Deepa Padmanaban

When rivers overflow their banks, they flush freshwater, nutrients, and sediment onto surrounding lowlands. These nutrient-dense floodplains attract agriculture and development, but when humans encroach on these areas, the risk of floods and damage to wetland ecosystems rises. In a new study published in Scientific Data, researchers found that the world has lost 600,000 square kilometers of floodplains in 27 years.

Debt bondage still has many victims in India, but a small enterprise owned and operated by former bonded laborers in Tamil Nadu may yet show how the cycle can be broken.

A new mobile app helps forest range officers in India track wildlife crime and poaching.

Around a third of human-generated greenhouse gas emissions comes from the global food system, and lost or wasted food is known to contribute some amount—but it has never been clear to exactly what degree. Now, by following specific foods through their entire life cycle, researchers have determined just how much this wasted food adds to emissions through phases such as harvest, transportation and disposal.

India has the potential to treat and reuse 80% of the wastewater generated, which can be used for non-potable purposes, thereby improving water security and sustainably increasing revenue in several sectors.

Malformations such as a missing eye or deformed limb have been noted in the Kottigehar dancing frog, possibly due to anthropogenic stressors.
The Kottigehar dancing frog belongs to the family Micrixalidae, one of the oldest families of frogs in the Western Ghats. It is categorised as an evolutionary distinct and globally endangered (EDGE) species.

Scientists are learning the secrets of the greater racket-tailed drongo and other creatures in a jungle in south India from the people who have always lived there

The habitat of smooth-coated otters is severely threatened by numerous activities. As they adapt to changes, they come into increased conflict with humans

From pollution to global warming, many factors adversely impact the Cauvery’s water quality. As a result, native fish populations are impacted, affecting on the entire ecosystem that depends on this river

With the Cauvery’s depleting fish stocks, the lives of fishers who depend on this river for their livelihoods have become increasingly uncertain, forcing them to adapt in different methods of fishing
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Parents use it against adult children, men against wives, in divorce, property and custody battles; families use it to ‘cure’ homosexuality and officials to get disabled beggars off the streets. The forced institutionalisation of mental-health patients is rampant despite a law to protect them

The efforts of Argentinian grandmothers transformed forensic science and how it identifies the dead. In India, however, the official approach is still catching up. At no time is this more evident than during natural disasters.

In 2019, the Indian government established the National Clean Air Programme for nonattainment cities (cities that did not meet the National Ambient Air Quality Standards). The program aimed to develop clean air action plans to reduce particulate matter (PM2.5) pollution by 20%–30% by 2024. The program’s inefficiency is partly due to a critical shortage of government air quality monitoring stations.