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    An innovative startup in Assam is transforming an environmental challenge into a sustainable opportunity by producing paper from the invasive aquatic plant water hyacinth. The initiative, known as Kumbhi Kagaz, was founded by wildlife enthusiasts Aniket Dhar and Rupankar Bhattacharjee, who saw potential in a plant widely blamed for damaging freshwater ecosystems. The idea for the venture emerged during a wildlife rescue when Rupankar released a rescued snake into a lake only to see it disappear beneath thick layers of water hyacinth. The moment highlighted the growing ecological problem posed by the plant, which spreads rapidly across lakes and wetlands, blocking sunlight and reducing oxygen levels in the water. Instead of treating it purely as waste, the duo decided...

    Eight years after its launch, The Restoration Initiative is transforming degraded landscapes across Africa and Asia, helping communities shift from environmental scarcity to climate resilience. Led by the United Nations Environment Programme in partnership with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the initiative has restored or improved management on more than 960,000 hectares of land since 2018. The effort has also helped capture or prevent greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 22 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, with more than 810,000 people expected to benefit. In northern Kenya, near the Mukogodo Forest, the impact is tangible. Communities living in the semi-arid rangelands stretc...

    LA devastating explosion at a licensed firecracker manufacturing unit in Andhra Pradesh’s Kakinada district has left 21 people dead, including nine women, and nine others critically injured, in one of the region’s deadliest industrial accidents in recent years. The blast occurred late Saturday at a cracker unit operated by Surya Sri Fire Works in Vetlapalem village of Samarlakota mandal. Among those killed was the unit’s owner, Adabala Srinivas, officials confirmed. Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan visited the injured at the Kakinada Government General Hospital on Sunday and pointed to serious safety violations as a primary cause of the tragedy. According to Kalyan, the unit had permission to employ only eight workers. However, at the time of the explosion, 3...

    New research led by scientists at Rutgers University suggests that meltwater flowing from West Antarctica’s ice shelves delivers far less iron to the Southern Ocean than previously believed undermining the idea that glacier melt could naturally boost the ocean’s ability to absorb carbon dioxide. The study, published in Communications Earth & Environment, challenges the popular “iron fertilization” hypothesis. That theory proposed that as Antarctica warms and glaciers melt, iron trapped in the ice would be released into surrounding waters, fueling blooms of phytoplankton microscopic marine plants that absorb heat-trapping carbon dioxide through photosynthesis. But direct field measurements tell a different story. Testing a Climate Assumption in the Field ...

    A new study indicates that climate models may be detecting human-driven changes in global monsoon rainfall nearly a decade earlier than those changes are likely to clearly emerge. The research, published in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, uses an unprecedented set of 550 simulations from eight climate models to reassess when the influence of global warming on monsoon systems will become unmistakable. Led by scientists from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, the team employed what they describe as a “super-simulation” approach. By analyzing large ensembles of model runs rather than relying on a limited number of projections, the researchers were able to better separate th...

    When we imagine a desert, most of us picture endless dunes, blazing heat and a cloudless sky stretching toward the horizon. The Sahara Desert vast, sandy and sun-scorched seems to define the very word. But scientifically, a desert is not defined by temperature. It is defined by dryness. A region qualifies as a desert if it receives less than 250 millimetres of precipitation per year. By that measure, the largest desert on Earth is not in Africa or the Middle East. It is the frozen expanse of Antarctica. Antarctica receives an average of just 166 millimetres of precipitation annually, most of it falling as snow. Despite being covered in ice, it is technically drier than many hot deserts. Its interior is so arid that it is classified as a polar desert. Spannin...

    The Asia-Pacific region is standing at the epicentre of a growing global “polycrisis” where climate disasters and cyber threats no longer occur separately, but collide in ways that magnify risks and overwhelm response systems. Experts warn that extreme weather events and digital attacks are increasingly unfolding at the same time, straining governments, businesses and communities. The latest Global Risks Report by the World Economic Forum ranks extreme weather and natural disasters among the most pressing global threats, while cybersecurity and artificial intelligence-related risks have surged in parallel. Asia and the Pacific is already the world’s most disaster-prone region. In 2023 alone, 66 million people were affected by disasters, with annual losses estimate...

    The Supreme Court of India on Thursday directed the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) and other stakeholders to propose names of domain experts for a committee that will frame a clearer definition of the Aravalli Hills and ranges. A Bench led by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, along with Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M. Pancholi, extended its earlier stay on mining activities in the region and maintained status quo until preliminary issues are resolved. The court said it was necessary to address “critical ambiguities” in the uniform definition it had earlier accepted on November 20, 2025. That definition, based on a committee report, described an “Aravalli Hill” as any landform in designated districts with an elevation of 100 metr...

    A group of leading climate scientists is calling for an internationally mandated assessment of avoidable climate change risks, warning that the world lacks an authoritative and up-to-date global analysis of what is truly at stake. Writing in the journal Nature, the authors argue that while scientific reports have outlined likely climate impacts, no coordinated global effort has comprehensively identified the most severe risks societies should prioritize avoiding. The commentary is led by Professor Rowan Sutton of the University of Reading and the Met Office Hadley Centre, alongside Professor Peter Stott, a climate scientist at the Met Office and the University of Exeter. “Despite clear scientific evidence and repeated warnings, the world remains unprepared for ...

    In a breakthrough that could reshape how the world tackles plastic pollution, scientists have developed a sunlight-powered system capable of converting plastic waste into acetic acid the key ingredient in vinegar. The research, led by Professor Yimin Wu at the University of Waterloo, outlines a novel approach that doesn’t just degrade plastics but transforms them into a commercially valuable chemical using solar energy. “Our goal was to solve the plastic pollution challenge by converting microplastic waste into high-value products using sunlight,” Wu said. The method relies on photocatalysis a process in which light drives chemical reactions. Drawing inspiration from fungi that break down organic matter step by step, the team engineered a synthetic system that ...