Environmental Issues

Board of India (AWBI) wants to name February 14 as Cow Hug Day and has appealed to the public to embrace cows, claiming that it would bring “emotional richness” and increase “individual and collective happiness”. Dairy farmers, on the other hand, alleged that the Board did not even help them …

Union Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Shri Bhupender Yadav today addressed the Ministerial Session on ‘Adapting to an Uncertain Future: Reshaping of Global Partnerships’ at India Energy Week in Bengaluru. To reshape the global partnership, India has adopted a “whole-of-society” approach with governments engaging at national, sub-national and …

An Expert Committee was constituted by Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare (DA&FW), Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Government of India under the chairmanship of Dr. Anupam Verma (former National Professor), IARI, New Delhi to review 66 pesticides which are banned/restricted in other countries but continued to be registered …

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s latest Budget is noteworthy for the emphasis she has laid on the government’s commitment to move towards net-zero carbon emission by 2070. As an article presented at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos last month notes, India holds the key to hitting global climate …

The CITES trade database has recorded 28 incidents of red sanders confiscation, seizure and specimens from the wild being exported from India, a fact sheet prepared by TRAFFIC, a global wildlife trade monitoring organisation has revealed. CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) is …

The State-level Vulture Conservation Committee (SVCC) has decided to conduct a synchronised vulture census in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka. The census has been planned before March as the nesting season is in progress, Chief Wildlife Warden Srinivas Reddy has said. At the SVCC’s first meeting held on January 25, …

A swallowtail butterfly disappearing from its previously known ranges from Myanmar and southern China to Vietnam has been recorded for the first time in India. Three butterfly enthusiasts — Atanu Bose, Loren Sonowal and Monsoon Jyoti Gogoi — recorded the “extremely rare” Noble’s Helen (Papilio noblei) from three locations in …

Researchers have uncovered 92 nesting sites containing a total of 256 fossil eggs in central India’s Narmada Valley belonging to titanosaurs, which were among the largest dinosaurs to have ever lived. The finding, published in the journal PLOS ONE, reveals intimate details about the lives of titanosaurs in the Indian subcontinent. …

In what could be termed as a first for dholes (wild dogs), a partial albino dhole (Cuon alpinus) has been photo-documented in the Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary. This is not only the first-ever record of albinism in dholes from India but also from its entire distribution range in 11 countries. The …

On January 18, the Steering Committee of the Ken-Betwa Link Project (KBLP) held its third meeting in New Delhi. It was chaired by the Secretary of the Department of Water Resources, in the Ministry of Jal Shakti, who reiterated that the KBLP was a “flagship” project of the national government …