In a mangrove clump in Balasore in coastal Odisha, a youth gingerly snips away at the tangles of a fishing net around an upturned crab-like struggling creature, as it desperately…
What is seagrass? Seagrasses are marine flowering plants, found on all continents except Antarctica. They have roots, stems and leaves and produce flowers and fruits. They are closely related to…
For the underwater-dwelling tape grass Enhalus acoroides, pollination is an adventure where female flowers have their work cut out. The pinkish-green male flowers produce plenty of pollen, encased in long…
This week's stories rolled into one. To receive a weekly email with a roundup of our stories, please sign-up to our newsletter. Punjab farmers’ widows respond to apathy by standing…
For a city that is fixated with its housing, real estate opportunities and acquiring homes with a view, finding a space to call your own in Mumbai carries its own…
For fisherfolk from Gujarat, finding a whale shark tangled in their nets is an unwelcome sight. They can’t legally harvest the protected species, yet the world’s biggest fish can wreak…
They are neither well-known nor well-studied. Now a documentation of India's sea snakes hopes to stimulate further research interest and bring focus on the conservation of these marine creatures. In…
In a small fishing hamlet in Tamil Nadu, a community leader opens his smartphone and searches his contacts for “Map Saravanan” to make sure the number is saved correctly. Amused…
The water appeared opaque the deeper we travelled. An occasional peach-coloured butterscotch jellyfish would emerge from the depths, the bell breaking the surface to tread water, with its tentacles swirling…
On 26 April 2008, a never-before-seen species of shark arrived on the fishing harbour in Kochi. It was accidentally caught while fishing for economically important sharks from the deep-sea waters.…
India will make its first serious attempt to regulate fishing vessels that go out to the sea - for which bureaucratic wheels have just begun to turn. A central government…
Eyeing massive economic growth and employment generation, the Indian government has overhauled the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) rules which govern developmental activities along the ecologically sensitive 7,500-km-long Indian coastline. Doing…
On the evening of June 24, 2015, members of the Konkan Cetacean Research Team received an ominous call. A blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus), the largest animal in the world, was…
The smell of sea hangs thick in the air as we gather round and listen to the dos and don’ts. “Don’t pick up anything even if it seems beautiful,” Sejal…
Stating that the development of port infrastructure is necessary to the economic health of the nation, a parliamentary committee has asked the environment ministry to speed up the environmental clearance…
In the already ancient marine world, sharks and their close relatives, rays and skates, can claim a unique early ancestry. Their first ancestor is estimated to have arrived around 350…
In the stillness of the night the hoot of an owl, the howl of a wolf, a frog’s croak or an insect's tweet have both a thrill and an eeriness…
They may be microscopic in size, but bacterioplankton steer major carbon cycling and food webs in aquatic ecosystems. Bacterioplankton are the bacterial component of plankton that live in water bodies,…
Already benefiting several hundred thousand fishermen with daily predictions about potential fishing zones along the Indian coast that can lead to a good yield, the Indian National Centre for Ocean…
Indian researchers have documented accelerated glacial melting at an Arctic fjord, a much-discussed factor projected to influence Indian monsoon with changing global climate. The frigid Arctic, which keeps losing ice…