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…
Ports in India need to fortify themselves from the onslaught of climate change, finds a study that forecasts changes in the shoreline along the Paradip Port in the eastern coast…
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…
It is the final leg of the current Indian government’s tenure, which began in 2014. As the general elections loom, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government has gone into hyperactive…
Sixty five-year-old Maria sits at the doorstep of her demolished house. The only thing that remains of the house is a wall attached to the door. Every morning, she comes…
Bright blue-and-yellow melon butterflyfish (Chaetodon trifasciatus) that exclusively feed on corals, tweak the way they eat, to survive on bleached reefs of the Lakshadweep archipelago, in the Arabian Sea waters,…
Take a disaster-prone area, add some lax administration and generous helpings of construction projects and voila! What do you get? Uttarakhand, the north Indian hill state which is a perfect…
When there is absolute darkness and stillness all over and the sun is beginning to come up, the day begins. The fisherman gathers his nets and throws it into his…
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…
