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Dras, Ladakh - Known primarily as the world second-coldest inhabited place, the ancient settlement of Dras in the Kargil district of Ladakh is finally emerging from the shadow of its extreme climate and strategic history to become a compelling new destination for travelers seeking raw mountain beauty and a powerful link to India's past. Perched at an altitude of approximately 3,230 meters 10,990 feet and often called the "Gateway to Ladakh," Dras is defined by dramatic seasonal shifts. A Land of Extreme Contrast and Resilience Winter in Dras is brutal, with temperatures plummeting below 40C one of the lowest recorded temperatures in an inhabited area outside of Russia’s Oymyakon. Life, however, endures with extraordinary resilience, characterized by the warmth of modest homestays...

New Delhi - The Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP), the national capital region's emergency framework for combating toxic air, is set for its fourth major revision in three years, raising serious concerns that constant tinkering is masking the system’s fundamental failure to act before pollution strikes. Experts warn that despite a significant 2022 redesign that intended to transform GRAP into a pre-emptive framework taking action based on air quality forecasts the plan consistently fails due to a combination of faulty forecasting and weak on-ground implementation. Pre-emptive Promise Undercut by Forecast Failures The core principle of the 2022 overhaul was to link emergency measures to Air Quality Index (AQI) forecasts, invoking severe restrictions at least three days in advance ...

Siberia - In a breakthrough that challenges long-held assumptions about the durability of biomolecules, scientists have successfully recovered and sequenced ancient Ribonucleic Acid (RNA) from the frozen remains of a woolly mammoth. The discovery, detailed in the journal Cell, provides an unprecedented molecular snapshot of an animal that lived nearly 40,000 years ago, offering a rare look into its cellular activity and final moments. The RNA was extracted from muscle tissue belonging to a juvenile male mammoth named Yuka, whose remarkably preserved carcass was found near the Laptev Sea coast in Siberian permafrost. RNA, which acts as a crucial messenger carrying instructions from DNA to create proteins, was previously thought to decay within minutes or hours of death, making its surviv...

New Delhi has finally granted the highest level of legal protection to a massive portion of the Southern Ridge, the city’s largest "green lung," 31 years after the initial step to conserve the land was taken. The final gazette notification, issued on October 24 and published on Monday, officially declares 4,080 hectares, or nearly two-thirds of the total Southern Ridge area, as a "reserve forest" under Section 20 of the Indian Forest Act,1927. The notification, which received approval from Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta and the Lieutenant Governor, is considered the most significant legal protection afforded to the Ridge in decades. It now grants the Forest and Wildlife Department full authority to act against encroachments since the boundaries have been conclusively demarcated and al...

A new international study published in the journal PLOS One reveals that land-use change caused by rapid population growth, not climate change, was the primary direct cause of the loss of 76 per cent of natural plant species on the lower slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro between 1911 and 2022. The findings, which mark one of the most detailed long-term ecological studies in the region, highlight a severe and accelerating threat to the biodiversity of Africa’s tallest free-standing mountain, located in Tanzania. The Role of Population and Land Use Researchers analyzed historical maps, census data, satellite imagery, and a high-resolution dataset of nearly 3,000 plant species over the 111-year period. The analysis conclusively showed that the expansion of urban areas and the conversion of...

New Delhi - An overwhelming majority of Indians believe that global warming is driving the country’s increasingly frequent severe weather events, according to a detailed new report published by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. The study, released on November 19, 2025, underscores a high level of public awareness and risk perception regarding the climate crisis across the nation. The research used advanced modeling techniques to create detailed climate opinion maps, revealing that large majorities of the population attribute major weather phenomena to climate change: • Severe Heat Waves 78% of Indians believe global warming is affecting these events. • Droughts and Water Shortages 77% link these to global warming. • Severe Cyclones 73% see a link with global war...

Washington D.C. - Antarctic sea ice reached one of its lowest winter maximums on record this year, sparking alarm among climate scientists who are grappling with unprecedented volatility in the remote Southern Ocean. Data released by NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) revealed that the maximum winter extent, typically a natural buffer for global ocean systems, remained significantly below the long-term average. On September 17, the sea ice reached a maximum of 6.88 million square miles, ranking as the third-lowest peak in the 47-year satellite record. This figure represents a deficit of about 348,000 square miles compared to the 1981–2010 average. A System Entering a New State The notable shortfall has researchers on alert because the frozen edge of the Antarct...

New Delhi - The political friction over Delhi's persistent air pollution escalated on Tuesday as Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann categorically denied that smoke from Punjab's farm fires was contributing to the toxic haze over the national capital. Speaking at a press conference in New Delhi, CM Mann dismissed the claims, stating, "...The smoke from Punjab doesn't even reach Delhi." He argued that for the smoke to travel the required distance in 10 days, a sustained north-to-south wind speed of 30 kmph would be necessary, a condition he asserted "never happens." The CM's statement was a direct counter to the Delhi administration, following an attack by Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta on the Punjab government over stubble burning during the Northern Zonal Council meeting on Novemb...

New Delhi - India’s ecological protection efforts are under intense scrutiny following a directive from the Supreme Court on Monday and a sobering new international report on the state of the country's biodiversity hotspots. In a move aimed at reversing large-scale ecological violations, the Supreme Court ruled that tiger safaris must be established only on “non-forest land or degraded forest land in buffer areas provided they are not part of a tiger corridor.” This directive is expected to halt the commercial exploitation of core tiger habitats, such as those recently seen in the Jim Corbett Tiger Reserve in Uttarakhand. Global Body Raises Alarm on Western Ghats Simultaneously, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) raised serious concerns over some of India's...

Gurugram - Gurugram claim of processing a remarkable 98 percent of its daily waste has been exposed as a "statistical illusion," according to on-the-ground investigations that reveal a system in complete disarray despite an annual expenditure of ₹45 crore. The city, which generates approximately 1,200 tonnes of waste every day, manages little more than relocating garbage until it becomes a hazard for the Aravalli forests and nearby communities, experts warn. The Municipal Corporation of Gurugram’s (MCG) boast of a leap from 140th to 41st in the 2024–25 Swachh Survekshan rankings is directly contradicted by official figures showing a collapse in fundamental sanitation metrics. The rate of door-to-door collection dropped from 98 percent to 59 percent over three years, while source seg...