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Sriroopa DuttaThe Better India |
Every evening, Erika sets the pace. She walks a familiar route through the forested grounds of the Elephant Rehabilitation Centre in Ban Santour,...
In Ekalkhori, the sand was always part of life. Then it began coming too close. In the village near Jodhpur, hot summer winds pushed loose sand...
Scientists tracing a suitcase full of seized pangolin scales may soon be able to tell not just what species the scales came from, but the exact forest...
For nearly two centuries, it survived like a rumour in the margins of botanical history. In 1836, British botanists recorded a climbing shrub with...
In most Indian kitchens, cheese still arrives in familiar cubes of paneer or in the household-favourite form of Amul cheese. But beyond supermarket...
At the edge of Jait Sagar Lake in Kota, the morning begins with the chatter of a group of young volunteers moving along the waterline near Sukh Mahal,...
By the time the first water tanker entered Bansawargaon each summer, the village already knew what the coming months would look like. Queues near...
For generations, mornings across India began with a familiar chirping of house sparrows. Their presence was so ordinary that it rarely got any...
The Western Ghats are spectacular during the monsoon, but for years, most travellers experienced them through the same crowded routes: Mahabaleshwar...
Growing up, there was always a corner in our homes reserved for things that might still be useful someday. Old newspapers, glass bottles, cardboard...
In the villages of Jharkhand, farmers still run handfuls of rice through their fingers before deciding what to cook. Some grains are black and glossy....
In many Indian towns, the arrival of rain brings a familiar scene. Roads flood. Stormwater rushes through concrete drains, and within hours, the water...
On a normal day in a coastal village, climate change may not look like a global crisis. It may look like a family waiting for clean drinking water...
The Ramganga valley was loud that morning. It was not the usual crashing movement of elephants through the forests of Kumaon, but deep, guttural...
In the forests of northern Odisha, a meal can begin with a sting. High above the ground, red weaver ants stitch leaves into tight green nests that...
The first time I ate biryani in Bengaluru, I knew what was missing before the plate even arrived. The same thing happened in Delhi. Last year, during...
Every alternate day through Punjab’s unforgiving summers, a tractor-tanker climbs into the dry folds of the Shivalik hills carrying water. Long...
By late afternoon, the fruit seller had already sprayed water over the watermelon slices three times to keep them looking fresh. Nearby, glasses of...
At low tide, women in Goa’s coastal villages step into riverbeds with simple scraping tools, looking for clams hidden beneath the mud. By evening,...
In the hills of Manipur’s Chandel district, forests are not protected by fences, armed guards, or exclusionary laws. They survive because a...
Inside the vast galleries of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., where objects tied to humanity’s greatest journeys...
Delivery workers stop under flyovers to get some relief from the heat. Office-goers press themselves against the few shaded corners outside metro...
At Mandwa near Alibag in Maharashtra, the sea is carrying a new kind of crop. For generations, Koli fishing families here went into the Arabian Sea...
In 1889, long before the phrase “unity in diversity” entered textbooks and political speeches, Raja Ravi Varma was already trying to paint the...
Imagine walking down a crowded street in Mumbai, the usual noise of honking cars and people hurrying along. In the middle of it all, you spot...
In the forests of central India, the threat to a tiger may not always come from a poacher’s gun or shrinking habitat. Sometimes, it arrives quietly...
On most days, Ritu Devi arrives early, settles into her spot, and begins work with threads, fabric and colour. Ritu, who is from Ramaipur village in...
A tiger claw wrapped in cloth. Pangolin scales hidden inside sacks of grain. Parakeets crammed into cages and pushed through railway stations before...
What even is a big, ripe, yellow mango? For most Indians, it is their one true love. More broadly, it is a fruit that carries an economy. India’s...
Far out in the Bay of Bengal, to the east of Sri Lanka, the ocean rearranges itself every year. The surface seems ordinary. But beneath it, cold,...
You wake up to it before you are fully awake every morning — the soft clink of steel, the lid of a filter being lifted, water meeting ground coffee...
In scattered clearings across the Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve, small groups move through thickets that were once difficult to enter. They cut, pull,...
Across western India, the caracal, once widespread across its dry landscapes, is now close to local extinction. But the good news is that recent...
There was a certain hour in many Indian homes when the day seemed to loosen its grip. In that pause, a comic would emerge, creased, shared, sometimes...
In a part of Gujarat where summers can stretch water supplies thin, forests are doing a job usually reserved for dams and reservoirs. Over the past...
On a hot summer afternoon, few things feel as certain as a slice of watermelon. In fact, it is often seen as the safest of seasonal comforts. But...
Across India, camera traps are doing what people often cannot do, wait without disturbance and record wildlife without bias. They are revealing rare...
The Himalayas do not look fragile. At first light, they rise with authority. For most travellers, the first instinct is to stand still and take it in,...
It blinks, sways, and lifts its trunk on cue. Its ears flap, its trunk curls back, almost like a greeting. These are India’s newest elephants. They...
The morning after Smara’s first birthday party, all the leftovers fit into a single bowl. No overflowing garbage bags. No crumpled paper plates or...
Three lion cubs were born on the night of January 11 at Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) in Mumbai. Born to lioness Bharati and lion Manas, the cubs...
A few kilometres outside Bhubaneswar, the road to Pipli leads into a village where work is always in sight. Houses double up as workshops, and...
In the dry deciduous belt of the Malwa-Nimar region in western Madhya Pradesh, extending slightly into Rajasthan, a tiger couple has rewritten the...
Can trees cool cities? On a heatwave afternoon, you already know the answer — if you know where to stand. The heat you can feel, street by street...
On a November night in Hosur last year, a herd of elephants, mothers and their calves, moved through the forest, their bodies glowing against the...
“Bhaiya, tiger pakka dikh jayega na?” (Will we definitely see a tiger?) The tourist leans forward from the middle seat, voice full of hope. The...
One video that is taking rounds on social media and making people stop to stare is the salt flats of the Rann of Kutch turning an improbable shade of...
In images that have since gone viral from Kuno National Park, a young cheetah is seen curled around her four newborn cubs, the tiny bodies huddled...
It is easy to think of the Bengal Tiger as a symbol of wilderness, power, and India’s conservation success. But what if the story is far more...
On a humid evening in Bengaluru, a brown, wiry dog curls up beside the gate of an apartment complex. He is neither rare nor remarkable in the way...
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