Instead, Kirti Vardhan Singh, Minister of State for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, will lead the Indian contingent to this year’s UN Conference of Parties.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union environment minister Bhupender Yadav may not attend this year’s UN Conference of Parties (COP) that will begin at Baku, Azerbaijan, on November 11, per a report by the Press Trust of India. Per the report, India will also not have a pavilion at COP29. Kirti Vardhan Singh, Minister of State for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, will lead the Indian contingent at this year’s COP.
The Wire has reached out to the Ministry for Environment, Forest and Climate Change and the Press Information Bureau for confirmation. This story will be updated as soon as a response is received.
Modi, Yadav may skip COP29
The UN conducts a Conference of Parties every year; COPs are the largest climate conferences where world leaders and representatives will engage in discussions and negotiations on taking action such as cutting down on carbon emissions to tackle the threat of global warming caused by increasing levels of greenhouse gases, caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels such as coal. Groups including non-government organisations in the fields of climate and research, as well as climate and environmental activists also attend the event. This year’s COP, which is termed a “finance COP” because of many money-related matters that will be discussed and finalised, countries are required to reach an agreement on the New Collective Quantified Goal, an updated amount that developed nations must mobilise annually to support climate action in developing countries, beginning in 2025.
The PTI has quoted an unnamed official source as saying that Modi will not attend the World Leaders’ Climate Action Summit at COP29 scheduled for November 12-13. Yadav, meanwhile, will not attend because of the upcoming assembly elections in Maharashtra, per the report. The Print also quoted an unnamed senior official of the union environment ministry as saying that Yadav may not attend COP29 due to his “commitments around the Maharashtra elections”. Voting for the Maharashtra assembly elections begin on November 20, two days before COP29 comes to a close. The BJP has appointed Yadav as the party’s in-charge of elections, per the PTI.
Both Modi and Yadav attended COP28 held last year at Dubai, United Arab Emirates. In his remarks at the opening ceremony of the High-Level Segment for the national statements of nations on December 1 at COP28 last year, Modi said that developing countries should be given their fair share of the global carbon budget for just and equitable development, as The Wirereported. It was also in this speech that Modi proposed to host the 33rd COP in 2028 in India.
Yadav delivered India’s national statement on December 9 at COP28. He highlighted the importance of equity and climate justice in global climate action, and said that this can be ensured only when developed countries “take the lead in ambitious climate action”. He also pointed out that a clear definition of climate finance is also crucial given its importance for least developed and developing countries, and ones that are most vulnerable to climate change. Yadav was at COP28 right from Day 1 (November 30, 2023), which witnessed the formal approval of the financial mechanisms of the Loss and Damage Fund, which aims to funds available for all countries, especially developing nations that bear the brunt of global warming-induced climate change in the form of extreme weather events. Yadav called the “operationalisation” of the Fund a “positive signal” and a “landmark decision”.
No India pavilion either
In the absence of Yadav, Union Minister of State for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Kirti Vardhan Singh will lead India’s 19-member delegation and deliver India’s national statement at the high-level segment on November 18-19, reportedPTI. This year at the COP, there will be no India pavilion either, per the report.
The Wire has reached out to the Ministry for Environment, Forest and Climate Change and the union government’s Press Information Bureau for confirmation on whether the Prime Minister and union environment minister will skip COP29 at Baku, as well as whether there will be no India pavilion this year. This story will be updated as soon as a response is received.
Per a report by The Print, the heads of several other countries including the US, China, Japan, Brazil, Australia and South Africa will also likely not be attending COP29.
Kids with disruptive mood dysregulation disorder have explosive outbursts well past toddler age. Scientists are trying to work out the causes and what treatments help.
It wasn’t until her daughter entered preschool that Holly Provan, a nurse in Los Angeles, began to worry. Compared to other kids, including her younger sister, Anna had a harder time coping when something wasn’t going her way. When told to stop coloring or to leave the playground, she’d respond with explosive tantrums.
Between ages 5 and 9, Anna (her name has been changed) would have meltdowns several times a week, screaming, raging and crying for an hour at a time. A few times in elementary school, she ended up hitting other kids. The outbursts weren’t premeditated; Anna just couldn’t control her temper. “Seeing how bad your kid feels after they’ve come back to themselves — it’s heartbreaking,” Provan says.
At age 7, after several doctors’ visits, Anna was diagnosed with disruptive mood dysregulation disorder (DMDD), a condition in children and adolescents, typically diagnosed between ages 6 and 10, that is characterized by chronic irritability and temper outbursts. But Provan couldn’t find much information on how to help Anna. “My husband and I at the time were just like, ‘I don’t know if she’ll ever be able to live away from home or to function normally,’” Provan recalls.
Irritability — a proneness to frustration or anger — is familiar to many of us. But in children with severe irritability, a hair-trigger temper can get in the way of making friends, getting along with siblings and doing well at school. Parents often express the feeling of walking on eggshells and often refrain from asking their children to do things they don’t like in order to avoid an outburst. In the 11,000-strong Facebook support group for parents of DMDD kids that Provan helps to administrate, some parents are physically afraid of their kids.
There are few specific treatments, says clinical psychologist Melissa Brotman of the National Institute of Mental Health, who coauthored a review on the topic in the Annual Review of Clinical Psychology. But now, after years of severe irritability in children being mistaken for other mental health conditions, scientists are studying it as a condition in its own right. “We’re starting to try and understand the problem from a brain-based mechanistic perspective,” Brotman says.
Inside the irritable mind
Starting in the 1990s, many experts saw severe irritability in children — often accompanied by energetic behavior and an inability to focus — as an early manifestation of the mania experienced by adults with bipolar disorder. Bipolar diagnoses, as well as prescriptions for mood-stabilizing and antipsychotic medications, skyrocketed among adolescents and children.
But by tracking children with severe irritability over many years, Brotman found that they didn’t transition to bipolar disorder as adults; instead, they tended to develop depression and anxiety. Perhaps, then, Brotman hypothesizes, severe childhood irritability is an early manifestation of depression and anxiety-like disorders in adulthood.
As scientists furthered their understanding of irritability in children, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) for Mental Health Disorders created a new diagnostic category, DMDD, in its fifth iteration, in 2013. Children with DMDD often also have other conditions like attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or anxiety, or have experienced bouts of depression. Severely irritable children may have more difficulty than usual coping with negative emotions like frustration, or managing when things don’t go as they expect. They may have a harder time dealing with uncertainty and changes to their routines, says clinical child psychologist Spencer Evans, who directs the University of Miami’s Child Affect and Behavior Lab.
