As Fani-struck Odisha rebuilds itself brick by brick, affected communities in temporary shelters are trying to move on, a month after the extremely severe cyclone hit the state. But for…
On May 3, the coastal state of Odisha in eastern India witnessed Fani, an ‘extremely severe cyclonic storm’ and the first major cyclone of the 2019 North Indian Ocean cyclone…
The city of Chennai and the surrounding areas went through major floods in November-December 2015. The entire state of Kerala went through a similar event in August 2018. Both the…
He is the most loved as well as feared among the 521 captive elephants, presently under private ownership in Kerala. So, it was with bated breath that Thrissur, the state’s…
India’s seed market hides a sea of illegality, which keeps rearing its ugly head every once in a while. The discovery of genetically modified (GM) brinjal in a Haryana farmer’s…
The implementation of the Forest Rights Act in the Indian Sundarbans, a demand reiterated by a section of fisher and forest-dependent communities in the 2019 national elections, has been hindered…
In the agrarian state of Punjab, an average of two farmers have committed suicide every day, over the last 18 years, an estimate based on multiple reports. These statistics should…
Food giant PepsiCo India, last week, formally withdrew cases it had filed against nine potato farmers in Gujarat. The multinational corporation was seeking Rs. 1.05 crores (Rs. 10.5 million) from…
In the year 2014, when Jammu and Kashmir was facing one of its worst floods, a group of researchers from the National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources (NBPGR) and Punjab…
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…
When summer strengthens, it brings with it dry spells and the season of forest fires. Since January 2019, a number of fire incidents have been reported from Kerala. In the…
It has been a decade since Cyclone Aila ravaged the Bay of Bengal. But paddy farmer Tapan Mondal, is wary of growing legumes and watermelon in the still-recovering soil of…
Sometimes, particularly during monsoons, the day starts around 4 a.m., earlier than usual, for Rati Ranjan Mondal in Assam’s Nagrijuli village on the Indo-Bhutan border. Mondal wakes up, after a…
“Like fish trapped in a net,” Jam Ismael Ali smiled at the irony of the simile drawn to explain his own situation. One among the few remaining Pagadia fishermen in…
It is just the beginning of summer. The mercury in Lalitpur — one of the drought-prone districts of Bundelkhand, a region divided between the two states of Uttar Pradesh (UP)…
Manasi Dighe (name changed) rises before the sun, changes into a sari, plaits her thinning hair, and sets out. At the crack of dawn, her eyes begin searching the road,…
India has been trying to make the ongoing national elections more environment-friendly by cutting down on the amount of single-use plastics. However, the election campaigns have painted most roads with…
Since the 2014 national elections, the capital city of Tamil Nadu has witnessed major environmental calamities, from the disastrous floods of December 2015 to the giant oil spill outside Kamarajar…
It is an era of rapid urban expansion that ignores sustainable urban planning principles until disaster strikes. The city of Chennai in Tamil Nadu is no exception to this rule.…
As rural economy and the festering agricultural crisis take centre stage ahead of India's general elections, the 2019 Global Food Policy report advocates revitalising rural areas underpinned by symbiotic rural and urban…