A rooftop solar plant installed on the terrace of a residential house in Puducherry. | Photo Credit: S.S. Kumar Nearly a year after the Centre launched the ₹75,000 crore PM Surya Ghar scheme, 8.5 lakh households have installed rooftop solar connections, Union Minister for New and Renewable Energy, Pralhad Joshi, said at a public event … Read more
Representational image only. File | Photo Credit: The Hindu The Punjab Government has formally rejected the Centre’s draft policy on agricultural marketing, asserting that it is an attempt to bring back the “contentious” provisions of the three farms laws repealed in 2021 after a year-long protest by farmers. The State Government noted that since agriculture … Read more
The sun set over the Pacific Ocean. | Photo Credit: AP A new study has found that the rate at which oceans are warming has become four times faster as compared to the last four decades. Published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, the study showed that ocean temperatures are rising at 0.27 degrees Celsius … Read more
Indian ocean squid. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement/The Hindu The ICAR-Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI) on Tuesday said that it has successfully decoded the gene expression pattern of Indian squid (Uroteuthis duvaucelii) which will have major implications for various fields ranging from neuroscience to environmental science. The institute, in a release, said that the … Read more
By annulling the Nayakkarpatti tungsten block auction in Madurai, the Union Government has halted protests against a project that was red-flagged, tardily, by the State citing environmental and cultural concerns. Rarely has the Narendra Modi government made a swift ‘U-turn’ in the face of opposition. Nayakkarpatti was among eight critical and strategic mineral blocks put … Read more
Seven years before wildfires tore through opposite ends of the Los Angeles area, the Tubbs Fire in Northern California’s Sonoma County jumped a six-lane freeway and decimated Santa Rosa’s Coffey Park subdivision, a suburban enclave similar to Pacific Palisades and Altadena. The fire destroyed about 5,000 homes in Santa Rosa and the surrounding area in … Read more
It’s that time of the year when forested areas are aflutter with the high-pitched sounds of the wispy little greenish warbler and the guttural teek teek of the Indian blue robin. One can also catch a glimpse of brown shrike that comes from Japan, the blue-tailed bee eater from Europe and Russia, as well as birds like Indian pita and paradise flycatcher that come from the Himalayas. Bird watching … Read more
Rajib Barman, 39, had heard that the job of a rat-hole miner was hazardous, but he chose to do it because he had a debt of ₹60,000 to pay off. A resident of Sitlabazar village in western Assam’s Kokrajhar district, Barman decided to work at the Kalamati mine in the Umrangso area of Dima Hasao … Read more
Homemade with fresh produce, these jams, concentrates and preserves are not the run-of-the-mill sweet spreads that pass off as fruit treats in the market. These fruity treats capture the warmth and sweetness of the sun and the rain in glass jars. Made without preservatives, artificial colours or flavours, these homemade delicacies celebrate the fruit in … Read more
The story so far: On January 2, Madhya Pradesh government authorities moved 358 tonnes of hazardous waste from the defunct Union Carbide facility in Bhopal to the Pithampur industrial area in Dhar district. On December 3 last year, the Madhya Pradesh High Court had set a four-week deadline for authorities to dispose of this waste, … Read more
Image used for representative purpose only | Photo Credit: Biswaranjan Rout Poor households globally lose 5% of their total income in an average year due to heat stress and 4.4% due to floods compared with households that are relatively better off, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations said in a report … Read more
On January 17, a tinkle in a WhatsApp group of Madras Naturalists’ Society (MNS) made Gnanaskandan Kesavabharathi jump out of his seat. A tidbit of information that arrived with that tinkle demanded an immediate response and GK (as he is known in naturalist circles) was on to it, promptly keying in an instruction that elbowed … Read more
Spotted locust in a farm at Konnathay panchayat in Idukki. | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT The changing climate pattern in the hill district poses a threat to its farming sector. Amid the crop loss suffered from incursions by wild animals – and miscellaneous creatures like Malabar parakeets and snails – farmers in Idukki are now … Read more
Newly recorded blood-sucking flies from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement Researchers from the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) have identified 23 species of blood-sucking flies, 13 of them recorded for the first time in the country, in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. These tiny insects, also called midges, are similar … Read more
A vendor selling tomato. | Photo Credit: Sushil Kumar Verma A combination of decline in sowing and an unusually high rainfall in late September meant mandi arrivals of tomato fell sharply in October. Due to the demand-supply mismatch, wholesale and retail prices of tomato skyrocketed, with the prices relatively higher in northern and eastern regions of … Read more
