Tag archives for India
No Backing Down: Scientist’s Ganges River Fast Reaches Day 43
Posted by Dan Morrison of National Geographic News Correspondent in Water Currents on March 22, 2012 
Negotiations in New Delhi to end the 43-day hunger strike of a noted environmental scientist have stalled on the basic issue of trust: According to G.D. Agrawal’s supporters, the government of India has agreed to suspend work on four hydroelectric projects on the upper reaches of the Ganges River, but refuses to commit its pledge to writing.
Dying for the Ganges: A Scientist Turned Swami Risks All
Posted by Dan Morrison of National Geographic News Correspondent in Water Currents on March 16, 2012 
“At the moment I am quite resigned to my fate,” GD Agrawal, the 80-year-old dean of India’s environmental engineers, says from his hospital bed in the holy city of Varanasi. Agrawal hasn’t eaten since February 8. He hasn’t taken a drink of water since March 8; an intravenous drip of dextrose and vitamins keeps him lucid.
From Texas to India to the Horn of Africa, Concern about Weather, Water, and Crops
Posted by Sandra Postel of National Geographic's Freshwater Initiative in Water Currents on March 6, 2012 
Hardly a week goes by without new reasons to be concerned about the impact of changing precipitation patterns and mounting water stress on food production. This past week, officials in Texas cut off irrigation water to rice farmers downstream of reservoirs depleted by the worst one-year drought in Texas history. Even with recent rains,…
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We have the knowledge that can contribute to finding solutions to the crisis of climate change. But if you’re not prepared to listen, how can we communicate this to you? — Marcos Terena, Xané leader, Brazil. The precipitous rise in the world’s human population and humankind’s ever-increasing dependence on fossil fuel-based ways of living have…
Posted by Amidst two meters of snow, world leaders from various sectors of society descended this past week on the Swiss resort town of Davos for the annual meeting of The World Economic Forum. Much has already been written about the history of the forum, and it has received adulation from writers such as Parag Khanna, as…
The photo you see above is of an adorable stray cat that’s living like a squatter at Bangladesh’s biggest children’s hospital. The kitty could be called adorable, if a little standoffish. It’s also something of a scourge: Cats shouldn’t be allowed to roam the open halls and wards of a hospital, certainly not one…
India: The Cost of Bad Water
Posted by Dan Morrison of National Geographic News Correspondent in Water Currents on January 5, 2012 According to a new report, India’s cities are drowning in their own waste due to poor planning and administration. With no one else looking out for their health, individual households take on the burden and financial cost of one of the basic jobs of government. The money to clean water could have been saved or spent on education, housing, health care, or culture and entertainment.
A Swami’s Hunger Strike Ends Mining on a Stretch of the Ganges River
Posted by Dan Morrison of National Geographic News Correspondent in Water Currents on December 9, 2011 
An 11-day hunger strike by the swami of a small ashram ended on Monday night when the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand banned stone and sand mining from the Ganges riverbed near the city of Haridwar pending an environmental impact statement.
Posted by As of today, the National Geographic Society has issued 10,000 grants funding research and exploration since 1890–including ten National Geographic grant projects that, according to an internal panel, “have made the greatest difference in understanding the Earth.” Barbara Moffet interviews Krithi Karanth, a 32-year-old conservation biologist based in Bangalore, India, the recipient of National Geographic’s 10,000th grant.
A Scary Arrival on Halloween: the 7 Billionth Human
Posted by kmantsch on October 26, 2011 
According to calculations by the United Nations, the earth will gain its 7 billionth inhabitant on October 31st. The 7 billionth child will most likely be born in northern India, a country where half of children under 5 are malnourished and illiteracy is rising.
Changing Climate a Hot Topic Among Himalayan Villagers, Study Finds
Posted by Brian Handwerk on September 9, 2011 Warmer temperatures, variable monsoons, and other signs of climate change are a hot topic of conversation among many Himalayan villagers, according to scientific sampling of climate change perception among local peoples.
