In Puthiravali, a village in Cuddalore district of Tamil Nadu, villagers are hopeful that Haldia Petrochemical Ltd.'s takeover of Nagarjuna Oil Corporation Ltd.’s (NOCL) dysfunctional oil refinery will result in…
Over the years, visitors to the Taj Mahal have been complaining of foul smell that’s ruining their experiences at the majestic 17th-century Mughal architecture listed as one of the New…
The aquatic life in the freshwater streams of Kashmir faces threats from riverbed mining and rising pollution. Increasing mechanised riverbed mining in the river Jhelum and its tributaries, to extract…
All the children and men in a village taking a day off once a year to go fishing together may sound like a tale from bygone days, but this Kashmir…
In an effort to identify plastic accumulation and leakage hotspots along the Ganges river, a recent project in three north Indian cities found that roughly 10–25% of all the plastic…
The Damodar river, once known as the “sorrow of Bengal” for its frequent flooding, is still causing pain to millions of people dependent on it. The river was recently in…
Harasa Bhoi, in her early 40s, is a vegetable seller in Odisha’s religious town of Puri. She owns a small shack on the Grand Road, locally called the ‘Bada Danda,’…
Purnima Meher, a 76-year-old resident, dodges big black lumps on the sand. She then stands by the mangroves on the shore of Mahim village in Maharashtra, looking at a stranded…
Two shades of river water passing through Ludhiana’s Manewal village explain it all. It is at this village where the Sutlej river, which originates in Tibet before it enters Punjab…
Sunita Shashi Gawade is a 46-year-old woman living in Dhatwada, a sub-ward of Pissurlem, a mining-affected village in North Goa district. She lives with her husband and two children. Gawade…
Living in Haryana, the hills of Himachal Pradesh were a distant dream for young Pradeep Sangwan. He attended a military school in Ajmer, Rajasthan where he lived a disciplined life…
When Goan artist Harshada Kerkar looked out of her home window, she was used to seeing the scorched, parched buffaloes gravitating to the pond in front of her house in…
Amarkantak, the upper catchment area of the Narmada river in central India, has lost a significant percentage of forests and water bodies to agriculture and settlements in the last four…
It was a proud moment for India when in October 2020, the government announced that close to 99% of Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) and 100% of rural India have achieved…
The quest for bauxite in the bordering areas of Chhattisgarh-Jharkhand poses a threat to the future of the Mahuadanr Wolf Sanctuary, which is India’s only protected area for wolves, besides…
A study of Jharkhand’s major coal mining district, Ramgarh, shows that mining activities are shrinking and about 50 percent of mines in the region are either “closed down” or temporarily…
It had been over 25 years since Neelamma N. Reddy went scouring for greens in Varthur lake. The lake then was a veritable buffet of greens and fish for her.…
Chhendipada area in Angul district of Odisha is marked by large patches of green cover comprising forests of large tree species like Sal and others. The forest department has also…
On September 16, when Subhash Chandran, a scuba diver, along with four others, went for their first underwater clean-up post the lockdown at Rushikonda beach in Visakhapatnam, they found floating…
“Yeh toh bhagwan ki marzi hai, sahab. Pichhle janam ke kuch paap honge jo iss janam main saamne aa rahe hain (It’s all god’s will. Maybe we had sinned in…