Vidmate news

Representative image | Photo Credit: mammuth India’s electricity demand during the severe heatwave months of April to June 2024 rose by 10.4% compared to the corresponding period the year before, with increased use of air conditioning contributing to nearly a third of the rise, according to a new report released on Tuesday (April 8, 2025). … Read more

The Pallas’s fish eagle, named Ider, Ider used the same nesting spot four times, shifting location just once within Kaziranga’s core area. | Photo Credit: Special arrangement GUWAHATI An endangered fishing eagle tagged in Mongolia continues flying to the same location in Assam’s Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve for breeding season since 2020. The … Read more

An arecanut plantation in Mangaluru. Karnataka ranks first in arecanut production with 10 lakh tonnes from 6.8 lakh hectares out of a total production of 14.11 lakh tonnes from 9.4 lakh hectares in India, as per final estimate for 2023-24.  | Photo Credit: Raviprasad Kamila MANGALURU The Union Government has reiterated that there is no … Read more

Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan addresses the media after a meeting with farmers in Chandigarh on March 19, 2025. | Photo Credit: PTI The seventh round of talks between farmer leaders and a central delegation concluded on Wednesday (March 19, 2025), with Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan announcing the next meeting on May … Read more

Prof. Chandrashekhar M. Biradar is an earth system scientist, green growth activist, and biodiversity and agroecosystem research scholar with over three decades of experience spanning India, America, Africa, West and Central, Asia, and Eurasia. In a conversation with Kumar Buradikatti, he discussed the agrarian crisis and ways to address it. Excerpts from the interview: You … Read more

Culture is what we learn from others and pass on to successive generations by practising it over and over. Scientists have found cultural traditions among humans as well as animals, the latter in the way they forage, socialise, use tools, care for themselves, and mate. Among these traditions, the characteristic patterns of behaviour that involve … Read more

Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot. | Photo Credit: ANI After criticism by veteran Congress leader and former Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, the Bharatiya Janata Party Government in Rajasthan on Tuesday announced the procurement of mustard and gram at minimum support prices (MSP) for the upcoming rabi crop harvesting season from April 10. The State expects … Read more

A team of researchers from India and U.K. have discovered a species of land snail from the Konkan region of Maharashtra and named it, ‘Theobaldius konkanensis’.   In a paper titled, ‘A new species of cyclophorid land snail (Caenogastropoda: Cyclophoridae) from the coastal regions of Maharashtra, India’ published on March 11, 2025, in the international scientific journal Molluscan … Read more

Activists in Mysuru staged a protest and demonstrated against lifting of night traffic ban through Bandipur, Karnataka on April 6, 2025. | Photo Credit: M.A. Sriram Activists and common citizens, including farmers, launched the ‘’Walk for Bandipur’’ amidst growing concerns over renewed efforts to lift the night traffic ban through the famed tiger reserve, on … Read more

The study of morphological structures and genitalia confirmed the identity of the beetle as Aethina tumida. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement An alien or non-native beetle threatening the honeybee industry globally has been recorded for the first time in India. The small hive beetle (Aethinatumida) was recorded from a moderately large colony of European honeybees, … Read more

Anthony Agotha, EU Special Envoy for Climate and Environment | Photo Credit: IISD/ENB. Photographer: Kiara Worth Climate envoys representing Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the European External Action Service (EEAS) held a series of meetings in New Delhi earlier this week with officials from the Prime Minister’s Office, the Ministries of Environment, Forest and … Read more

The white-rumped vulture is the most abundant species, accounting for 110 individuals, followed closely by the long-billed vulture (31 individuals), the red-headed vulture (11) (in picture), and Egyptian vulture (5), the Synchronised Vulture Survey 2025 said. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement Minister for Forests K. Ponmudy on Friday (April 4, 2025) released the Synchronised Vulture … Read more

Blackflies are carriers of a worm causing river blindness. | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT A new study involving DNA barcoding to identify species accurately is expected to lead to better management and control strategies for blackflies, which are carriers of a worm causing river blindness. The findings by a team from the Diptera division of … Read more

Supreme Court has directed extensive survey of the entire tropical forest ecosystems of the Agasthyamalai landscape. File | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement The Supreme Court has directed the Central Empowered Committee (CEC) to conduct an extensive survey of the entire tropical forest ecosystems of the Agasthyamalai landscape in the southernmost Western Ghats to identify non-forestry … Read more

File picture of Ahaetulla longirostris from Valmiki Tiger Reserve | Photo Credit: Zeeshan A. Mirza via ResearchGate A rare long-snouted vine snake (Ahaetulla longirostris) has been rediscovered in the Dudhwa Tiger Reserve in Lakhimpur Kheri, Uttar Pradesh, marking its first documented sighting in the state and only the second recorded instance in India, forest officials … Read more