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies, which use scans to observe brain activity, have affirmed the notion that children with severe irritability respond differently to frustration. One 2019 study compared 134 children between 8 and 18 who had irritability and a diagnosis of DMDD, anxiety disorder or ADHD, with 61 non-irritable volunteers. As they lay in the MRI scanner, the children played a game, earning up to 50 cents for every target they hit — until the researchers intentionally frustrated them by deducting winnings, explains coauthor Wan-Ling Tseng, a developmental neuroscientist at Yale School of Medicine.
Though irritable and non-irritable kids reported similar levels of frustration, the brains of irritable children responded differently: They showed heightened activity in the striatum, a brain region important for processing rewards, as well as in the prefrontal cortex, key to regulating emotions and executing tasks. Some other studies have also hinted at unusual activity in the emotion-processing amygdala in frustrated kids, though Tseng’s study didn’t observe this.
To Tseng, the prefrontal cortex findings suggest that in irritable kids, prefrontal cortices need to work harder to focus. “It’s more effortful for them,” she says. (After the game, the children were given $25 to take home, in addition to their compensation for participating, so that they left with a positive experience.)
It’s unclear how children’s brains end up this way. Research suggests that many kids are genetically predisposed to developing severe irritability, says neuroscientist and child and adolescent psychiatrist Argyris Stringaris of University College London. Adverse environments that involve family conflict or violence are associated with irritability, as are patterns of acquiescence by parents when their child has tantrums, which might reinforce the behaviors. But “we don’t know whether the cause is the parent, the child that elicits the parental response, or both, or some genetic component,” Stringaris says.
New clues for therapies and treatments
DMDD diagnoses are rising, but there’s little concrete treatment guidance. A 2022 analysis of health records found that in the United States, DMDD patients between 10 and 18 were prescribed antipsychotics more often than people with bipolar disorder, and were more likely to get multiple medications. “These drugs have not been FDA-approved specifically for treating irritability or aggression among children in general,” Evans says. Antipsychotics in particular should be used cautiously in children due to their side effects (though there are two antipsychotics approved for irritability in autistic children.)
For Anna, Ritalin had little effect, and an antidepressant caused her to hallucinate. A popular yet untested DMDD treatment protocol includes anticonvulsants, and one variety, the mood stabilizer divalproex sodium, seemed to give Anna an extra split second to think through the possible consequences before exploding into a tantrum, her mother says.
As researchers learn more about the underlying brain processes, they hope to develop better and more effective treatments. Some, meanwhile, are looking into non-pharmaceutical therapies.
Recently, Brotman adapted an established treatment for anxiety disorders that progressively exposes patients to things they fear, within the safety of a therapist’s office. Adjusting the therapy for kids with DMDD, clinicians identified the triggers of 40 children ages 8 to 17 with DMDD-type symptoms. Then they simulated anger-provoking situations — such as asking the kids to stop a video game or to do their homework, and talked the children through how to constructively cope with their frustrations.
“I was very tentative at first, because it had never been done before, and we didn’t know if it would make them more angry,” Brotman says.
The clinicians also trained parents to ignore tantrums at home and reward constructive coping behaviors — an approach called “parent management training” that tackles reinforcing cycles within families. Remarkably, irritability symptoms decreased significantly in 65 percent of the children over the 12 weeks of the study.
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Most parents, including Provan, eventually settle on a combination of talk therapy and medications. While no parent wants to drug their child, Provan says medications can help make them more receptive to therapy, in Anna’s case with a psychologist. And whether it was the treatment or Anna’s growing maturity, the tantrums disappeared. Now 13, Anna is no more irritable than a regular teenager, though she is still managing anxiety and depression. Indeed, studies tracking DMDD kids suggest that irritability symptoms can taper off by late adolescence or young adulthood, while depression and anxiety can continue.
Provan says that kids with DMDD need better medical treatment options and better mental health services — as well as more awareness in general. Because Anna was judged so much for her hair-trigger temper, Provan wrote a short book — Poppy and the Overactive Amygdala — to build understanding and empathy.
Before she had Anna, she recalls, “I was that parent that was, ‘Oh, screaming toddler — can’t they control their child on an airplane?’
“So, I guess, just be nice to your fellow humans.”
This article originally appeared in Knowable Magazine, a nonprofit publication dedicated to making scientific knowledge accessible to all.
A parasitic fungus takes over the brains of flies and controls them for its own sinister ends. Here’s the science behind the horror.
A fly is going about its day, buzzing here, buzzing there — but then, it starts behaving weirdly. Its movements become sluggish, its abdomen swells. Its body sprouts white fuzz.
Around sunset, there’s a sudden a burst of movement as the fly climbs — or “summits” — to an elevated location, like the top of a small plant or a stick, and extends its mouthparts. It spews out a sticky ooze that attaches it firmly to its perch — then it lifts up its wings and dies.
Down below, other unsuspecting flies are hit by a shower of white spores shooting out of the dead fly’s corpse. And the cycle starts all over.
The white stuff that engulfs these flies is a fungus called Entomophthora muscae, which translates to “destroyer of insects.” It’s an obligate pathogen — entirely dependent on its host — that infects flies and turns them into “zombies” that execute its will.
Discovered more than 160 years ago, the fungus’s actions are as mind-boggling as they are macabre. Scientists have long wondered: How does the fungus manage to control the fly’s brain? How does it “know” to do it at a specific time of day? What genes within its genome help it to become a master manipulator?
Today, a flurry of experiments is starting to unravel the science behind this eerie mind control.
Fatal necrophilia
Henrik H. De Fine Licht, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Copenhagen, is one of the few people in the world working with “zombie” house flies, Musca domestica. Though initially drawn to the fungusE. muscae because he wanted to study obligate pathogens, “I was, of course, also fascinated by the behavioral manipulation aspects and how that works,” he says.
Those details are like fodder for a horror movie. After the fungus infects the fly, it doesn’t go straight to the vital organs but starts consuming fats and other nutrients first, gradually starving the fly but keeping it alive. Only when it runs out of non-vital organs to chomp on does it start to control the fly’s behavior, thus ensuring its continuity: By forcing the fly to seek some height and get stuck there, it ensures wide distribution of its spores.
De Fine Licht was especially intrigued by reports describing how the fungus manipulates flies by making female fly carcasses attractive to healthy males. The males fly in and try to mate with the infected cadavers — and promptly get infected themselves. To delve into the nature of this fatal attraction, De Fine Licht and his team mashed up infected and uninfected fly carcasses to extract and analyze chemicals, and analyzed the air surrounding the cadavers. They reported in 2022 that the fungus releases volatile chemicals that lure the males in.
