Lagoons throughout the world are threatened by the capitalistic ambitions of states and international territorial disputes, yet literature on them is missing an intimate portrayal akin to Nan Shepherd’s work on mountains or Roger Deakin’s portrayal of the British Isles.
By Sangeetha Menon “Kanmani watched her village from the hill. The lands stood dry and bare, broken even. The skies stared back in defence as the sun growled.” These are the opening lines of Maari, a story about a village in Tamil Nadu dealing with severe drought and finding solace through culture. The young protagonist, Kanmani, is worried as she…
By Monisha Raman With inputs from Meghaa Gupta We do not have prose praising the deserts as Thoreau praised the woods or Hemingway the sea, nor do we find an Ode to the Sand by Wordsworth, Keats or Shelley. Yet in a way we do… ~ Rune Graulund There is no clear way to define a desert. What is construed…
Publisher: Penguin BusinessAuthor: Nagaraja Prakasam Back to Bharat: In Search of a Sustainable Future is a book that addresses the present economic dilemma for Indian entrepreneurs and consumers, looking at the past and present situation of both India and the developed world to find a way forward. Written in an engaging and anecdotal style, the book is enriched with case studies…
By JoAnne Saldanha With inputs from Meghaa Gupta Out of the 38 cat species across the planet, only six have the distinction of being called ‘big cats’: lions, tigers, leopards, snow leopards, jaguars and cheetahs. While they may look like oversized kitty cats, one of the main differences, other than size, between big cats and their smaller cousins is the…
By Archana Natraj India is the world’s second-largest coal producer and a major producer of bauxite, iron, and zinc ore. Extracting these ores offers significant economic benefits, but it comes at a cost – land-use change, deforestation, erosion, contamination of wetlands and carbon emission that affect the environment, the livelihood and social fabric of local communities. The coal and lignite…