Representative image. | Photo Credit: LAKSHMI NARAYANAN E A group of environmental activists, concerned citizens, and the villagers have appealed to save more than one lakh trees and shrubs from being axed in the biodiversity-rich Shahbad forest situated in Rajasthan’s Baran district for the installation of a pumped storage project. The locals travelled to New … Read more

A building of the elephant interpretation centre ‘Vezham’ on Mettupalayam – Kotagiri Road. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement ‘Vezham’, the elephant interpretation centre at Mettupalayam, construction of which remained idle for three years, will be developed as a facility for human–elephant coexistence through community engagement. With ₹15 lakh allocated towards the project under the Tamil … Read more

Bioluminescence or sea sparkle, locally called ‘Kavaru’, at Chellanam | Photo Credit: THULASI KAKKAT It is that time of the year in Kochi, when the shrimp farms along the backwaters are sparkling in blue shimmer. ‘Kavaru’ or bioluminescence, the environmental phenomenon that gives the waters an electric blue backlight, is now a looked-forward to event … Read more

A file image of the Numaligarh refinery in Assam | Photo Credit: The Hindu GUWAHATI A refinery in eastern Assam’s Golaghat district has been discharging hazardous effluents into a tributary of the Brahmaputra River, endangering its fragile aquatic ecosystem, an environmental activist said. In a letter to the Member-Secretary of the Central Pollution Control Board … Read more

Coffee plant nurseries are reporting that they are getting queries from places such as Tumakuru, Chitradurga, Palakkad, and Hosur.  | Photo Credit: File Photo The record prices that coffee hit this year have spurred interest in its cultivation in newer destinations outside of the traditional coffee growing belt in Karnataka such as Kodagu and Chikmagalur. … Read more

A file photo of coconut trees. Whitefly disease has affected coconut yield in Chikkamagaluru, Mandya, Mysuru, Davanagere, Chitradurga, Shivamogga, Dakshina Kannada, Chamarajanagar, Ramanagara, Bengaluru Rural and Kolar districts. | Photo Credit: K BHAGYA PRAKASH Coconut trees on 1.48 lakh hectare in 14 districts across Karnataka are affected by whitefly disease, Minister for Industries M. B. Patil … Read more

Green Humour | Photo Credit: Rohan Chakravarty Green Humour | Photo Credit: Rohan Chakravarty Rohan Chakravarty is a cartoonist and illustrator from Nagpur. His series, ‘Green Humour’, consists of cartoons and comics on wildlife, nature conservation, environmental issues, sustainability, and all things green. Published – April 03, 2025 02:02 pm IST

Rapidly reducing aerosol emissions, which are part of air pollution, without concurrently reducing greenhouse gas emissions could expose a large fraction of the world’s most vulnerable people to a sudden acceleration of warming and extreme heat in highly polluted regions like India. Researchers warned as much in a study published in November 2024 in Geophysical … Read more

India’s air pollution crisis is not just a seasonal inconvenience. It’s a persistent, silent pandemic that chokes our lungs every winter and quietly lingers throughout the year. Hospitals overflow with respiratory cases, schools shut down, cities disappear under layers of smog, and Indian metros regularly top global pollution rankings. Given the scale of this crisis, … Read more

Some plants, like snapdragons, can produce a wide range of colourful flowers. The difference between two flowers of different colours can be elicited by comparing their genomes and spotting the differences there, according to Daria Shipilina, a researcher at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria. As an evolutionary biologist, Shipilina is fascinated by how … Read more

Over 13,000 sq km of forest area, more than the total geographical area of Delhi, Sikkim and Goa combined, is under encroachment in 25 States and Union Territories, according to data submitted by the Union Environment Ministry to the National Green Tribunal. Last year, the NGT took suo motu cognisance of a PTI report that … Read more

Flower waste usually falls through the composting cracks, usually due to the lack of volume. Representational image only Heavy-laden bags hanging down like gyves, from a motorcycle. And a man seated astride that vehicle hitting a meandering early-morning road he need not take, but did anyway. Those images were singular because of the regularity with … Read more

Representational file image. | Photo Credit: K.K. Mustafah The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has “ruled out” the possibility of an El Nino in the coming southwest  monsoon season this year. An El Nino, characterised by a warming of the central equatorial Pacific Ocean, is frequently associated with reduced monsoon rainfall in India. “Based on the … Read more

In Uganda’s Mbale district, famous for its production of arabica coffee, a plague of plastic bags locally known as buveera is creeping beyond the city. It’s a problem that has long littered the landscape in Kampala, the capital, where buveera are woven into the fabric of daily life. They show up in layers of excavated … Read more