Science
Down To Earth
1,500 days, and an alarm for new climate
SEASONS ARE the compass that guide humans to survive and thrive as a society. What happens if seasons lose their distinct character and predictable rhythm? This is no longer a theoretical question. The Earth is entering a new climate regime, its atmosphere now saturated with greenhouse gases at levels without precedent in human history. And the earliest sign of this shift is the near-dissolution of familiar seasons; all merging and dissipating like the pupa inside the chrysalis, but, not to give birth to that mesmerising butterfly. This metamorphosis is manifest in the blizzard of weather events, extreme in severity and unseasonal by nature and geography.
2 min |
December 01, 2025
Down To Earth
Rights in transit
A recent dispute over transport and trade of kendu leaves in Odisha highlights differing interpretations of forest rights laws in the state
6 min |
December 01, 2025
Down To Earth
Roots of peace
Kerala's forest department plants fruit and fodder trees to ease human-wildlife tensions
2 min |
December 01, 2025
Down To Earth
Flattened frontiers
Efforts to reclaim degraded land from Chambal ravines expose both people and biodiversity to ecological risks from erosion and flooding
5 min |
December 01, 2025
Down To Earth
INDIA'S DRY RUN
India is poised to be a global hub of data centres—back-end facilities that house servers and hardware needed to run online activities.
10+ min |
December 01, 2025
Down To Earth
Bangla generic drugs to the rescue
A buyer's club for generic cystic fibrosis drugs sourced from Bangladesh highlights the country's laudable pharma development
4 min |
December 01, 2025
Down To Earth
COP OF TALK
The UN's 30th climate summit, COP30 in Belém, was billed as the COP of truth and implementation.It was an opportunity for the world to move beyond diagnosis to delivery. Instead it revealed a system struggling to prove its relevance.
10+ min |
December 01, 2025
Down To Earth
Direct approach
A new direct cash transfer scheme as well as decades of women-centric programmes yield an electoral windfall for the ruling alliance in Bihar
5 min |
December 01, 2025
Down To Earth
HIDDEN RESOURCE
Punjab's 1.4 million abandoned borewells offer a chance to mitigate flood damage and replenish depleting groundwater
4 min |
December 01, 2025
Down To Earth
Corporate bias
INDIA'S DRAFT Seeds Bill, 2025, introduced by the Centre in mid-November, proposes a few key changes.
1 min |
December 01, 2025
Down To Earth
Influencing behaviour
OVER THE past 50 years, ultra-processed food (UPF) corporations have shaped global food and health through either industry-sponsored research, embedding themselves as \"stakeholders\" in policy making, or through various other initiatives, says a threepart Lancet series published on November 19.
1 min |
December 01, 2025
Down To Earth
India headed for extreme climate events
INDIA IS on course for cataclysmic climate events, says a new study in PLOS Climate.
1 min |
December 01, 2025
Down To Earth
SOME OVERLOOKED ASPECTS
Increasing night-time temperatures and rapid intensification of cyclones already happening
1 min |
November 16, 2025
Down To Earth
Excessive groundwater extraction can cause subsidence
Subsidence is a global phenomenon seen not just in coastal regions, but also in inland areas. Natural subsidence progresses slowly, but anthropogenic activities, like excessive groundwater extraction, can significantly accelerate the rate, says LEONARD OHENHEN, assistant professor, department of earth system science, University of California, Irvine, US. In an interview with SUSHMITA SENGUPTA, Ohenhen says that climate change intensifies the problem through multiple pathways.
3 min |
November 16, 2025
Down To Earth
2025 IS UNPRECEDENTED
Never heard about so many such exceptional rainfall events as have occurred this year
1 min |
November 16, 2025
Down To Earth
GOVERNING THE CLOUDS
In the absence of evidence, replicability, funding and transparency, cloud seeding languishes as an imperfect science
6 min |
November 16, 2025
Down To Earth
Heavier footprints
Investments and capital owned by the world's wealthiest few are driving the climate crisis, according to a first-of-its-kind report
3 min |
November 16, 2025
Down To Earth
Views on the annual Delhi pollution debate
This is in response to the \"Photo of the day: A game of soccer in post-Diwali Delhi\" published on the website on October 21, 2025.
2 min |
November 16, 2025
Down To Earth
Climate change fuelled hurricane Melissa
ON OCTOBER 28, category 5 hurricane Melissa made landfall in Jamaica with maximum sustained wind speeds of 298 km per hour (kmph), making it one of the strongest hurricanes in the North Atlantic Ocean.
1 min |
November 16, 2025
Down To Earth
ICAR's claims exposed by its own data
Why has ICAR flouted crop testing rules and ignored data red flags to push gene-edited rice strains that will not benefit farmers?
4 min |
November 16, 2025
Down To Earth
COMMUNITY RIGHTS BEFORE RELOCATION
Union tribal ministry releases policy document on rights of communities in tiger reserves marked for relocation
2 min |
November 16, 2025
Down To Earth
Stork sanctuary
Villages in Uttar Pradesh mount efforts to protect painted storks and inspire a conservation movement
2 min |
November 16, 2025
Down To Earth
Defined to exclude
Kerala has declared itself free of 'extreme poverty', even as people employed in the informal sector, tribal populations and coastal communities continue to live in extremely impoverished conditions
3 min |
November 16, 2025
Down To Earth
WE MAY SEE MORE
As the number of extreme events keeps increasing, chances of compound extreme events also grows
2 min |
November 16, 2025
Down To Earth
Resurgence of diseases across world regions
CANADA MAY be on the brink of losing the measles-free status it gained in the year 2000, after recording more than 5,000 cases since October 2024, according to government data.
1 min |
November 16, 2025
Down To Earth
'Tax the carbon content of investments of the rich'
The world's billionaires hold more capital than many governments, and wield greater political power to influence future growth trajectories. The transition to a carbon-neutral future is a once-in-a-century opportunity to rebalance private and public investment in ways that can reduce both wealth and climate inequalities, say Lucas Chancel and Cornelia Mohren, editors of the \"Climate Inequality Report 2025\". Excerpts:
3 min |
November 16, 2025
Down To Earth
Uncle Sam's hunger pangs
IN THE first week of November, thousands in the US were out seeking food-from hotel leftovers to food bank supplies and even donations from near and dear ones.
2 min |
November 16, 2025
Down To Earth
EARTH IS WARMING FASTER
Changes in weather systems, once expected decades hence, appear to be unfolding now. In India the consequences are intensifying
10+ min |
November 16, 2025
Down To Earth
End the annual charades
IT'S THAT time of the year again. Hordes of government diplomats, civil society and academics have headed to discuss climate change. This time, the UN Conference of the Parties (coP30) is in Belém, a Brazilian city on the edge of the Amazonian rainforest.
3 min |
November 16, 2025
Down To Earth
INHERITED CURES
The ethnomedicinal practices of the Sumi Nagas are a living knowledge system transferred orally through generations. Unless protected through legal frameworks, the knowledge may be lost and faces risk of biopiracy
4 min |