Life cycle of the fungus Entomophthora muscae.
It isn’t fully clear, though, whether the volatiles are attracting male flies with the promise of sex or of nutrition, De Fine Licht says. A working hypothesis is that they might just be attracted because they think it is food. “But when they come in close proximity, they start to smell some less-volatile compounds of the cadavers — and that is eliciting the sexual behavior.”
Annette Jensen, an organismal biologist at the University of Copenhagen, also noticed something intriguing about how other insects reacted to the dead flies’ odor. She and one of her students found that the earwig — an insect that feeds on other insects — is drawn to the sporulating fly cadavers infected by E. muscae and prefers to feed on them over uninfected cadavers or cadavers infected with other kinds of fungi. The scientists reached their conclusions after conducting experiments in which earwigs were placed between two types of cadavers and could select which one to move toward.
“There might be something with the volatiles from Entomophthora muscae that also attracts predators,” says Jensen, who cowrote an overview on fungi that are pathogenic to insects in the Annual Review of Entomology. “It’s probably super nutritious!”
Fruit flies join the victims list
Most zombie fly work has focused on house flies, but Harvard molecular biologist and zombiologist Carolyn Elya set her research sights on fruit flies after serendipitously discovering some zombified ones in her backyard when she was a PhD student at UC Berkeley. She had put out rotten fruit as bait for capturing wild fruit flies for experiments and was surprised to see some dead ones with their wings up in that telltale pose, with white fuzzy spores on their abdomens. She quickly sequenced some DNA from the spores and confirmed her hunch: These fruit flies were victims of E. muscae.
Elya went on to infect Drosophila melanogaster, a well-established lab model that researchers around the world have studied for over a century. With this E. muscae-D. melanogaster system, she is keen to leverage the powerful Drosophila genetic toolkit and study the fly brain to understand how the fungus carries out its manipulation.
In a 2023 report, Elya and her coworkers showed that the fungus could be secreting something into the fly’s “blood” — its hemolymph — that helps to manipulate fly neurons. When she injected the hemolymph from infected flies into uninfected ones, the latter started behaving as though they had been zombified.
Elya also discovered that the fly’s circadian neurons — the ones that help it keep track of daily rhythms — may be involved in the time-sensitive height-seeking behavior. Silencing specific sets of these neurons in the brain inhibited summiting activity in the infected flies.
Elya also wants to understand this mind control from the fungus’s perspective — and to that end, she, De Fine Licht and others recently sequenced the huge E. muscae genome. Focusing on the strain that infects fruit flies, the scientists reported finding genes similar to one called white-collar 1, which carries instructions for making a blue-light sensor in a mold called Neurospora crassa. In N. crassa, white-collar 1 plays a role in circadian rhythms — and so the scientists hypothesize that this gene might be involved in driving the precise timing of infected flies’ summiting behavior around sunset, followed by their death.
The scientists also discovered a lot of genes that could help the fungus make full use of the fly’s tissues and nutrients. These included specialized genes that code for trehalase enzymes, which digest trehalose, the primary sugar in hemolymph; for proteins like chitinases that break down chitin in the fly’s exoskeleton; and for lipases, which break down fats.
“That makes sense, right? Because these fungi are very specialized in the way that they utilize their hosts — not by killing them first and then eating them later, which is a strategy that’s used by a lot of generalist pathogens — but instead they grow inside of the insects,” Elya says. “Being able to specifically target every last tissue in their host is important.”
And the quest for more clues continues, with researchers moving beyond the static genome to study the RNA copies of genes that are made when specific genes are active. In a research paper that has yet to be peer-reviewed, Sam Edwards, a postdoctoral researcher at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, De Fine Licht and colleagues reported their analysis of the RNA in house fly heads at different time points after an E. muscae infection. By figuring out which fly and fungus genes were active inside the fly’s head, they hoped to get a glimpse at how the fungus manipulates the fly’s behavior.
In a further twist, both De Fine Licht’s preprint and a recent UC Berkeley study that Elya coauthored find that E. muscae may not be operating alone. The fungus appears to be infected by a virus at the same time that it’s parasitizing house flies and fruit flies. Whether this virus helps the fungus control the fly, though, remains to be seen.
A close analysis of numbers presented in a WHO report clearly indicates that India has missed the goals set for two out of three interim milestones for 2025 as well.
New Delhi: India is going to miss the 2025 target for tuberculosis elimination that the Narendra Modi government had set for itself, the Global Tuberculosis Report 2024 report has revealed. The World Health Organisation, which has prepared this report, has set a global deadline of 2035.
Like all other countries, India has made improvements on many elimination indicators. But a close analysis of numbers presented in the report clearly indicates that India has missed the goals set for two out of three interim milestones for 2025 and is far from keeping to both the Indian government’s own elimination deadline of 2025, as well as the WHO’s deadline of 2035.
Although this trend is visible for a majority of the countries around the world, India is the only country which had set an ambitious deadline of 2025. Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced this target at a public rally in Varanasi in 2023.
There are three major milestones necessary to be achieved for the ‘TB End Strategy’ which the WHO has set for all countries. India’s parameters for elimination by its own deadline are also the same. The WHO has set final targets for 2035 and two sets of interim targets to be achieved till 2020 and 2025.
They include a reduction in TB deaths by 95% from deaths in 2015. Similarly, the incidence of TB has to go down by 90% as compared to the 2015 rate. The number of TB patients who incur ‘catastrophic expenditure’ on TB treatment has to brought down to zero.
India’s performance is as follows.
India’s burden
Historically, India has always had the highest burden of TB cases around the world. As per the current report, India accounts for 26% of all TB cases in the world. The countries that follow India are Indonesia (10%), China (6.8%), the Philippines (6.8%) and Pakistan (6.3%).
At present, the estimated number of TB cases in India are 20 lakh – the highest in the world.
The current incidence rate of TB in India is 195 cases per 1 lakh people, as against the WHO’s target of 55 cases per 1 lakh people by 2025, the interim target.
The world was already not on track to achieve these targets but the COVID-19 pandemic made the task much more difficult as services for TB control were badly hit during that period. This led to some sort of a reversal of progress made in the previous years.
However, no country other than India has fixed the target of achieving TB elimination by 2025. It was not clear whether the Indian government took the reversals into account before deciding on an ambitious target year.
Source: Global Tuberculosis Report 2024.
