Frontline on environment and nature - Frontline

Hundreds of scientists worldwide contribute to IPCC reports, synthesising climate research for policy decisions. The IPCC’s 62nd session was held in Hangzhou, China, in 2025.

The IPCC’s role is larger than informing one Global Stocktake: Climate policy experts

T. Jayaraman and Tejal Kanitkar contend that the IPCC’s assessment cycle should be guided by scientific and procedural requirements rather than the timetable of a single Paris Agreement process.

Rishika Pardikar

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu with Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian at “Bharat AI Shakti”, an event hosted by Google, in New Delhi on October 14, 2025.

Artificial Intelligence

Is Andhra Pradesh’s data centre push a recipe for disaster?

With nine-day environmental clearances, phantom job figures, and staggering incentives, Andhra Pradesh’s AI infrastructure push exposes the country’s regulatory vacuum for data centres.

GREAT NICOBAR PROJECT

Great Nicobar’s blueprint for ‘development at any cost’

The NGT’s acceptance of the government’s arguments in favour of the Great Nicobar Island project at face value is troubling because it shields the Centre from accountability and discourages critical scrutiny of a project of far-reaching consequences.

Srijani Datta,Nikhil Kothakota

SAND MINING in KERALA

Black sand, broken shores

Residents of Thottappally in Kerala’s Alappuzha district have spent years resisting large-scale sand mining that they say has accelerated coastal erosion, damaged fragile ecosystems, and threatened livelihoods.

Campbell Bay jetty, viewed from the inter-island ship M.V. Onge as it approaches on May 3, 1979. The ship was the lifeline of a remote frontier.

A death knell for Great Nicobar

The state has always aimed to colonise Great Nicobar Island. But that ambition has now assumed a monstrous proportion, threatening the island’s very existence.

Nancy,Ajay Saini

Maharashtra’s fifth farm loan waiver in 40 years may not reach the farmers it targets

The Maharashtra Cabinet has approved a Rs.36,585 crore crop loan waiver covering 55.72 lakh farmers, but critics say its eligibility criteria will disqualify more than half of them.

The petitioner as suspect

A Supreme Court observation has blurred the line between dismissing a case and distrusting a class of litigants. The Constitution, and the court’s own history, set up a different relationship between the citizen and the bench.

More stories from Environment

Why Kashmir’s lakes are vanishing | Dal, Wular, and Anchar under threat

A panel discusses why Kashmir’s lakes are shrinking amid climate change, pollution, tourism, and encroachment.

Agricultural workers travelling to work, near Penuganchiprolu, Andhra Pradesh, on May 7, 2026. With temperatures soaring, they have been going to the fields at 6 am and returning by early afternoon.

A scorching Earth needs serious action

As warming accelerates, India’s struggle to adapt to extreme heat will demand far greater public investment, stronger institutions, and mass political mobilisation.

This aerial photograph, taken on March 25, 2026, shows a coastline at Campbell Bay in Great Nicobar Island. On a remote island in the Andaman Sea, bulldozers are tearing into pristine forests home to one of Earth's most isolated people as part of India's ambition for a $9 billion megaport, airport, and city.

Two lakh people sign petition to stop Great Nicobar project

The Change.org campaign, demanding withdrawal of a Rs.81,000-crore development plan, warns of mass deforestation, tribal displacement, and the destruction of a critical biodiversity zone.

Frontline News Desk

A woman carrying water pots in Dargai Khurd, Tikamgarh district, Madhya Pradesh, on April 27, 2016. Over 600 million Indians face high to extreme water stress, according to NITI Aayog’s Composite Water Management Index (CWMI).

India’s water crisis: More social schism than scarcity

It cannot be understood as a purely environmental or technical problem. Scarcity exists, but access to water is determined by factors such as caste, class, gender, and political power.

ANKIT MISHRA,Samanta Sahu

Firefighters at the site of a blast in a firecracker manufacturing unit in Kattanarpatti, Virudhunagar, Tamil Nadu, on April 19, 2026.

What drives Sivakasi’s deadly fireworks industry

Repeated explosions in Sivakasi’s fireworks industry expose a deadly nexus of regulatory failure, illegal outsourcing, and profit-driven neglect. Even after decades of tragedies, safety reforms and mechanisation remain largely on paper.

Ilangovan Rajasekaran

Pipavav Port in Gujarat. The Pipavav port expansion case highlights the role of the National Green Tribunal and the Supreme Court in disputes over environmental approvals, especially when project clearances are renewed or extended years after the original permissions were granted.

Development versus the environment and the Supreme Court

A fresh environmental clearance issued in 2025 for Pipavav port, after earlier approvals lapsed and were extended, is now being contested by residents who cite ecological and livelihood concerns.

Satellite imagery of the southern tip of Great Nicobar Island and the Galathea Bay, where the International Container Transhipment Terminal is planned.

The Great Nicobar debate is asking the wrong question

The government defines the Great Nicobar Island project as “balanced” development. But unless ecological limits and indigenous rights are built into the design itself, mitigation will become a fig leaf for irreversible transformation.

The Central Ridge is vital to Delhi’s health, absorbing pollution, and hosting birds and animals who are vital to the ecosystem.

Delhi’s ‘themed forests’ could suffocate its last green lung

The Forest Department’s plans to develop ecologically unsound themed forests in the Central Ridge spell doom not just for the 1.5-billion-year-old forest area but also for the national capital, which depends on the ridge for clean air.

Vedaant Lakhera

Tribal farmers protest against the Ken-Betwa river-linking project by lying on mock pyres, in Chhatarpur, Madhya Pradesh, on April 10, 2026.

Ken-Betwa’s first flood may arrive before the dam fills

Protests by tribal farmers over compensation and rehabilitation have once again raised questions about the human cost of the Ken-Betwa river-linking project, as well as its ecological impact, including on the Panna Tiger Reserve, a large part of which will be submerged.

The Namami Gange project was launched in June 2014, soon after Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power. Here, a 2018 photograph showing a sewerage canal spilling out dirty water into the river in Patna.

Namami Gange’s riverfront facelift displaced the people who kept the Ganga alive

The programme measures success in infrastructure—STPs, dolphin counts, tourist ghats—but structurally ignores the displacement of Nishad, Mallah, Kewat, and Bind communities.

Silhouetted against the blazing sun, a man drinks water near Charminar, in Hyderabad, amid extreme heat and heatwave conditions across Telangana on April 28, 2026.

Is India warming? Don’t ask annual averages, ask seasons

Annual average temperature trends make India look like it’s barely warming (or even cooling) because the huge seasonal swings cancel out the global warming signal. But look season by season, and the crisis is undeniable.

Raghu Murtugudde

Celebrated naturalist David Attenborough turns 100

The still-sprightly centenarian has been knighted twice, nominated for the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, and is perhaps the world’s most recognisable nature lover.

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