Even as tragedy struck in Mumbai last week, progress towards peace was being made at a meeting of the “Young Global Leaders.” Emerging Explorer Saleem Ali discusses the heartbreak and the encouragement.
Who’s Skipping School?
Posted by Anne Marie Houppert on May 16, 2011 The new Nat Geo movie, The First Grader, tells the story of a Kenyan man in his 80s who applies for a coveted spot in school along with first graders. Revisit some recent National Geographic articles illustrating the challenges which defeat many would-be students, and how education can change a life, and possibly a culture.
India’s Latest Tiger Count Is Seriously Inadequate
Posted by Stuart Pimm on March 28, 2011 
The latest census of wild tigers in India, home to half the world’s wild tigers, shows that the number of big cats has increased by more than two hundred in four years. But the good news may be obscuring serious threats to the country’s iconic feline.
Posted by Using basic mobile phones and text messages, “invisible” poor or homeless people in India and Africa can be counted as individuals with needs and rights — and receive their share of social resources. In this installment of Digital Diversity, Matt Berg, a technology practitioner and researcher in the Modi Research Group at the…
California Farmers Go Deep into Water Debt During Drought
Posted by Sandra Postel of National Geographic's Freshwater Initiative in Water Currents on February 28, 2011 
We all know the dangers of not balancing our check books: we could withdraw from our bank accounts more than we’ve deposited, and get fined-or worse-for overdrawing. You’d think we’d manage our groundwater accounts at least as carefully as our bank accounts, especially given that the food security of this and future generations depends on…
Posted by With only 3,500 tigers hanging on in isolated patches of wilderness scattered across 13 Asian countries, the prospects for the survival of the species outside zoos is grim. The Prime Minister of Russia, Vladimir Putin, is convening a summit in St. Petersburg this weekend to discuss and endorse a plan that would double the population…
News of another wild tiger killing has come on the eve of the international summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, to discuss an urgent strategy to save the last tigers in the wild. A rare Siberian tiger was killed yesterday by poachers near Vladivostok, Russia, the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), said in a news…
NGS stock photo by Michael Nichols For four days starting this weekend, government leaders from the 13 tiger range countries will be meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia, to confirm a plan to restore and conserve one of the world’s most iconic big cats to its wild habitat. Teams from Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia,…
Tiger range countries meeting next week in St. Petersburg, Russia, for the International Tiger Conservation Forum hosted by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, have been urged by conservation activists to “act decisively now or face a future in which the wild tiger is extinct.” The UK-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) said: “It as an opportunity to…
Use of owls in black magic and sorcery driven by superstition, totems and taboos is one of the prime drivers of the covert trade threatening the survival of the nocturnal bird, wildlife monitors concluded after investigating trafficking, trapping and exploitation of owls in India. Conservationists are especially concerned that the celebration of the Hindu festival Diwali, which begins…
Bangladesh and India are the two countries most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change over the next 30 years, according to calculations by the British global risks analysis company Maplecroft. The same study determined that the countries least at risk from climate change are the Scandinavian nations and Ireland. The U.S. and much of Europe…
Linguists Discuss ‘Hidden’ Koro Language, Search for Last Speakers
Posted by Ford Cochran on October 6, 2010 Linguists working in India’s remote Arunachal Pradesh state have uncovered the hidden Koro language, which was previously undocumented and unknown to science. In an exclusive interview, they describe Koro’s survival, the Enduring Voices Project’s search for last speakers, and their efforts to promote humanity’s threatened linguistic diversity. By Ford Cochran Yesterday, linguists and National Geographic…
NG stock photo by Michael Nichols September 27, 2010 is International Tiger Day, a day set aside by all who care about the biggest of the cats to discuss the state of tigers globally and celebrate conservation efforts that are currently underway. Joseph Smith, Tiger Program Director for Panthera, a charity dedicated to restoration and conservation of…
Photo of albino fishing cat courtesy Dan Morrison Its distinctively small ears bent flat against its skull, a rare and endangered albino fishing cat paces manically inside its tiny cage at a private zoo in northeastern Bangladesh. Fishing cats are made for the water, and this one is clearly unhappy with the bars standing between…