The reduction in TB deaths is another important indicator. India reduced deaths by 24% in 2023 as compared to the number of deaths in 2015. It failed to achieve the target set even for 2020 – which is a 35% reduction. Going by the current trajectory, it is more than likely that India will miss the interim and the final targets.
Source: Global Tuberculosis Report 2024.
Though the world as a whole also missed the death reduction target for 2020, at least 43 countries reached or surpassed this particular milestone set for the given year. India accounts for the highest number of TB deaths per year.
The third indicator is the amount of money spent on TB treatment. A household usually incurs significant expenditure on TB treatment – a spend of more than 20% of a household’s annual income for the purpose is considered a ‘catastrophic expenditure’. These include direct costs like treatment and diagnoses or indirect costs like transport and lodging, as per WHO.
The loss of income on the part of the patient and family members who accompany the patient to a TB treatment centre for treatment purposes also come under indirect cost.
“These pose barriers that can greatly affect their ability to access diagnosis and treatment, and to complete treatment successfully,” the report states.
In India, out of all households which have TB patients, at least 20% of them face catastrophic expenditure – a significant section if absolute numbers are considered.
The global average of such households in 49%. The TB elimination target had envisaged that the proportion of such families should have been reduced to zero by 2020 itself.
Governments usually get international funding in addition to incurring domestic expenditure to fight TB.
The domestic expenditure of the Indian government has been continuously rising since 2020. However, it is yet to reach the pre-pandemic levels of 2019. In other words, the domestic expenditure in 2023 was US $ 253 million, while in 2019, it was more than US $345 million.
Source: Global Tuberculosis Report 2024.
One of the major challenges with TB elimination is the number of TB cases that are missed. A significant proportion of TB patients remain either undiagnosed or unreported, officially. Cases which fall through the cracks severely affect the fight against TB because the infection spreads from one person to another. An untreated person can pass on her infection to another, in that case, thus increasing the TB burden further.
The measure to understand what proportion of cases are being missed is to look at the notification rate of patients. The higher the notification rate, the better it is. During the COVID-19 years, the notification rates of a majority of countries, except for some in the African region, went south. The current report says notifications in most of the 30 high TB-burden countries has recovered to pre-COVID levels or beyond.
India and Indonesia contributed the highest numbers in this recovery in 2022 and 2023, accounting for 45% of the total increase in reporting in the past three years.
Despite this achievement, there is a gap of around five lakh between reported and unreported cases in India, stymying the overall progress, the report says. It is the biggest gap registered by any country.
A similar and significant gap exists in the case of drug-resistant TB patients.
Patients who become resistant to the first line of drugs are known as multi-drug resistant (MDR) TB patients. Those who become resistant to the second line of treatment as well, are known as extensively drug resistant (XDR) TB patients.
Ten countries accounted for about 75% of the global gap. India leads this category too, followed by the Philippines, Indonesia, China and Pakistan.
The resistance to drugs usually happens when a patient stops taking drugs. This may happen either due to their own volition or a shortage of drugs.
Replying to TheWire‘s query in a virtual presser on October 29, WHO’s TB division head Tereza Kasaeva said the WHO is aware of the Indian problem of MDR TB drug shortage.
“Our regional representatives were closely following the situation and tried to support the Indian government. These are purely managerial issues. We hope it will be effectively mitigated and avoided in future because its extremely sensitive,” she added.
The problem still continues to exist. “At least two states – UP and Bihar are still facing a shortage of MDR TB drugs,” Ganesh Acharya, a TB survivor and treatment advocate told TheWire.
To attest to the gap between the actual number of TB cases and the ones which get reported, the governments, including India’s, need to up their game with diagnostic tools.
For the detection of non-drug resistant TB, the WHO has been recommending since 2011 the adoption of rapid molecular tests as against the traditional culture and microscopy methods. The latter not only take more time in giving final results, but are also less accurate than rapid tests.
However, in India, only 20-30% of all TB cases are diagnosed through molecular tests, the report says.
Since TB can be transmitted from one person to another, the WHO recommends giving preventive treatment to the families of patients who have tested positive for TB. India has covered only 31% of such contacts of TB patients.
Source: Global Tuberculosis Report 2024.
The WHO also recommends addressing the causes of TB. In the case of India, the elephant in the room is undernutrition. Undernutrition weakens the immune system of the body thus making healthy patients, especially contacts, vulnerable to TB infections. Those suffering from TB also need a healthy diet to improve treatment outcomes.
Ahead of COP29, the UNEP’s latest Emissions Gap Report warns that countries have to collectively commit to cutting 42% of annual greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, and 57% by 2035.
New Delhi: As global temperatures rise, climate change has most of the world in turmoil with extreme weather events including intense rains, droughts, wildfires and more. And the bad news doesn’t seem to end.
As per this year’s United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) Emissions Gap Report released on October 24, the current Nationally Determined Contributions – pledges by nations that aim to tackle climate change through actions such as increasing renewable energy sources to cut greenhouse gas emissions – are just not going to do the job of limiting warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, as agreed in the 2015 Paris Agreement.
In fact, the existing NDCs mean that the world could well witness a global temperature rise of 2.6-2.8°C this century, the UNEP report said.
Science shows that at such temperatures, entire ecosystems could collapse. For instance, a study in 2022 showed that if the world hits 2°C above pre-industrial levels, all remaining refuges for the world’s already-ailing coral reefs will no longer exist. Coral reefs are critical for the survival of several fish species, many that people – especially local communities – rely on for both sustenance and livelihoods.
Cattle owned by a Rajasthan pastoralist community which is forced to move from place to place in search of water. Photo: ICARDA/Flickr (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic)
Countries are not implementing their pledges
The Emissions Gap Report 2024, released by the UNEP on October 24, titled ‘No more hot air…please!’, focuses on the Nationally Determined Contributions of nations in context of the upcoming 29th Conference of Parties (COP), the UN’s largest climate conference where leaders and government representatives will convene to take decisions on ways to tackle climate change. The 11-day-long COP29 will kick off on November 11 at Baku, Azerbaijan. Countries’ pledges or targets to cut down emissions are officially listed as their Nationally Determined Contributions, and are part of their ratification of the Paris Agreement. Targets can be unconditional or conditional: the latter are implemented by countries only if they receive financial support from other countries or international agencies. Nations have to submit the next set of updated NDCs early next year, and before COP30, which will be conducted in Brazil.
