Graffiti #2

By Ovee Thorat and Rathnavel Pandian Image credit: Ovee Thorat and Rathnavel Pandian A fellow researcher’s experience with the Right to Information Act (RTI – 2005) prompted us to draft this graffiti. After being deflected to four different departments for what he considered as a simple query, his RTI was closed due to the “unavailability”…

Burrowing to oblivion: The Indian pangolin in the northern Eastern Ghats

By Vikram Aditya The Indian Pangolin Manis crassicaudata is one of two species of pangolins occurring in India (the other being the critically endangered Chinese Pangolin M. pentadactyla). Although previously widely distributed across the subcontinent, the population of the Indian Pangolin has rapidly declined over the past decade and is currently listed as Endangered by…

Of Forests, Frogs and Fascinating History: Field Experiences from the Central Western Ghats

By Priti Gururaja The lush verdant forests of the Western Ghats were not new to me. Although I resided in Mumbai, school vacations meant spending the three months of summer at my mother’s ancestral home in a small town Karkeshwara in Chickmagalur district, Karnataka. The ancestral home was a single large house surrounded by dense…