Author name: Vaithianathan Kannan

A significant proportion of Indian users receive and retain large volumes of emails without regularly maintaining their inboxes. This digital clutter not only affects personal productivity but also has broader environmental implications. The energy required to store these emails in data centers, which have to be powered and cooled simultaneously, adds to the carbon footprint.

Reproductive freedom is a fundamental human right. No ideology should dictate how many children a person can or cannot have. However, with freedom comes responsibility. Just as we now consider the environmental implications of what we eat, drive, or wear, so too must we consider the environmental cost of reproduction. This doesn’t mean enforcing a

Healthy otter populations usually indicate clean water, abundant fish populations, stable riverbanks, thriving wetlands, and balanced ecosystems. Yet unlike elephants, tigers, peafowl, or snakes, otters never became central symbols in mainstream Indian culture. Perhaps that is part of the problem. Conservation often follows visibility. Animals that remain hidden from public imagination are easier to neglect.

A deeper social problem underlies biodiversity loss: people are becoming disconnected from nature. Urban children may know international cartoon characters better than native birds such as the Indian Peafowl or the House Sparrow. When society stops noticing nature, it stops valuing it. This disconnect breeds apathy. The loss of biodiversity is no longer a distant

Today, invasive alien plant species are among the gravest ecological threats worldwide, altering landscapes, suffocating native biodiversity, destabilising economies, and reshaping cultural relationships with land. This is a story of distribution, disruption, and difficult decisions. Invasive alien plant species are non-native plants introduced to new ecosystems where they spread aggressively, outcompeting native species and disrupting

Anthropocene has not simply altered habitats, but has inserted an overpowering, synthetic chemical presence into nearly every ecosystem. Industrial agriculture sprays pesticides over millions of hectares. Urban air carries vehicular emissions, plastics break down into microscopic particles, pharmaceuticals seep into rivers, and synthetic fragrances wash into the oceans through wastewater. These compounds interfere with the

Bird migration has become a metaphor for resilience, adaptability, and search for safe havens. It is a tale of trust between species, a pact made by instinct, honoured by tradition, and tested by modernity. The civil society has a role to play in this saga. Farmers must use fewer pesticides to protect these migrants, urban

The elephants of India have consistently been intertwined with our spiritual heritage. Yet in the transformed terrains of the Western Ghats, their sacred likeness has faded into a symbolic form, a deity reduced to a scavenger. From broken corridors to unauthorised dumping sites near forests, elephants are more frequently observed consuming food scraps, plastics, and