UNEP’s Emissions Gap Reports – produced annually since 2011 – assess “the gap between countries’ pledges on greenhouse gas emissions reductions and the reductions required to deliver a global temperature increase of below 2°C by the end of this century”. The 2023 Emissions Gap report found that countries’ pledges as of November 2023 – just before the UN’s 28th Conference of Parties at Dubai, UAE – would put the world on track for a 2.5-2.9°C temperature rise above pre-industrial levels this century, far higher than the limit of restricting global warming to a 1.5 or 2°C temperature rise.
The 2024 report paints an even darker picture: the estimated temperature rise has now increased. Given existing pledges’, and countries’ failure to implement them immediately, the world will witness a temperature increase of 2.6-3.1°C over the course of this century.
The global temperature rise will be 2.6°C if nations are able to fully implement all current unconditional and conditional NDCs. Implementing just some of these NDCs could result in higher temperature rises. For instance, implementing only existing unconditional NDCs would lead to 2.8°C of warming; and current levels of (low) implementation could lead to a drastic 3.1°C of warming.
Per the report, global greenhouse gas emissions amounted to 57.1 gigatonnes worth of carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2e) in 2023, a 1.3% increase from 2022 levels. The power sector was the largest global contributor to emissions at 15.1 GtCO2e, followed by transport (8.4 GtCO2e), agriculture (6.5 GtCO2e) and industry (6.5 GtCO2e).
To limit warming to less than 2°C, global emissions have to fall by 28% by 2030 and 37% from 2019 levels by 2035.
“The emissions gap is not an abstract notion,” said António Guterres, UN Secretary-General, in a video message on the report, per a press release. “There is a direct link between increasing emissions and increasingly frequent and intense climate disasters. Around the world, people are paying a terrible price. Record emissions mean record sea temperatures supercharging monster hurricanes; record heat is turning forests into tinder boxes and cities into saunas; record rains are resulting in biblical floods.”
Representative image of buildings submerged due to floods in West Bengal. Photo: Joydeep Sarkar/The Wire
“Today’s Emissions Gap report is clear: we’re playing with fire; but there can be no more playing for time,” Guterres added. “We’re out of time. Closing the emissions gap means closing the ambition gap, the implementation gap, and the finance gap. Starting at COP29.”
Role of G20 countries in reducing global emissions
In 2023, emissions from G20 countries increased, and accounted for 77% of global emissions. The report, therefore, explicitly says that G20 countries – and India is one of them – play a huge role in closing the emissions gap.
Just deploying more solar photovoltaic and wind energy, two “proven and cost-competitive options” per the report, can reduce total emissions by 27% in 2030 and 38% in 2035. Similarly, reducing deforestation, increasing reforestation and implementing improved forest management are “readily available low-cost options with large emission reduction potentials” that can help reduce emissions by 19% and 20% in 2030 and 2035, respectively.
“Other important and readily available mitigation options include demand-side measures, efficiency measures, and electrification and fuel switching in the buildings, transport and industry sectors,” the UNEP report said.
India emitted 4,140 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e) in 2023, accounting for 8% of the world’s total emissions. Greenhouse gas emissions from China, on the other hand, accounted for 30% of the world’s emissions, at 16,000 MtCO2e. However, India’s change in total emissions from 2022 to 2023 was higher than China’s: an increase of 6.1% for India versus China’s increase of 5.2%.
According to the report, studies show that India is one of the very few countries that is likely to meet all its existing NDCs by 2030.
Put together, if countries do not collectively commit to cutting 42% of annual greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, and 57% by 2035 and tailor-make their NDCs to enable this, the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting warming to 1.5°C will be entirely out of reach, the report warned.
“Limiting warming to 1.5°C is one of the greatest asks of the modern era,” Inger Andersen, UNEP executive director, said in a press release.
“We may not make it. But the only certain path to failure is not trying. And we must remember that 1.5°C is not an on-off switch that will plunge the world into an era of darkness and chaos. We are operating on a sliding scale of disruption. If 1.5 is missed, we aim for 1.6. If 1.6 is missed, we aim for 1.7. Every fraction of a degree counts in terms of lives saved, economies protected, damages avoided, biodiversity conserved and the ability to rapidly bring down any temperature overshoot.”
Andersen also called on nations to ‘use COP29’ to bring about immediate, actionable changes to reduce the predicted rise in global temperatures.
“So, I urge every nation, no more hot air, please,” Andersen said in a press release. “Use COP29 next month to increase action now, set the stage for dramatically stronger NDCs that target 1.5°C, and then go all-out to deliver the necessary emissions cuts by 2030, by 2035 and beyond until net-zero is achieved.”
Unusual variations in the cellular protein factory can skew development, help cancer spread and more. But ribosome variety may also play biological roles, scientists say.
In the 1940s, scientists at the recently established National Cancer Institute were trying to breed mice that could inform our understanding of cancer, either because they predictably developed certain cancers or were surprisingly resistant.
The team spotted a peculiar litter in which some baby mice had short, kinked tails and misplaced ribs growing out of their neck bones. The strain of mice, nicknamed “tail short,” has been faithfully bred ever since, in the hope that one day, research might reveal what was the matter with them.
After more than 60 years, researchers finally got their answer, when Maria Barna, a developmental biologist then at the University of California San Francisco, found that the mice had a genetic mutation that caused a protein to disappear from their ribosomes — the places in cells where proteins are made.
This came as a complete surprise, says Barna: Everyone had expected the cause to be a mutation in a gene that orchestrated development, not one involved in ribosome structure. Ribosomes, which under the microscope look like millions of specks scattered across the cell, or — closer up — like a bread roll torn into unequal halves, appear similar in all life forms. They exist in every cell and were thought to do the same thing everywhere: translate instructions contained in DNA into the proteins that do most of the work in cells.
How could a defect in this dependable, ubiquitous little workhorse reshuffle the body plan of a mouse in such a curiously specific way?
Today, based on findings like these, a growing number of scientists have come to believe there’s more going on with ribosomes than they once thought — and that ribosome variety may sometimes have biological functions.
Barna, now at Stanford University, reported her finding in the journal Cell in 2011. Since then, researchers have uncovered several other genes that, like the one in “tail short” mutants, code for proteins in ribosomes and appear to distort development in a specific way when mutated.
In the unfortunate mouse that first intrigued Barna, a protein known as RPL38 was not being made correctly. In another mouse, a faulty version of a protein called RPL10A led to even more drastic (and deadly) deformities. “These embryos looked as if a guillotine had cut off their posterior end right after the hindlimb,” Barna recalls.
Picky ribosomes
There are other reasons researchers were surprised that unusual ribosomes lay behind the unusual development of these mutant mice. First, quality control on ribosomes is tight: Since faulty ones may churn out ill-conceived proteins that can do a lot of damage, they tend to be quickly eliminated. Second, embryos that have mutations in genes coding for ribosomal proteins generally don’t make it all the way through a pregnancy.