A boat carrying domestic tourists passes through hyacinth at Central Beach in Lake Naivasha in Nakuru county, Kenya’s Rift Valley, December 13, 2024. | Photo Credit: AP For someone who fishes for a living, nothing says a bad day like spending over 18 hours on a lake and taking home nothing. Recently, a group of … Read more
Udayakumar K.P. at his farm at Mahadevikadu in Alappuzha. | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT Fifteen years ago, carpenter Udayakumar K.P.’s life took a drastic turn when a freak workplace accident robbed him of sight in his right eye. Undeterred by the setback, Mr. Udayakumar from Mahadevikadu, near Haripad, in Alappuzha shifted his focus to agriculture, … Read more
Paani.Earth evaluated dry-season pollution samples from seven sites along the Arkavati and its tributary, the Vrishabhavati. | Photo Credit: BHAGYA PRAKASH A report on pollution levels in the Arkavati has revealed alarming levels of physicochemical pollutants, pesticides, heavy metals, and hazardous organic compounds that exceed both Indian and international standards and guidelines. According to a … Read more
Farmers under the banner of the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) blocked roads at many places in Punjab to protest against the “tardy” paddy procurement and lifting. Photo used for representation purpose only. | Photo Credit: PTI Annoyed over tardy procurement of paddy crop in the ongoing Kharif (summer) marketing season, farmers under the banner of … Read more
As Los Angeles firefighters battle remaining hotspots more than a week into deadly blazes, scientists and engineers hope growing availability of satellite data will help in the future. Tech-focused groups are launching new orbiters as space launches get cheaper, while machine learning techniques will sift the torrent of information, fitting it into a wider picture … Read more
Exterior view of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, the secure seed bank on Svalbard, Norway, March 2, 2016. Two men who were instrumental in the “craziest idea anyone ever had” of creating a global seed vault designed to safeguard the world’s agricultural diversity will be honored as the 2024 World Food Prize laureates, officials announced … Read more
Fog seen over Rashtrapati Bhawan, as the Central Pollution Control Board says Delhi’s Air Quality Index logged at 340 on January 19, 2025 morning, reducing visibility and causing disruptions in train services and daily life, in New Delhi. | Photo Credit: Sushil Kumar Verma The Supreme Court on Monday (January 20, 2025) asked if there … Read more
Foxtail millet ready for harvest at a farm in Dindigul district. File | Photo Credit: The Hindu Removing the bran from millets results in decreasing the protein, dietary fibre, fat, mineral and phytate content in them, while increasing the carbohydrates and amylose content, a recent paper in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Springer has shown. This … Read more
A Bank of America building is engulfed in flames along Lake Avenue, Los Angeles, January 8, 2025. | Photo Credit: AFP Emails and videos of burned buildings in Los Angeles next to those left standing have been flying back and forth among architects, builders, and fire safety specialists around the world. Many experts say luck … Read more
A decade ago, India became the first country to legally mandate Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Section 135 of the Companies Act 2013 outlines the rules and regulations governing CSR. Its role in social development is crucial. According to the National CSR Portal, from 2014 to 2023, Rs 1.84 lakh crore of CSR funds were disbursed. … Read more
Black-and-orange fly catcher A three-day avian survey, organised by the South Wayanad and North Wayanad forest divisions and Aralam Wildlife Sanctuary in Kannur in association with the Hume Centre for Ecology and Wildlife Biology across the sky islands in the region revealed that the islands in the landscape played host to an array of avian … Read more
India is one of the world’s largest agricultural product exporters. The Indian agricultural export is valued at $53.1 billion in 2022-2023, up from $8.7 billion in 2004-2005, a six-fold increase in less than two decades. For an economically developing economy like India, exports play a significant role in strengthening the economy by increasing revenue, foreign … Read more
A view shows a protest projection set up by Greenpeace activists onto the wall of the U.S. Embassy in Berlin on January 21, 2025 against Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement. | Photo Credit: Reuters On Monday (January 20, 2025), the first day of his second Presidency, Donald Trump signed an executive order … Read more
On the quiet banks of the Pampa river at Thakazhi in Alappuzha district, a modest, weathered building buzzes with activity. In the heart of Kuttanad, a wetland ecosystem historically popular as Kerala’s rice bowl and spread across Kottayam, Pathanamthitta and Alappuzha districts, a group of seasoned paddy farmers have gathered to collect paddy seeds, offered … Read more
On New Year’s Day, five-year-old Mayuri lost her life to a snakebite in Uttara Kannada district in Karnataka. The delay in receiving antivenom and the unsafe conditions at her anganwadi tragically sealed her fate. She became one of the estimated 58,000 Indians who die every year from venomous snakebite, a terrible number that renders India … Read more