Did economic liberalisation push govt and civil society in to battlefield?
The opening up of India’s economy increased the number of NGOs exponentially, but then…
Climate change and us: What really shaped human evolution last 2 million years
Climatic shifts determined where food was available, driving migration and adaptations, according to the study
Semantics of Anthropocene: Have humans really formed a new era
The Earth will hardly notice when we humans are gone, just as it hardly knew we were here
Over 1,500 people died in elephant attacks in last 3 years, maximum casualties in Odisha
In 2017, the environment ministry had issued a guideline for managing human-elephant conflict and had directed elephant range states to …
African court orders Kenya to pay $1.3 million as reparations to indigenous Ogiek people
The government will also formally recognise the Ogiek, one of the most marginalised groups, as an indigenous people of Kenya
African leopard sighting raises hopes for their conservation in southern Cameroon
Although the Congo Basin was previously thought to be a stronghold for leopards, they are now believed to be absent in many parts of this region
IPCC climate report: Profound changes are underway in Earth’s oceans and ice – a lead author explains what the warnings mean
As a result of human activities, the planet is changing at a rate unprecedented for at least thousands of years. These changes are affecting …
Why it took 20 years to ‘finish’ the human genome — and why there’s still more to do
The newly updated sequence fills in most of the remaining gaps, providing the full 3.055 billion base pairs of our DNA code in its entirety
Link sanitation, solid waste to agriculture, Niti Aayog advises states
Govt policy think tank asks chief secretaries to extract nutrients from human excreta and use them in place of fertilsers
Run-up to World Tiger Day: Can India become a tiger utopia?
The country should put more emphasis on educating people and changing their attitudes, so that a doubled tiger population can thrive with lesser …
Shark Week looms, but don’t panic
Not all sharks are the same. Only a dozen or so of the roughly 520 shark species pose any risk to people.
Human atlas: An initiative for holistic understanding of human biology
The project will collate and integrate molecular information on human tissues and organs that currently lie hidden in research articles
Fourth 'unnatural' leopard death in Odisha this year
Environmentalists in the state have raised concerns about the safety of the animals given that poaching is rampant
Anthropocene doesn't exist and species of the future will not recognise it
The Anthropocene has come to fore as a powerful if perplexing way of talking about our current era
Researchers quantify damage caused by peafowl to farmers
They selected two plots. Peafowl were allowed in one and not in the other. After four years of repeated estimates, the researchers have concluded …
Once bitten, twice shy: DNA Profiling Bill revives fear of Aadhaar-like data breach
While the Bill has a provision of punishing those who leak information, it does not guarantee that DNA data won't be breached
Studying poop samples, scientists find clues on health and disease
Agricultural antibiotics, those fed to animals, were detected in many people who claimed they hadn’t taken antibiotics in the year prior to …
The origin of 'us': what we know so far about where we humans come from
The story of where humans come from is growing as new evidence—and new methods of analysis—emerge all the time
Scientists edit human embryos to safely remove disease for the first time – here's how they did it
Two researchers are impressed with a pioneering study showing that it may be both safe and effective to edit out diseases in human embryos
Damage to crop and livestock from wildlife continues to be high despite mitigation efforts: study
AS per the study, 71 per cent of the households surveyed had suffered crop loss, and 17 per cent livestock loss
The catch in conservation
Ullas Karanth has many lessons to offer to make wildlife management in India more scientific
Elephant dies after falling in a pit at Patanjali project site in Assam
A total of three elephants fell in the pit, prompting questions on allocation of land in a possible elephant corridor to the company
Internet freedom: why access is becoming a human right
It is time to demand the 'positive right' of affordable access if we want internet freedom for all
Children of the earth, worshippers of nature
Rigoberta Menchu, a Guatemalan human rights activist and peasant leader, was awarded this year's Nobel Peace Prize. Menchu was witness to the …
Commission of omissions
After prolonged negotiations, what the Rio summit has produced is a weak and poorly represented commission on sustainable development