Yet there are exceptions, including in people. Children with isolated congenital asplenia, for example, are born without spleens, often due to a mutation in a single ribosomal protein, while the rest of the body is completely normal. Again — how could one missing or unusual protein in the ribosomes cause such a thing?
Barna believes that affinity is key. To make a protein, ribosomes don’t receive instructions directly from the unwieldy DNA, but from more succinct messenger RNA (mRNA) molecules that carry instructions about single genes. RNA is made up of a long string of four different building blocks, and every three blocks code for an amino acid. The ribosome reads these instructions and correctly joins the amino acids together to form a protein.
As far as scientists know, mRNA molecules just float around until they encounter a ribosome, at which point they get translated into protein. But Barna believes — and has evidence to suggest — that different ribosomes have different affinities and may be more apt to translate some mRNA types than others.
For example,the cells of mouse embryos with an Rpl38 mutation produce just as much protein as other embryos do. But they make substantially less of some proteins that are crucial during development. Known as homeobox proteins, they are essential for the embryo to sort out its back end. Barna discovered that ribosomes without RPL38 are less likely to bind to and translate homeobox mRNA. This results in a deficiency of these organizing proteins and perturbed development of vertebrae, ribs and tails.
Similarly, ribosomes without the ribosomal protein RPL10A are less likely to bind to mRNA that codes for another crucial set of embryonic development proteins — ones involved in what’s called the Wnt signaling pathway. Reduced numbers of these crucial proteins cause development to abruptly end after the hindlimb, creating the impression that the back end was cut off.
While some genetic disorders involving ribosomal proteins seem rooted in activities of unusual ribosomes, others may be due to ribosome shortages that result from the cell’s strict quality control, Barna says. Treacher Collins syndrome, which causes abnormalities of the face, and Shwachman-Diamond syndrome, which causes abnormal development of the skeleton, are likely examples.
Those are defects. But sometimes, Barna argues, differences in ribosome structure and composition may be functional. “We are discovering that certain ribosomal proteins occur more often in some cell types than others, say in neurons versus gut cells,” she says. Recent results from her lab suggest that there may even be different types of ribosomes within the same cell that specialize in making certain proteins over others.
In ribosomes, she says, “there appears to be a core that is invariable, and then in the outer shell, proteins that can vary within and between cells and tissues.” She believes this provides our body with yet another way of regulating which proteins get made, and where.
When ribosomal proteins are abnormal or missing, anomalies may arise.
Salty yeast
In November 2023, a two-day conference in London that Barna co-organized brought together many scientists who are intrigued by the variation they have found in the ribosomes they’ve looked at, and what, if anything, its functions may be.
Some aren’t quite so convinced that unusual ribosomes do anything beyond causing trouble. Katrin Karbstein, a biochemist at Vanderbilt University who coauthored a 2024 article about ribosome quality control in the Annual Review of Cell and Developmental Biology, notes that most of the known examples of ribosome variation cause disorders or disease. “Few if any have been demonstrated to be helpful to the organism,” she says.
Karbstein thinks that most genetic disorders associated with ribosome genes are probably just caused by the ribosome shortages that result when faulty ones are eliminated, rather than any special property of the divergent ribosomes themselves. If humans or mice end up with specific defects, she says, that may just be because low ribosome levels are a bigger problem in some cell types than others.
Yet in her own talk at the meeting, Karbstein revisited a discovery she herself made in the yeast cells she studies that, much to her surprise, did reveal a useful ribosome variant. When growing in very high salt concentrations, yeast cells lose a ribosomal protein, Rps26, from about half of their ribosomes. Ribosomes without the protein are different, Karbstein found. They seem more inclined to translate mRNA molecules that are produced in reaction to that stressor.
And when Karbstein and her team went on to deliberately remove Rps26 proteins from yeast cells, they found the cells became resistant to high salt. “In fact,” she says, “they now grow better under high salt.”
Karbstein also found that yeast responds nimbly to salt stress, quickly removing Rps26 proteins from ribosomes when needed and popping them right back in when the stressful situation subsides.
When growing in very high salt concentrations, yeast cells lose a ribosomal protein, Rps26, from about half of their ribosomes, with the assistance of what’s known as a chaperone protein. Yeast cells without Rps26 are better adapted to high salt.
Resistant ribosomes
Ribosomes aren’t made just from proteins: About half their structure consists of RNA. And in eukaryotes (life forms with complex cells like ours) there is plenty of extra RNA sticking out of the ribosomes, like the tentacles of a sea anemone. “We think this may provide a mechanism for trapping messenger RNA,” says Barna.
Ribosomal RNA also performs the most crucial and ancient function inside ribosomes: the fascinatingly efficient translation of mRNA into protein. The very first proteins must have been made by ribosomal RNA, argues structural biologist Ada Yonath of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, who shared a Nobel Prize in 2009 for her work figuring out the structure of the ribosome.
Yonath notes that the pocket in ribosomal RNA where amino acids are joined together to form proteins looks very similar in all species, and she does not consider this to be a coincidence. “We think this is the proto-ribosome from which full ribosomes have evolved,” she says.
Ribosome researchers have long focused most of their attention on this neat, central area where mRNA is read and amino acids are joined together; they’ve spent less time studying the ribosomes’ outskirts. In addition, the ways in which ribosome structure has been studied created a strong impression that all ribosomes were the same. But new methods have uncovered more variation.
Yonath says she wants to see more evidence that differences between ribosomes can be helpful. Her lab is now collaborating with Barna and others to find out whether ribosomes that lack certain proteins or contain unusual ones have different three-dimensional structures that might explain why they work differently.
Yonath has long been interested in the differences between ribosomes of different species. These, she says, might be useful in developing antibiotics that target only the ribosomes of pathogens while avoiding significant damage to the beneficial microbes that live in our body, or to our own cells. “Over 40 percent of the clinically useful antibiotics target protein synthesis, mostly by paralyzing the ribosome,” she notes.
But her interactions with pharmaceutical companies about new possible targets she has identified have been disappointing, she adds: “They say the bacteria will become resistant.” Indeed, in a clear example of ribosomal variation that is helpful — not to us, but to the pathogen — antibiotics targeting bacterial ribosomes may favor the survival of bacteria with slightly different ribosomes that the antibiotic can no longer block.
Despite their awareness and strong voice within the forest rights movement in Chhattisgarh, the private dynamics of the household often push them to the background.
