Tag: Environment

Dressed in an orange puffer jacket, Japanese scientist Yoshinori Iizuka stepped into a storage freezer to retrieve an ice core he hopes will help experts protect the world’s disappearing glaciers. The fist-sized sample drilled from a mountaintop is part of an ambitious international effort to understand why glaciers in Tajikistan have resisted the rapid melting...

On successive weekends in November, hundreds of Delhi residents gathered at India Gate holding placards saying “I miss breathing” and “right to live, not just survive”. Winter’s onset once again plunged the National Capital Region into a dense smog, with the air quality index refusing to exit the ‘severe’ (301-400) or ‘very poor’ (201-300) levels....

The western tragopan (Tragopan melanocephalus) is one of India’s rarest pheasants and the state bird of Himachal Pradesh. It was once found across parts of Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand, but now survives in small fragmented pockets. Studies in the forests of Kazinag and Limber in Jammu & Kashmir have revealed that while...

This year is set to be the world’s second or third-warmest on record, potentially surpassed only by 2024’s record-breaking heat, the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said on December 9. The data is the latest from C3S following last month’s COP30 climate summit, where governments failed to agree to substantial new measures to...

“Wastelands”. That’s how India’s biodiverse semi-arid grasslands and savannas have been undervalued ever since the British colonial era. For the masters, the woody forests of the subcontinent fuelled industrialisation, while the grassy biomes served no purpose in their timber-driven colonisation. Much of post-independence policy and jurisprudence drew heavily from the erstwhile rulers and “wastelands” made...

In August 2008, Bihar experienced one of the worst floods in nearly five decades when the Kosi River breached its embankment at Kusaha in Sunsari district of Nepal, killing more than 400 people and displacing thousands. A staggering 33 lakh people were affected at the peak of the flood in Bihar. Indeed, the Kosi River...

Road dust mainly comprises PM₁₀ and coarse particles and forms a large share of the air we breathe. With the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) aiming for a 40% reduction in PM₁₀ by 2025-2026, reducing road dust is an urgent priority. This is reinforced by source apportionment studies across 17 non-attainment cities that have found...

The World Health Organisation recognises snakebite envenomation as a “neglected tropical disease”. It causes between 81,000 to 138,000 deaths globally every year, and four-times the number are left with physical disabilities. And “India bears the largest burden of snakebite envenomation globally, accounting for nearly half of the world’s snakebite deaths,” per a new study in...

On November 12, Delhi’s air became distinctly unbreathable. A thick blanket of smog enveloped the capital, which recorded an average Air Quality Index (AQI) of over 400, and the pollution was categorised as “severe”. On November 9, Delhiites, aware of the possible respiratory ailments this relapsing crisis could lead to, protested at India Gate. Many...

On November 17, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) warned of a cold wave in parts of Telangana. The nighttime temperatures have fallen into single digits in many locations. Kohir and Yalal districts recorded around 8.1º C while Adilabad, Medak, Kumaram Bheem Asifabad, Nirmal, and Sangareddy have reported minimum temperatures between around 8º and 10º C...