Section

Environment

The planet, the wildlife, the energy transition and what is genuinely working.

Cochin International Airport Switched On a 12 MW Solar Plant in 2015 to Cover Its Own Power Use and Won the UN's Champions of the Earth Award in 2018

A 100 kW rooftop trial in 2013, a Bosch-built plant in 2015, canal and carport panels, a terrain-following plant at Payyannur and a UN prize in New York: the record of the airport company's own figures and the documents behind them.

The IEA Reports That India's Renewable Power Capacity Has Passed 300 GW and Saved More Than USD 100 Billion in Coal and Gas Imports Since 2011

What the agency measured, how it arrives at the import savings, how its 300 GW differs from the ministry's non-fossil count, and the grid and storage work it says will decide the pace to 2030.

Jadav Payeng Began Planting a Brahmaputra Sandbar in 1979 and Received the Padma Shri in 2015 for the Molai Forest, Which Press Reports Put at 550 Hectares

A teenager, a sandbar strewn with dead snakes and a first planting of bamboo. How one farmer's work reached the forest department in 2008, the Padma list in 2015 and the Prime Minister's radio address in 2021, and where the accounts of it differ.

Project Tiger, Launched at Corbett on 1 April 1973 With Nine Reserves and Kailash Sankhala as First Director, Now Covers 58 Tiger Reserves and More Than 84,000 Square Kilometres

A task force report in August 1972, a launch at Corbett and a first director from Jodhpur set up the programme that now runs 58 reserves. Here is who did what, which nine reserves came first, and how the numbers changed.

A Camera-Trap Study in Eastern Sikkim Photographed a Gaur at 3,542 Metres and a Tiger at 3,966 Metres Across 64 Stations and 20,411 Trap Nights

Forest reaches almost 4,000 metres in eastern Sikkim, and the cameras found large mammals living in it. The numbers, the methods and what the authors say is still open.

Kanha's Hard-Ground Barasingha Rose From 66 Animals in 1970 to About 1,100 Under Madhya Pradesh Forest Department Care, and a Second Herd Started in Satpura in 2015 Reached 172 by 2023

Forest staff moved villages out of the meadows, fenced fawns against jackals and pythons, and from 2015 began moving deer to a second reserve so that one disease outbreak could not threaten the whole subspecies.

Manas Wildlife Sanctuary Came Off UNESCO's List of World Heritage in Danger on 21 June 2011, and the World Heritage Committee's July 2026 Decision Notes a Clear Upward Trend in Its Key Species and No New Farm Encroachment

Rhinos brought from Kaziranga and Pobitora, swamp deer moved by road, a funding foundation and a Committee decision in 2026 that sets the next two deadlines, 1 December 2026 and 1 December 2027.

Bhitarkanika's Saltwater Crocodiles Rose From 96 Counted in 1976 to 1,858 in January 2026, After a Project Begun in 1975 Released 3,008 Captive-Raised Juveniles Into Odisha's Creeks

Twenty-nine adults were counted in 1976. The January 2026 survey found 353, along with the hatchery pools, the nest records and the river ghats that came with the recovery.

India's Cheetah Count Reached 60 on 5 October 2026, With 41 Born in the Country, After a Kuno Female Named KJP21 Had Five Cubs by a Botswana Male

Ten months ago the official count was 30. A third India-born mother, a new bloodline from Botswana and a second litter for another young female took it to 60, and the figures show how the total moved.

India Added 24.56 GW of Renewable Capacity in Six Months and Stood at 299.25 GW on 30 September 2026, With Solar at 171 GW

Solar, wind and hydro counts, the state leaders, a cross-check of the six-month additions against the ministry's March figures, and the difference between the 299 GW renewable count and the 300 GW non-fossil milestone.

Odisha Announced an Agri-PV Policy on 22 October 2026 That Aims for 1 GW of Solar Above Working Fields by 2030, With 90 Per Cent of Every Site Kept Under Crops

Crops below, solar panels above: the terms Odisha has announced, the Jodhpur and Arizona trials behind the idea, and the national programme the Centre says is coming next.