Hasdeo (Chhattisgarh): Walking through the dense forest of Hasdeo Aranya near Fatehpur village in Chhattisgarh’s Sarguja district, Sunita Porte could not help but smile at our fascination with the forest. For her and the tribal community, the forest wasn’t just a patch of greenery; it was the backbone of their existence. “Your fascination is fascinating to me,” she remarked. “But please record this. Show people outside how we sustain ourselves through this forest.”
As Sunita and her companions collected wood and foraged for wild food, a pressing question lingered in the air: “What is a forest truly worth?”
According to the Union government, a forest is defined as any land larger than one hectare with a tree canopy density exceeding 10 percent, regardless of ownership or legal status. This definition, however, falls short of capturing what the Hasdeo forests mean to people like Sunita. “This forest is our life,” she said. “Every tree, every leaf here serves a purpose. We build our homes from its dried wood and mud. We make products like mats from its shrubs. I may not know all technical names, but I know everything here. It’s our god.
Latest government data from 2021 suggests an increase in forest cover by 2,261 square kilometres since 2019. But according to Global Forest Watch, India has lost over 23,000 square kilometres of tree cover in the past two decades. The disparity in these numbers arise from a shift in how India classifies land designated as forest areas – where forests are seen more for their carbon potential and economic value than for their biodiversity or communal ecosystem
Similarly, for the women of Hasdeo Aranya, these forests are more than just an economic asset; they are a symbol of livelihood, culture, and resistance. Their fight to protect these lands forms the heart of the Hasdeo Bachao Andolan, a movement that has been ongoing since 2011. Women are the cornerstone of this resistance that has, against all odds, saved over 445,000 acres of forest from 21 proposed coal mines. Yet, beneath the green canopy still lies an estimated 5.6 billion tonnes of coal – a resource so coveted that, despite protests, coal blocks continue to be auctioned off, especially during the 2020 pandemic when the government announced 21 new coal auctions.
‘What is a forest truly worth?’ Photo: Shubhanghi Derhgawen.
In 2014, the Supreme Court had cancelled 204 coal blocks across the country, including 20 in Hasdeo. But this has not stopped efforts to exploit the area. As of today, one block is actively mined by Adani Enterprises Ltd, and efforts are underway to open two more. The struggle to save the 1,876-square-kilometre Hasdeo region is far from over.
Fearless women, relentless resistance
Until May 2024, the women from villages like Salhi, Ghatbarra, Hairharpur and Fatehpur, staged a protest for over 800 consecutive days. “We are not afraid of the police, the administration, or the company,” said Bijayanti Khusro, a Ghatbarra resident, recalling a recent clash with authorities. In late August, at 3 am, they were informed that movement leaders had been detained by the police, and tree felling was imminent. Without a structured communication system, news spread by word of mouth, and soon enough, women poured out of their homes to gather near the forest, trying to stop the destruction.
Rattu Porte recounted how the situation escalated. “We stayed there all night. As more women gathered, more police vans arrived. By morning, the police became aggressive. They tore our sarees, broke our bangles, and threw us into buses,” she said. Despite the physical altercations and being forcibly removed, Bijayanti remained defiant. “What’s the worst they could do? Take us to the police station? It’s built for us, right? We’ll go, and we’ll take our families with us!”
‘We are not afraid of the police, the administration, or the company.’ Photo: Shubhanghi Derhgawen.
Over 100 women from three villages – Salhi, Ghatbarra, and Fatehpur – were preventively detained without a cause mentioned. Held in a government school from 10 am to 5 pm, they were released only after the trees they had so fiercely protected were felled. Their anger was palpable. Sambai Khusro, a protester from Ghatbarra, recounted, “Only we know the pain we felt, and how much we cried when they pulled us away from the trees. For years, we have revered this land, and they destroyed it within hours.”
Awareness and voting: The disconnect
Rattu Porte, an active figure in the Hasdeo movement, emphasised how women have consistently been engaged in the Gram Sabhas and the public life, juggling domestic responsibilities with community involvement. “We witnessed first-hand how the state encroached on our rights, how they pressured Gram Sabha secretaries to falsely show the villagers’ assent for mining activities,” she explained.
While women understood the manipulations within the Gram Sabhas, there remained a deeper, more nuanced disconnect when it came to fully grasping their rights under key legislations like the Forest Rights Act (FRA) of 2006 and the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act (PESA) of 1996. These laws promise significant protection for forest dwellers – under the FRA, more than 40% of India’s forest land could be vested as community forest rights with Gram Sabhas. However, the implementation has been flawed, with delays, mass rejections of claims, and ongoing threats of eviction. For many women, while the lived experience of protecting their forest is deeply ingrained, the legal framework that safeguard these rights often feel distant, overshadowed by male counterparts who possess more formal knowledge.
‘It was instinct. The tree is like our child.’ Photo: Shubhanghi Derhgawen.
Even though women are the backbone of the movement, much of the strategies, legal knowledge, and organisational tactics have been passed down from their male peers. “The techniques we used to resist tree-felling were similar to the Chipko movement, but at the start, we didn’t even know about Chipko,” said Sambai Khusro. The Chipko movement, which saw women hugging trees in the 1970s to prevent deforestation, shares deep similarities with Hasdeo, but the connection came later for the women here.
“It was instinct. The tree is like our child. When the authorities approached with tools to cut it down, we hugged it, trying to shield it from pain,” Sambai recalled.
Over time, the women have learned about the historical parallels, giving their movement a stronger sense of legacy. Yet, at its core, their fight has always been rooted in their personal and intimate connection to the land.
Despite the women’s determination in the Hasdeo struggle, many women still feel disconnected from the political processes that shape their rights. Their interactions with the state are often limited to negative encounters, such as police crackdowns, while popular political slogans by the ruling Bhartiya Janta Party like “sabkavikas (development for all)” prompt them to ask, “Kiskavikas? (whose development?)”. The disillusionment with political promises has created a growing indifference to voting.
This indifference was evident in the 2024 general elections, when many women, including Sambai, did not want to vote. As a cook at the village government school, she was present on voting day but felt intimidated by the officials. “I don’t understand the symbols or the process. I’m not educated. They tell me to put my thumbprint here and there, and out of fear, I do it. But I don’t even know where my vote is going,” she shared, repeatedly expressing her lack of desire to participate. The act of voting, for many, has become hollow, a process stripped of meaning due to a lack of trust in the system or belief in its impact on their daily lives.
