Household air pollution caused mainly by the burning of solid fuels, including biomass—firewood, charcoal, coal, dung, and agricultural waste—and ambient air pollution are among the leading risk factors contributing to…
In Hinta, a village in the west Indian state of Rajasthan, Manju Soni, troops through lush wheat fields and adjoining homesteads adorned with animal motifs, stopping at wells where she…
One of the crucial guidelines issued by the World Health Organisation, to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), is obligatory hand hygiene - to wash hands with…
Kaliamma Nanjan, 70, sings as she cuts through her farm in Kerala's Western Ghats. She deftly navigates the slopes of Attappady in Palakkad district with the gravity-defying dexterity of a…
In India’s Himachal Pradesh, in the western Himalayas, Anuradha is doubled down into the soils of her farmland in Sudher village, donning a dhattu—the term used in the hills to…
As the sun moved above the horizon dividing the sky and sea, five boats approached the coast at Sana Nolia Nuagaon, a fishing village in Ganjam district of eastern Indian…
Farida Sheikh remembers her house in the slums in Ahmedabad feeling like a furnace, where summer temperatures have reached up to 50 degrees Celsius. But for the last four years,…
For believers of Vastu Shastra and Feng Shui, the kachua (turtles or tortoises) attracts good fortune. Decorative items, rings and pendants depicting these creatures are common talismans and some homes…
Pinky Alawa and Sapna Rawat cautiously approach a woman drawing water from a hand-pump in the hilly part of central India, in Alirajpur district in Madhya Pradesh. The pump is…
For half a century, Tulasi Gowda’s life revolved around the saplings that she nurtured with much care and love at the Agasur nursery of the forest department as part of…
When newly-elected Member of Parliament from the east Indian state of Odisha, Pramila Bisoyi spoke in the House in her mother-tongue Odia, it was the subject of many jibes. The…
In May 2019, hundreds of fish turned up dead in a river in Kasaragod, northern Kerala, reportedly due to low oxygen levels. Among the mass fish graveyard, sightings of an…
Record extreme events exacted a heavy toll on human, animal lives and property in India as a high-impact mix of seven cyclones, the heaviest monsoon in 25 years, floods that…
In the bustling metropolis of Kolkata, in the east Indian state of West Bengal, Rabindra Sarovar, a lake of national importance, is the favourite haunt of over 10,000-morning walkers. Two…
In Karnataka’s drought-prone Kolar, men started moving out of agriculture about a decade ago, to find jobs off-the-field. The area, once considered the world's second deepest gold mine with two…
The salty air in Penthakatha’s slum, a speck at the edge of the Bay of Bengal, stings mildly with the stench of dried fish. Streams of dirty brown water meander…
Along the Ganga, in the ancient city of Haridwar in Uttarakhand, a precocious 11-year-old girl is bristling with anger. Ridhima Pandey is tired of global leaders not paying enough attention…
It’s all in a day’s work for these foresters- dodging poacher’s bullets in grasslands, navigating swampy mangroves with swimming tigers, lugging heavy equipment sliding down an icy Himalayan slope, turning…
“What preparations should one make for children before a cyclone strikes?” asked Durga, a volunteer at a community radio station in the coastal village of Vizhuthamavadi, roughly 320 kilometres (km)…
As southwest India finally has a respite from the recent heavy rains, the discussions have now turned to what went wrong. In the district of Kodagu, nine days of non-stop…