A Breeding Programme That Began With Six Pygmy Hogs Taken From Manas in 1996 Has Released 194 Into Assam's Grasslands, and 15 Went Back to the Kuribeel Grasslands of Manas on 7 June 2026

How a 1996 capture of six wild hogs grew into four release sites in Assam, with the counts the partners published, 116 by 2018 and 194 by 2026, and the Indian scientists who run the work.

The 7th Agrivoltaics World Conference Ran in New Delhi from 21 to 23 October 2026, Launched an AgriPV Policy Handbook and Handed Hosting to France for 2027

A farm-solar meeting that has moved from Italy, Korea, the United States and Germany to Delhi: the attendance figures, what was released, what ICAR and farmer groups put on the agenda, and where the 2027 edition goes.

India Counts 3,682 Tigers, 891 Asiatic Lions, 718 Snow Leopards and 6,327 River Dolphins as WWF's 2026 Living Planet Report Cites Tiger Recovery as Evidence for Hope

The headline of the new WWF report is a fall of 73 per cent. Its tiger chapter, and India's official counts of lions, leopards, snow leopards and river dolphins, show where numbers have risen.

India Banned Veterinary Diclofenac in 2006, Fledged 396 Captive-Bred Vultures by 2019 and Has Released Birds From Its Breeding Centres Since 2020

Three vulture species lost more than 96 per cent of their birds in about a decade. By 2018 and 2019 most chemists near Pinjore sold meloxicam, a drug tested safe for vultures, and captive-bred birds now spend time in pre-release aviaries inside tiger reserves.

The Sangai Deer of Keibul Lamjao, Counted at 14 in 1975 and 260 in Manipur's 2016 Census, Live on 40 Square Kilometres of Floating Meadow on Loktak Lake, a Ramsar Site Since 1990

A reserve whose ground rises and falls with the water, one deer found nowhere else in the wild, and counts that run from 64 to 260 depending on who counted and how. The record, with each figure credited to its source.

Bishnoi Villages Near Jodhpur Hold Significantly More Blackbuck Than Their Neighbours, and the Community Traces Its Tree Rule to Khejarli in 1730, Where 363 Villagers Are Said to Have Died

A desert village about 18 km from Jodhpur gave India a national day and an award. Here is what the Khejarli account rests on, where the sources disagree, and what scientists have measured in the villages since.

Eravikulam National Park Holds 841 of the 2,668 Nilgiri Tahr Counted in April 2025, the Largest Contiguous Population of a Mountain Animal Found Only in the Western Ghats

A mountain animal found nowhere outside two Indian states was counted on foot over four mornings by teams in both of them. The numbers, the park that holds the biggest herd, and the project that is trying to widen its range.

Project Cheetah Flew 20 Cheetahs From Namibia and South Africa to Kuno in 2022 and 2023, and the Environment Ministry Counted 53 in India by March 2026, 33 of Them Born in the Country

A species declared extinct in 1952 now has cubs, second-generation mothers and a second release site. The plan's own targets, the court's role and the NTCA's mortality figures sit side by side here, with the latest official count.

The Dam Planned for Silent Valley Was Abandoned in 1983, and 89.52 Square Kilometres of Kerala Rainforest Became a National Park Dedicated on 7 September 1985

A valley on the Kunthipuzha that an electricity board wanted to flood is now the core of the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve. The timeline with each date credited to its source, and where the sources disagree.

Chilika Lake Came Off the Ramsar Montreux Record on 11 November 2002 After a New Sea Mouth Took Fish Landings From About 1,600 Tonnes a Year to 14,053 Tonnes, and in January 2026 It Held 11,32,200 Birds and 159 Irrawaddy Dolphins

A lagoon fed by 52 rivers and rivulets had its sea link choked by silt, then got a new mouth that cut 18 km from the outflow channel. The dated record of what changed for fishers, dolphins and winter birds, with the counts that disagree set side by side.

