Environment & Ecology GS3
- WMO says a strong El Niño will last into 2027, worsening Delhi’s winter air outlook
9 October 2026 Bengaluru, October 8. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said El Niño will peak in October-December, extending into spring 2027.…
- Tahr, Vulture and Dugong Gains Show Recovery Works as WWF Reports 73% Wildlife Decline
8 October 2026 New Delhi, October 7. WWF’s biennial Living Planet Report 2026 finds the average size of monitored vertebrate populations fell 73% between 1970 and…
- Adi Youth Body Seeks Forces’ Withdrawal as Siang Dam Survey Protests Turn to Clashes
7 October 2026 Guwahati, October 6. The All Adi Youth Association has asked the government to withdraw Central Armed Police Forces and State Police deployed, it…
- Five cubs at Kuno start a Botswana lineage; India’s cheetah count reaches 60
6 October 2026 Bhopal, October 5. KJP21, a 32-month-old female cheetah born in India, gave birth to five cubs at Kuno National Park on Monday. Their father came…
- Supreme Court refuses to stay Great Nicobar case: culture is “a constitutionally protected fundamental right”
6 October 2026 New Delhi, October 5. A three-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant, with Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana, on Monday refused the…
- Delhi notifies 112.3 ha of the Northern Ridge as reserved forest while 2,073 ha stays outside Section 20
5 October 2026 New Delhi. On Friday, October 2, the Delhi government approved the Phase-I notification declaring 112.3 hectares (112.328 ha) of the Northern Ridge,…
- Captive-bred Great Indian Bustards to be released into Thar wild for first time
3 October 2026 Jaisalmer. Captive-bred Great Indian Bustards (GIB) will be released into the wild for the first time, marking the start of the ‘rewilding’ phase of…
- Environment Ministry resumes post-facto clearances after Supreme Court’s final Vanashakti ruling
3 October 2026 New Delhi. The Union Environment Ministry on September 30 directed its central and State expert bodies and pollution control boards to resume…
- Madhya Pradesh puts its forest department’s CFR directive in abeyance after the Union tribal ministry says it contradicts the Forest Rights Act
2 October 2026 New Delhi. The Indian Express reports that the Madhya Pradesh Forest Department has suspended an August 6 directive. The directive told field…
- Centre launches a ₹23,731-crore GOBARdhan push to raise compressed biogas output tenfold with guaranteed offtake
2 October 2026 New Delhi. Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri launched the GOBARdhan compressed biogas (CBG) scheme on October 1, per a PIB release. CBG is gas…
- Supreme Court rejects total Deepavali cracker ban, backs limited use of new green crackers
1 October 2026 New Delhi. On Wednesday, September 30, a Supreme Court Bench of Justices M.M. Sundresh and P.B. Varale ruled out a nationwide firecracker ban for…
- Centre notifies CAFE-III fuel norms for 2027–32, counting each electric car as three
1 October 2026 New Delhi. The Centre has notified the third phase of Corporate Average Fuel Economy norms, CAFE-III, for passenger cars, in force from April 1, 2027…
- Destroyed old grasslands take over a century to recover, PNAS study finds; ecologist seeks restoration programme
30 September 2026 A new global study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) finds that grasslands which grew for millennia almost never…
- Uttarakhand installs its first glacial-lake early-warning system as Gandak breaches Bihar embankment
30 September 2026 Dehradun. Uttarakhand began installing its first early-warning system for a glacial lake at Vasundhara Tal in Chamoli district on Tuesday, September…
- Centre asks Supreme Court to halt Calcutta HC hearings on Great Nicobar, disputing petitioner’s standing
30 September 2026 New Delhi. The Union government has filed a special leave petition (SLP) in the Supreme Court seeking a stay on proceedings in the Calcutta High…
- Reservoirs at 70% of Capacity, Below the Ten-Year Average, as the Monsoon Ends 12% Short
29 September 2026 Bengaluru and Gurugram. As the southwest monsoon season ends on September 30, water stored in 178 reservoirs across India stands at 70% of their…
- Delhi Fixes a Winter Pollution Calendar: Non-BS-VI Entry Curbs, 50% Work From Home and Construction Bans
29 September 2026 New Delhi. With the southwest monsoon on the wane and the National Capital Region bracing for its winter spike in pollution, Union Environment…
- Railways Shelve the Uri–Baramulla Line and Qazigund–Srinagar–Budgam Doubling After Ecological and Local Objections
28 September 2026 Srinagar, September 27. The Indian Railways has shelved the proposed 40-km new railway line that was to connect the border region of Uri with…
- UN General Assembly’s Declaration on Sea-Level Rise Guarantees Island States’ Statehood and Fixes Their Maritime Zones
28 September 2026 United Nations, New York. On September 24, the UN General Assembly approved the Declaration on Sea Level Rise by consensus, The Hindu reports on its…
- COP31’s Shared Australia–Türkiye Presidency Leaves Fossil-Fuel Transition and Loss-and-Damage Finance Off Its Priority List
28 September 2026 Trabzon, Türkiye. The next United Nations climate change conference, COP31, will be held in Antalya, Türkiye, in November 2026 under an arrangement…
- Expert Panel Recommends Clearance for 1,605 MW Subansiri Upper Dam Despite 1,35,733 Trees Marked for Felling
26 September 2026 New Delhi. The Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) of the Union Environment Ministry has recommended environmental clearance for the Subansiri Upper…
- Keralam Asks the Centre to Shrink Its Western Ghats Eco-Sensitive Area to 8,590.69 sq km of Forest Only
