-Down to Earth Between 15 per cent and 20 per cent of humid tropical forests have been cleared since the early 1990s  Tropical forests are losing their capacity to cycle carbon and Water, according to a study using a new tracking system. The system was developed by a team of international scientists to monitor tropical forest vulnerability between 1982 and 2018.  In Africa, forests show relative resilience to climate, according to the study. African...

-PTI/ The Hindu A search operation is being carried out by the police and fire brigade teams. Shimla: At least one person was killed while 10 have gone missing as flash floods triggered by incessant rains lashed Himachal Pradesh, a senior disaster management official said on Wednesday. State disaster management director Sudesh Kumar Mokhta said that one person was killed and nine went missing in flash floods triggered by a cloudburst in the...

-Down to Earth The construction of the proposed plant will also violate Coastal Regulation Zone norms Wildlife activists have expressed apprehension over the construction a sewage treatment plant at Palibandh, near the Rushikulya river estuary in Odisha’s Ganjam district, the site of India’s second-largest rookery of Olive Ridley turtles. The plant, if constructed, will spell doom for the turtles, the activists have warned. Every year, millions of Olive Ridleys gather on a five-km-long...

Media reports indicate that at the start of the southwest monsoon season, lightning strikes caused the death of over 70 people in the states of Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh on a single day i.e. 11th July, 2021. Prior to those separate events related to human casualty caused by thunderbolts, eighteen elephants were found dead on a hilltop at Kandali Proposed Reserve Forest situated in Assam's Nagaon district on...

-Economic and Political Weekly An argument for twin propositions is presented in this two-part paper: (i) that solving India’s Water problem requires a paradigm shift in agriculture (Part I), and (ii) that the crisis in Indian agriculture cannot be resolved without a paradigm shift in Water management and governance (Part II). The second part describes the paradigm shift needed in Water, which includes rejuvenation of catchment areas of rivers, a shift...