India's First National Snow Leopard Assessment Estimated 718 Animals From Camera Traps at 1,971 Locations and 13,450 Kilometres of Walked Trails Across Six States and Union Territories

Teams covered about 120,000 sq km of Himalayan habitat. Only 241 leopards appeared on camera, so the national figure rests on how often known animals turned up again at different traps.

Keoladeo National Park, the Bharatpur Marsh Built for the Maharaja's Duck Shoots, Became a Ramsar Site in 1981 and a World Heritage Site in 1985 With More Than 360 Recorded Bird Species

A single Viceroy's party shot more than 4,000 birds here in 1938. By December 1984 the same marsh held 41 Siberian cranes, and today its managers work toward a water target of 550 million cubic feet a year.

Odisha's Rushikulya Beach Recorded 6,98,718 Olive Ridley Turtles Laying Eggs in February 2025 and Gahirmatha 6,06,933 in March, With Trawlers Barred Within 20 km of the Nesting Coast for Seven Months a Year

Three river-mouth beaches on Odisha's coast host mass nesting that forest officers count in lakhs. Here is each beach, the tagging work, the fishing closure and what the 2026 season looked like.

India's First DNA-Based Elephant Count Identified 4,065 Individual Animals and Estimated 22,446, in a Country With 33 Elephant Reserves and 150 Validated Corridors

Dung samples from 37 sites gave 4,065 genetic profiles, and a capture-recapture model turned them into a national estimate. The reserve network, the corridor survey, the 2010 heritage status and the ministry's conflict figures come after.

Kaziranga's 2022 Census Counted 2,613 Greater One-Horned Rhinos, Against an Estimated Dozen or So in 1908, and the Cabinet Has Cleared a 34.5-Kilometre Elevated Corridor for Wildlife Beside the Park

Estimates for 1908 run from a dozen rhinos to a few dozen. How the park's census is done, the first rhinos moved to Manas, the tiger survey and what the Cabinet approved for the road along the southern boundary.

PM Surya Ghar Has Put Rooftop Solar on More Than 60 Lakh Indian Households in Under Three Years, and the Centre Has Paid Rs 33,642 Crore in Subsidy

A dated count from 8.46 lakh households in January 2025 to 60 lakh in October 2026, how the subsidy is worked out, which states lead, and where the 75 lakh and one crore marks stand.

India's First National River Dolphin Count Found 6,327 Dolphins in 28 Rivers Across Eight States, With 2,397 in Uttar Pradesh and 2,220 in Bihar, Where the Vikramshila Sanctuary Protects 60 km of the Ganga

Two observers on a boat and underwater microphones produced the first national river dolphin figure, state by state, and Bihar's stretch of the Ganga holds about a third of the total. Here is the method, the sanctuary and the programme behind it.

The Indian Sundarbans Has Been a UNESCO World Heritage Site Since 1987, Had 100 Tigers Photographed in 2022, and Won Approval in 2025 to Enlarge Its Tiger Reserve to 3,629.57 Square Kilometres

A forest of tidal creeks where tigers swim between islands, honey is gathered under permit and the reserve was cleared in August 2025 to grow by 1,044.68 sq km. The official records, the 2022 camera survey and the fences, set out with their sources.

UNESCO Inscribed the Western Ghats on 1 July 2012 as 39 Sites in Seven Clusters, Holding 352 Endemic Tree Species, 325 Globally Threatened Species and the Barrier That Intercepts the Monsoon

From the Agasthyamalai hills in the far south to the Sahyadri plateaus in the north, here are the clusters, the figures UNESCO uses and the path from two expert panels to a draft notification now in its seventh edition.

India Added Sukhna Wetland and Sauj Jheel to Its Ramsar List on 15 October 2026, Taking the Count of Wetlands of International Importance to 103 From 99 in April

A 1958 reservoir at the edge of Chandigarh and a farmland lake in the Ganga floodplain join the list. The birds counted at each, the paperwork behind the Chandigarh listing, and the four sites added since April.

