fact of life for the people of Kodagu (the erstwhile Coorg district) in Karnataka. “For the old timers here in Coorg, the last few months…
It is time to look at land use planning and zoning regulations to reduce damages from landslides and strengthen disaster preparedness, say experts at Geological Survey of India in the…
Starting late July, the Anamalai hills near Munnar in Kerala will be resplendent, clad in a purplish blue carpet. The famed neelakurinji (Strobilanthes kunthiana) will burst into flower – a…
In his 1895 book, The Valley of Kashmir, Sir Walter Lawrence, who served in the Indian Civil Service in British India and was posted as the Settlement Commissioner of Kashmir,…
If anything is emblematic of lack of proper planning for tourism management and disregard for Kashmir’s ecological resources, it is the master plan for infrastructure development in one of Kashmir’s…
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has forecasted that the country is likely to experience ‘normal’ rainfall in the 2018 southwest monsoon season. The forecast spells good news for the country’s…
Land use change is one of those terms that we read about frequently and gloss over it. We read about lakes being converted to high rises, forests being turned farmland…