Tag: Environment

Flood hazard assessments for Uttarakhand have routinely underestimated the danger to its towns and villages because they have leaned on long-term average rainfall figures rather than the extreme downpours that actually trigger disasters, according to a study in Current Science. The findings arrive at a moment when the Himalayan state is grappling with what climate...

The British natural historian David Attenborough turns 100 today. It is likely no one has done more to make the non-human world more legible and loveable to mass audiences. Attenborough’s career as a host, starting with Zoo Quest in 1954, spans seven decades and nine documentary series. His influence on how several generations of people...

Jairam Ramesh, Rajya Sabha MP and former Union Minister for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh, general secretary (communications), Indian National Congress. | Photo Credit: PTI “David Attenboroughwas part of Indira Gandhi’s circle of naturalists. In 2019, in his acceptance speech on winning the Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development, he recalled a conversation...

Industrial decarbonisation is often framed through solutions that promise deep emissions reductions (e.g. green hydrogen and carbon capture). These pathways are essential, particularly for hard-to-abate sectors, but are still several years away from large-scale adoption Industry accounted for nearly half of India’s final energy consumption in 2025, much of it still tied to fossil fuels....

Officials have confirmed the return of the rare caracal in the Thar Desert near the India-Pakistan border, raising fresh hopes for conservation of the highly elusive, and critically endangered species. The officials spotted two wildcats, a male and female, in the Shahgarh region of Rajasthan’s Jaisalmer, with the help of camera traps and radio-collaring, taking...

Across India, campaigns against invasive alien species (IAS) are gathering administrative and judicial force. Authorities now identify, map, classify, and remove species deemed ecological threats. In the last year alone, India’s English-language press has carried sustained coverage of ecological-loss studies, State eradication drives, and human-wildlife conflicts linked to such species. What was once a niche...

A striking, electric-blue spider from the Eastern Ghats has spun its way into public conversation after Andhra Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan shared a post on Instagram, calling the Peacock Tarantula “a rare jewel of the Eastern Ghats… finally getting the attention it deserves.” The species in focus, Peacock Tarantula (Poecilotheria metallica), is among...

Large commercial complexes, textile shops, and jewellery showrooms blast cold air onto the high street in T. Nagar, Chennai, where the average summer temperature is over 35 °C. Shoppers dart from one air-conditioned building to another. But these ACs also cause an urban heat-island effect, making it one of the top 20 most vulnerable spots...

India is in an artificial intelligence (AI) moment. Across agriculture, health, finance, and governance, the race is on to deploy AI-enabled services that reach the last mile. Chatbots answer farmer queries. Agentic tools navigate entitlement schemes. And advisory platforms push the right information to the right person (presumably) at the right time. Many of these...

In 1957, an Indian plastic-packaging maker chronicled the happy fate of a hosiery brand that had begun wrapping its products in plastic. The result, he wrote in an Indian daily, was a 65% jump in sales. Paper, wood, aluminium, tin and other containers had been on the market for decades, but were opaque. “It is...