Himalayan Glaciers Have Been Losing Ice About Twice as Fast Since 2000, and India Has Measured Them Since 1974, Mapped 28,043 Glacial Lakes From Orbit and Now Watches Two Sikkim Lakes in Real Time

Fifty years of field stakes, satellite height maps and lake surveys agree on the direction. This is where they still differ, from the Karakoram to the 2100 projections, and what India has installed at its glacial lakes since Sikkim's flood of October 2023.

62,175 Producers, Importers and Brand Owners Had Registered on India's Plastic EPR Portal by 25 June 2026, and Processors Had Generated Credit for 237.95 Lakh Tonnes of Packaging Waste Under Rules That Sit Beside the Single-Use Ban of 1 July 2022

The banned items and bag thickness limits, what a brand has to register, collect and recycle each year, and the portal, inspection and audit numbers that the ministry and the pollution control board have put on record.

India's Non-Fossil Power Capacity Passed 50 Per Cent in June 2025, Five Years Ahead of Its 2030 Pledge, and Reached 308 GW by 30 September 2026

A dated series of official counts from 2014 to 2026, what the ministry includes as non-fossil, how the 50 per cent target and the 500 GW pledge differ, and what share of electricity the plants actually supplied.

India's Green Hydrogen Mission Has Awarded 3,000 MW of Electrolyser Capacity and 756,100 Tonnes a Year of Hydrogen Production Since 2023

Who won the SIGHT tenders, what green ammonia and refinery hydrogen cost, which plants already run, and how the awarded and commissioned tonnes compare with the 2030 goal.

India Reached 171 GW of Installed Solar in September 2026, Up From 2.82 GW in 2014, and Its Approved Module Factories Can Make About 228 GW a Year

Yearly additions since 2014, the Kamuthi, Pavagada and Bhadla parks, what a unit of solar power has sold for, and how module, cell and wafer manufacturing is growing alongside installations.

Rajasthan's Thar Holds About 130 Great Indian Bustards, 97 More Live in Two Breeding Centres, and Two Captive-Bred Males Were Released on 4 October 2026

A critically endangered bird that flies into power lines, three court orders about those lines, and a breeding programme that has just begun releasing birds. What is counted and what is only estimated.

India's 2013 Cyclone Phailin Directly Killed 21 People Where the 1999 Odisha Super Cyclone Killed About 9,900, and Better Forecasts Were Only Part of the Reason

About 9,900 people died in 1999 even though a warning went out more than 48 hours ahead. What changed afterwards, and which storms since then still killed dozens.

The Ministry of Earth Sciences Reports a Seasonal Monsoon Forecast Error of 3.1 Percent of Normal for 2021 to 2025, Against 7.8 Percent for 2016 to 2020, and IMD's 2026 Forecasts of 92 and 90 Percent Landed Within Their Margins of the 87 Recorded

The machinery behind the monsoon, a seasonal forecast record the ministry reports as tightening to a 3.1 percent average error, and the 2026 season at 87 percent of normal that both IMD forecasts anticipated as below normal. The Kerala onset was forecast for 26 May and came on 4 June.

Salim Ali's Book of Indian Birds Described 181 Species in 1941, His Ten-Volume Handbook With S. Dillon Ripley Was Complete in 1974, and His Appeals Helped Protect Keoladeo and Silent Valley

A boy with an air gun and a sparrow with a yellow throat grew into the author of the subcontinent's standard bird books and a steady correspondent of Indira Gandhi on forests and wetlands. What the record shows, and where the accounts differ.

India Says It Has 3,682 Tigers. It Also Says 3,167. And It Photographed 3,080.

All three numbers are real, all three are official, and they mean different things. Getting from one to the other explains both the biggest conservation win of the last fifty years and the argument nobody has settled.

Namami Gange Has Disbursed Rs 21,340 Crore Since 2014 and Completed Sewage Projects With 4,263 MLD of Capacity, and Varanasi's Assi Ghat Now Tests at 790 Against a Faecal Bacteria Limit of 2,500

Twelve years of money, sewage plants and river tests in one place, starting with what has been built and measured, and with the Prayagraj water dispute of February 2025 told from the regulator's, the state board's and the chief minister's own words.