26 September 2026 Thiruvananthapuram. After Karnataka’s special Assembly session against the Western Ghats Ecologically Sensitive Area (ESA) draft, carded here on…
- Haryana Raises a ‘Parali Protection Force’ and Adds FIR, Challan and Red Entry for Farm Fires
25 September 2026 Chandigarh. Haryana will deploy a “Parali Protection Force” made up of police personnel, Agriculture Department officials and administrative officers…
- Arunachal Cabinet Sets Up Empowered Committee to Push Siang Upper Multipurpose Project Survey Past Local Resistance
24 September 2026 Guwahati. Amid protests, the Arunachal Pradesh Cabinet on Wednesday adopted a resolution approving the constitution of an empowered high-level…
- Super El Niño Projected to Add 15,800 Heat Deaths in India as Coal Stocks Run Low
24 September 2026 New Delhi. India could see an estimated 15,800 additional heat-related deaths, give or take 1,600, between September 2026 and February 2027 as the…
- Rasuwa Disaster Was a Rock-Ice Avalanche, Not a GLOF, and Needs Seismic Warning Networks
23 September 2026 Rasuwa, Nepal, and Tibet. The disaster that struck across the Nepal-Tibet border began with a rock-ice avalanche that turned into a debris flow, not…
- Rhino Phase I (2026-31) to Expand Range Into Bihar, Arunachal as a Grassland Atlas Is Planned
23 September 2026 New Delhi. Writing in The Indian Express to mark World Rhino Day on September 22, Union Environment, Forest and Climate Change Minister Bhupender…
- Centre Doubles Port Environmental Clearance Validity to 20 Years, With Two Conditional Five-Year Extensions
23 September 2026 New Delhi, September 22. The Centre has notified a major relaxation in the environmental clearance process, doubling the validity of clearances…
- Canal-Top Solar Could Add 131 GW Without New Land, but Has Not Scaled Since 2012
23 September 2026 Gujarat, Punjab and India’s wider irrigation network. In an analysis in The Hindu on Wednesday, Shantanu Roy, Sector Coordinator for Renewables and…
- Alternative Fuels Overtake Petrol in New Car Sales, but CNG and Hybrids Lead, Not EVs
22 September 2026 New Delhi. A Data Point analysis in The Hindu by Sachin Swaraj and Gandla Sneha examines what the Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations…
- Delhi Doubles Rooftop-Solar Subsidy to ₹1.56 Lakh, Targets Free Systems for 2.3 Lakh Homes
22 September 2026 New Delhi. Chief Minister Rekha Gupta on Monday, September 21, launched the registration portal for the Delhi PM Surya Ghar scheme, implemented under…
- Shimla Macaque-Attack Death Exposes the Gap Left When the 2022 Amendment Delisted Rhesus Monkeys
22 September 2026 Shimla, Himachal Pradesh. The Indian Express reports that a 63-year-old woman in Shimla was attacked by a pack of rhesus macaques on the roof of her…
- Nepal Recasts Flood Losses as a Climate-Justice Claim, Testing India’s Stand on Loss and Damage
22 September 2026 Kathmandu and New Delhi. An opinion article in The Indian Express on September 22, written by a professor at the School of Public Policy, IIT Delhi,…
- Botswana Cheetah CCB-2 Released at Gandhi Sagar as Kuno Births Take India's Count to 56
21 September 2026 BHOPAL. Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav on Sunday, 20 September, released CCB-2, a female cheetah brought to India from Botswana, into…
- Justice Nagarathna Says Supreme Court Is Shifting From Anthropocentric to Ecocentric Environmental Law
21 September 2026 NEW DELHI. Supreme Court judge Justice B.V. Nagarathna said on Sunday, 20 September, that the apex court is now pushing for a shift from an…
- Karnataka Opens Special Session, Plans All-Party Delegation to PM Against Western Ghats ESA Draft
21 September 2026 BENGALURU. The Karnataka government plans to take an all-party delegation of MPs and MLAs to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi to convey the State's…
- A Strengthening El Niño, a 15% Rainfall Deficit and a Record 269 GW September Power Peak
19 September 2026 The Economic Times reports that the south-west monsoon has remained deficient this season while El Niño has strengthened during it, leaving parts of…
- Three ISA Contracts, 366 Million Tonnes of Nodules, and the Case Against Mining Them
19 September 2026 Writing in The Hindu, marine biologist P. Ragavan argues that the central question at India’s deep-sea frontier is not how deep the country can go or…
- Five Orangutans Rescued in Odisha: What CITES and the Wild Life Act Do — and Do Not — Cover
18 September 2026 The Indian Express reported that five baby orangutans were rescued from a forest in Balasore district, Odisha. The report explains the legal…
- Delhi's EV Roadmap: Electric-Only Registrations for Three-Wheelers From 2027, Goods Carriers and Two-Wheelers to Follow
18 September 2026 In an Indian Express opinion piece, Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta set out the State's electric mobility roadmap under Delhi EV Policy 2.0. She…
- Melting Himalayan Glaciers Put 21.5% of India's GDP at Risk; Black Carbon From Brick Kilns Is a Third of the Problem
18 September 2026 The Indian Express reported on a study warning how melting glaciers could 'put 20% of GDP at risk'. The report, titled in the newspaper's account as…
- 'Green Concerns' — Plaster-of-Paris Ganesh Idols Keep Washing Ashore
16 September 2026 The Hindu's front page carries a photograph of plaster-of-Paris Ganesha idols washed up on Lawson's Bay Beach, Visakhapatnam, noting that 'despite…
- Nepal's Flash Floods Expose the Fragility of Himalayan Hydropower
16 September 2026 The Hindu's Science page maps the aftermath of the August 26 Nepal flash floods, which damaged at least 13 hydropower projects along the Bhotekoshi…