Environment

Highlights from the issue

Subscribe today for full access to our journalism that combines scientific rigour with passion

DTE Staff

Sunita Narain's Desk: Sewage before supply

Indore’s tragedy underscores that clean water will remain elusive until cities put wastewater management as a core urban priority

Cover story: Chaos in definition

The latest dispute around the Aravallis concerns a narrow legal definition for their geological antiquity and raises the vexed issue of reconciling development with conservation

Column: In contempt of its own power

Prakriti Srivastava is a former officer of the Indian Forest Service

If an exercise is undertaken of identifying the Aravallis using the 100-plus metre definition, the forests in the range will be subsumed and on the block for mining

Column: Quiet guardians of life

Dharmendra Khandal is a conservation biologist with Tiger Watch

The Aravallis’ most critical function lies in acting as a biological corridor, enabling species movement, genetic exchange and long-term landscape-level biodiversity persistence

Column: Mismeasure of a mountain

This photograph, taken by author and filmmaker Sam Dalrymple, shows The Citadel of Bayana Fort in Bharatpur, Rajasthan.

Earthquakes in the Aravallis provide a cautionary tale

Special report: Schemed for erasure

Agricultural and informal worker unions at a protest against the Viksit Bharat-Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Act, 2025 in Supaul, Bihar on December 22, 2025

Does the VB-G RAM G Act address structural weaknesses long observed in MGNREGA’s implementation?

Special report: Guarantee expires

India’s rural employment guarantee law is replaced with a centrally controlled, budget-capped scheme. Is this an attack on the right to work?

Special report: Atomic juncture

A new comprehensive law opens up the nuclear sector to private players, while diluting disaster liability and safety provisions

Special report: Barrel diplomacy

US President Donald Trump at a press conference following US military strike on Venezuela, in Florida on January 4

What US control of Venezuelan oil means for India and the world

Civil Lines: India’s poverty count

The survey will also assess the monetary value of welfare programmes to reach a final income assessment.

As the first national income survey rolls out, experiences of past haunt

Life and nature: Bloom or bane

Surge of vibrant pink water lilies in Kuttanad, Kerala, provides socio-economic benefits, but the plant’s ecological impacts must be understood

Opinion: Invisible employer

Field and academic evidence shows sharp falls in casual agricultural employment at places where groundwater access declines