Environment

It is 11:30 in the morning, Aarif (name changed), a vegetable vendor in KR Market, looks ahead, braving the searing summer heat, while waiting for customers. After a long time, a customer finally approaches him and asks for the rate of green chillies. As the day inches towards noon, the footfall in the market starts decreasing. Arif, who primarily sells chillies and ginger, says: “In about 1-2 hours, customers will start decreasing, but we will still sit in hope of getting more customers. We have to do something for survival. No matter how strong the sun is, we have to…

Most of us in Mumbai, eat mangoes daily during summer. In my society at Goregaon East, some of the residents and I decided to collect mango seeds from our neighbours. We gave them to Mission Green Mumbai, an NGO Mumbai, which takes care of planting the seeds for a greener society.  When I first saw the video on saving mango seeds posted by the NGO, almost a year ago, I thought it was a wonderful idea. It has been a year since we started working on this, and so far we have managed to collect around 2500 seeds.  How did we…

Rekha, a farmer in Delhi's Yamuna Pushta, has been sitting in protest for the last 21 months along with other members of her community. Their demand is clear: “The farms that they (the government) have destroyed were our only occupation; the government must either give us employment in its place, or compensation for the loss we have suffered. Since they have also demolished the homes of farmers, we demand a place to live as well," says Rekha firmly. Rekha belongs to a community of farmers spanning three generations or more, comprising nearly a thousand households at Bela Estate, a slum…

April 16, 2024, saw Mumbai reel under a heat wave with a maximum temperature of 39.7 degree celsius at the Santacruz observatory. At 6.3 degrees above normal, this was the highest temperature recorded at Santacruz in ten years. These abnormally hot conditions continued to plague Mumbai with the megapolis experiencing a second heat wave towards the end of April. Neighbouring Thane hit 41.3 degrees during this period. Mumbai was not the exception and it seems like extreme heat has become the norm across the country. Delhi recorded a hazardously high temperature of 52.9 degree Celsius at the end of May…

As the population of metropolitan cities like Chennai continues to grow, the government faces an uphill task — coming up with alternative solutions to provide drinking water for the city. While schemes such as desalination plants aim to meet water needs, the public seeks more natural and environment-friendly water sources. This is where Retteri Lake, one of the major lakes in Chennai, plays a pivotal role. When Chennai faced a major drought in 2019, water from Retteri Lake was used to meet the shortfall in drinking water supply. The lake also remains a source of groundwater recharge for the neighbourhood.…

India has been under the grip of a devastating heat wave for the past few months. Since April this year several parts of the country have seen abnormally high temperatures. For instance,  Bengaluru recorded a maximum temperature of 38.5 degrees Celsius on a Sunday, the city's hottest April day since 2016. The city and parts of Southwestern regions of the country have experienced relief with the arrival of monsoon. Representational image. Civic workers in the heat in Chennai. Pic: Padmaja Jayaraman However, conditions appear to be dire in North, Central and Eastern India. The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) has issued…

On May 20, 2024, an Emirates airplane, descending to land at Mumbai’s Santacruz airport, collided with a flock of flamingos, causing significant damage to the aircraft and killing 39 flamingos. This incident underscores a critical and often overlooked aspect of aviation safety: the risk of bird strikes. News reports and investigations into the bird strike have revealed two primary causes: The high power lines running through the Thane creek flamingo sanctuary could have been responsible. These power lines, built at great heights, may have forced the flamingos to fly higher than usual, putting them in the path of the descending…

Two months ago, a report by Global Forest Watch, said that India had lost 2.33 million hectares of tree cover since 2000. Given the push for infrastructure development in the country and closer home in Mumbai, forests such as Aarey, Sanjay Gandhi National Park, and wetlands and mangrove forests in Navi Mumbai are constantly at risk.   While successive governments promise afforestation in other areas as compensation, activists and citizens often find that the biodiversity and fragile ecological balance are lost forever. However, the argument that development at the cost of the environment is unavoidable, seems to be getting stronger. Those…

As one travels along the sandy stretch from Neelangarai to Uthandi parallel to the East Coast Road in the Chennai suburbs, beaches and fishing villages seem more expansive compared to their urban counterparts. They are less crowded, and as you proceed further down the stretch, the prevalence of commercial activities diminishes. Sand dunes, or large curved mounds formed by loose sand, appear. As you move away from the city, they get so big that you might not be able to see the adjoining villages that exist right behind them. Dunes existed in the city centre, till as far back as…

India has witnessed intense heat waves this year with temperatures soaring above record levels, particularly in urban areas, sometimes even breaching the 50°C mark. The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) has observed that the country is experiencing the effects of climate change as extreme weather events such as heavy rainfall, heat waves and intense tropical cyclones are occurring more frequently. One contributing factor for these extreme weather patterns is the rapid warming of the Indian Ocean. A study Future projections for the tropical Indian Ocean, published by Elsevier and led by Roxy Mathew Koll, scientist with Climate Research Lab, Indian Institute…