Nithya Pandian

Bellan, a 55-year-old Irula tribal working as an anti-poaching watcher in the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve, hadn’t had any work for the past many months. But he was tasked with looking after the 45-year-old tusker which had a deep injury on its back.

According to a senior forest official, the elephant was attacked on January 8 after it had damaged a luxury car parked at Mavanahalla near Masinagudi.

More than two months after the Supreme Court ended a long legal battle over the Masinagudi elephant corridor in Tamil Nadu, those affected say they are being turned out of their homes – a home they have always shared with the pachyderms.

In a bid to address peak-time power deficiency, the Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation Limited (TANGEDGO) proposed SPSHEP to produce 1000 MW at Kundah taluk in Nilgiris.

The sighting of a juvenile red-headed vulture bodes well for the species, whose population has dwindled to critically endangered due to poisoning of animal carcasses by locals and nesting challenges.

The journeys that butterflies take to get to more favourable weather may hold the answers to pressing environmental questions.

In August this year, incessant rain caused a 300-foot landslide in Emerald, Nilgiris with the district administration declaring 283 areas such as Avalanche, Gudalur, Manjoor and Keezh Kundah as ‘landslide-prone.’

In the Anamalai hills, Sridevi calls home, dropout rates are high even as the number of schools remains relatively low with very little efforts to enrol tribal children in classes.

Sivaraman Rajalingam, in a solo-attempt tried to break the previous Guinness World Record for the largest coffee painting by drawing 74 faces of Mahatma Gandhi on the occasion of 74th Independence Day.

"In 2010, I was wearing boots to trek but this job brought me closer to nature so I switched to slippers and, sometimes, I would walk on bare feet to feel the earth. Hope, Inside the jungle I left my footprints without hurting anyone" says D Sivan.

In keeping with the social distancing norms and other Covid-19 protocol, much has changed at Annapoorna, Coimbatore's iconic chain of restaurants, where many would drop in for a cuppa, ghee roast, and a lot more every day before the lockdown came into effect.