We were on a beach. Somewhere close to Puducherry. The sight was surreal: half-smashed houses with wide open fronts, people still living in them. The devastation was caused not by a sea storm or a cyclone, but by the eroded beach. The sea had crept up to the village; there …
On February 26, as night fell on the tranquil Gahirmatha beach in Odisha, thousands of Olive Ridley turtles crawled in. Using their rear flippers, they dug pits in the soft beach sand and started laying eggs, more than 100 at a time. Then they skilfully covered the nests with sand …
ON NOVEMBER 18, there was a dust-up between farmers and fishers at Murthikuppam in Puducherry’s Bahour Commune over who would get to talk to the environment ministry’s representative visiting the area. The representative from the ministry’s Bengaluru regional office, U Sridharan, was there to seek views on the partially constructed …
THE High Court of Bombay in Goa has come down heavily on the state’s coastal village panchayats for structures built in violation of the coastal regulation zone (CRZ) notification 1991. CRZ regulates activities on coastal stretches within 500 metres of the high tide line on the landward side. On June …