The Gharial Went From Fewer Than 200 Animals Worldwide in 1974 to 1,857 Counted in the Chambal Alone by 2019, After Project Crocodile Released More Than 5,000 Head-Started Animals

Project Crocodile's head-start releases rebuilt the Chambal herd, which reached 1,857 animals in 2019. The later counts, the toxin that killed 113 in one winter and the 2026 sand-mining orders are set beside it.

The Largest Oil Spill in History Was Not an Accident

Deepwater Horizon leaked about four million barrels and became the most famous spill on earth. NOAA's estimate for the Persian Gulf in 1991 starts at six million, and almost nobody can tell you the date it happened.

A Jury Told Exxon to Pay $5 Billion for Poisoning Alaska. Nineteen Years Later, the Court Cut It by 90%

The 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster fouled 1,300 miles of Alaskan coast and killed a quarter-million seabirds. A jury tried to make Exxon pay $5 billion. What happened to that penalty over 19 years tells you how accountability really works.

For 87 Days, Oil Poured Into the Gulf. The Record $20 Billion Settlement Still Didn't Cover the Damage

The 2010 Deepwater Horizon blowout killed 11 workers and poured millions of barrels into the Gulf. It produced the largest environmental settlement in US history, and a decade of damage no cheque could price.

A Well Bled Into the Gulf of Mexico for 294 Days, Three Times Longer Than Deepwater Horizon. The Total Ever Paid to America Was $4 Million

Thirty years before Deepwater Horizon, an almost identical blowout happened in almost the same sea, and ran more than three times as long. Then Pemex said one word, immunity, and the bill never came.

Sundarlal Bahuguna Walked 4,870 Kilometres From Kashmir to Kohima for the Himalayan Forests, Declined the Padma Shri in 1981 and Was Named a Padma Vibhushan in 2009

A Gandhian from Tehri Garhwal, a cooperative in Gopeshwar and the women of one village each have a claim on the Chipko story. What the documents say about who did what, and where the dates disagree.

Gujarat's Asiatic Lions Rose From 523 in 2015 to 891 in 2025 and Now Range Over About 35,000 Square Kilometres in 11 Districts, Including Barda, Which They Reached in 2023

Lions now turn up in Barda and along the Bhavnagar coast. The census figures, the satellite populations beyond Gir and Project Lion come first, then the 2013 court order, the 2018 virus outbreak and a disputed explanation for eight cub deaths in 2026.

The Ozone Layer Is Healing: the Environmental Disaster We Actually Fixed

CFCs were tearing a hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica by the 1980s. The Montreal Protocol banned them within years, and the sky has been mending on schedule ever since.

Most Reefs in the Andamans and the Gulf of Mannar Recovered From the 2023 to 2024 Bleaching, the Ministry of Earth Sciences Told Parliament, While Lakshadweep Has Been Surveyed Since 1998 and 1,439 Square Kilometres of Reef Are Mapped

Indian institutions have surveyed the country's reefs since 1998, and the recovery they recorded comes first here. Share bleached, share dead and share of seabed covered in live coral are three different numbers, and they sit side by side for each bleaching year with the papers and replies that give them.

India Counts Its Tigers With Camera Traps at 32,588 Locations and Reports a Range of 3,167 to 3,925, While Its 891 Lions Are Counted by More Than 3,000 People Watching for 24 Hours

A handful of repeat sightings is enough to estimate how many tigers the cameras missed. Gujarat's lions are still counted by people standing watch, and the state reports one figure.

Delhi's Annual PM2.5 Declined From 114 Micrograms per Cubic Metre in 2018 to 97 in 2025, the Lowest in CAQM's Series Apart From the Covid Year, Over Years of BS-VI Fuel, the Badarpur Closure and the Graded Response Action Plan

Eight years of official averages with 2025 among the lowest, the policies of the period, and then the winter peak, an AQI of 78 in July against 354 in November, and the studies that rank the sources differently.