One of the greatest fears expressed by the women of the Hasdeo region is the loss of their independence, not just over their land but in public life. Neeru Uirra, a resident of Ghatbarra, cradling her two-year-old daughter, articulated this fear: “If we lose the village, we lose the community. We won’t be able to finish our housework and gather at 10 am to discuss work opportunities or run our group finance units. We pool our savings to invest in small enterprises, like setting up a shop or selling the products we make here. Without the village meetings and sabhas, our physical movement will be restricted – we won’t even go to the forest as often to collect supplies or forage.”
‘We pool our savings to invest in small enterprises.’ Photo: Shubhanghi Derhgawen.
With helplessness on her face, Neeru exclaimed, “We will be stuck at home.”
This concern highlights the visible difference between women’s empowerment in the private versus public spheres. With the encroachment on land rights, the fabric of their communal life unravels.
As the process of land acquisition in villages like Ghatbarra have advanced, many households have begun accepting compensation from Adani Enterprises. Among the five such households visited, women of the family consistently expressed discontent over being excluded from such decisions. Despite some women holding land rights in their names, the men dominated all decisions regarding compensation. In many cases, wives were unaware of how much money was even given for the land.
The elders of the movement, like Hari Prasad, also pointed out the adverse social consequences of the company’s influence. Since Adani began convincing villagers to give their consent, alcoholism has surged manifolds among men further complicating circumstances for women. Parpatiya Porte, a resident of Ghatbarra who a part of the protests and movement was once, shared her own story of loss. Her husband, who never drank before the land disputes began, now regularly consumes alcohol. He has taken a menial job at the coal mine in exchange for their land and has received part of the compensation money. “What do I say? My husband didn’t think of children or me. Now he spends all the money on alcohol,” she said. Parpatiya has now stopped being a part of the movement or stepping out of her house and joining other women in their activities.
‘Do you think men listen to anything women have to say?’ Photo: Shubhanghi Derhgawen.
Even her everyday private protests and attempts to stop her husband’s drinking fall on deaf ears. “My daughter, who is in college, tried to convince him not to give away the land, but do you think men listen to anything women have to say?” she asked bitterly. When asked about the fate of the compensation money being squandered on alcohol, she stared off into the distance, dejected and resigned to a future where the hard-earned gains of the community, and her family’s security, seem to be slipping away.
This situation reflects the broader challenges women face in Hasdeo. On one hand, they risk losing their participation in public affairs, economic security, and community life. Yet, despite their awareness and strong voices within the movement, the private dynamics of the household often push women to the background. Information about the movement, or critical decisions, is filtered through the men. Compounding these struggles is the rising issue of alcoholism among men in the community, which has left many women to face abuse and neglect. This dual loss – of public space and private autonomy – marks the complex and deeply layered reality for women in Hasdeo.
Shubhangi Derhgawen is a freelance journalist and a lead researcher with the Visual Storyboard Team of the Centre for New Economics Studies (CNES), O.P. Jindal Global University.
Deepanshu Mohan is a professor of economics, Dean, IDEAS, and Director, CNES. He is a visiting professor at the London School of Economics and an academic visiting fellow to AMES, University of Oxford.
This research forms part of a series of field-based essays produced by the Visual Storyboard team at the Centre for New Economics Studies (CNES), OP Jindal Global University, dedicated to amplifying the voices of tribal communities in Chhattisgarh.
‘Scaling Up’ – essential reading – revolves around the life and work of Romulus Whitaker, an American-born wildlife biologist, who adopted India and its reptilian fauna back in the 1960s. It is told by Zai, Whitaker’s partner of many years.
Success stories in wildlife conservation are few and far between. So one that comes out of India is all the more heart-warming, given the immense challenges of protecting nature in the country. Scaling Up is an insightful chronicle of a conservation programme that has survived both the test of time and the vagaries of government policy. This is a story that needed to be told.
Scaling Up revolves around the life and work of Romulus Whitaker, an American-born wildlife biologist, who adopted India and its reptilian fauna back in the 1960’s. It is a story not only of the passion of discovery but also of grit, tenacity and hardship. The tale is told by Zai, Whitaker’s partner of many years and a protagonist in the events.
‘Scaling Up’, Zai Whitaker, Juggernaut, 2024.
In addition to being extremely informative about herpetology, Scaling Up throws a spotlight on India’s conservation history. Many turning points in field biology are chronicled here, such as the discovery of sea turtle nesting sites, the first crocodile censuses across India and the rediscovery of the rare forest cane turtle. Along the way, Romulus Whitaker and his team discovered new field sites which were suited to the study of particular animal groups, such as the South Andamans and Agumbe (Karnataka). With the basic groundwork being done, and facilities developed, these remote locales became vibrant nodes for herpetological and other kinds of research.
The Whitakers were foresighted enough to realise that public outreach was as important as doing the science, when it comes to conservation. This was particularly true in the case of venomous snakes that cause thousands of deaths in India. The negative encounters with snakes seemed to be shaping public opinion about them, and other reptiles. They therefore saw their role in reducing snake-bite deaths as critical to conservation in that it would allow a degree of coexistence between people and snakes. The Irular tribe of coastal Tamil Nadu was given centre stage in this endeavour, in recognition of their incredible knowledge of snake ecology and behaviour. However, the author has not stopped short of elaborating on the complicated uphill battles ever since, which still have not let up. There is still limited uptake and use of anti-venom due to low production. Thousands of snake-bite victims do not yet have easy access to anti-venom serum as the government does not support such units in public hospitals despite the prevalence of snake-bite.
The spectacled cobra, one of the Big Four venomous snakes of India. This cobra is worshipped in different ways throughout the country. Illustration: Bruce Peck
It was interesting to read of the deep association between biologists and the Irular, with much mutual respect on both sides. Yet, the Irular example is also a grim reminder that participatory conservation with marginalised social groups, is just not as common as it could have been in a country like India. Most tribal communities have not been integrated into mainstream conservation, despite their tremendous knowledge and experience, such as the Van Gujjars of the Western Himalayas or the Gond tribes of Central India.
Scaling Up is also a commentary on the critical importance of facilitative policies for conservation particularly in developing countries where sustainable harvest of wildlife could be a useful strategy. In 1972, the captive-breeding programme for muggers was set up at Madras Crocodile Bank with the aim of raising revenues through sale of crocodile skins, then a valuable commodity in the international market. However, the abrupt U-turn in orders of the Tamil Nadu government led to dramatic over-population of muggers over the years, which then had to dealt with. Perhaps the Whitakers had misread the social acceptability of crocodile harvesting in India, something that had earlier worked in Australia.
A giant stick insect showers affection on Zai in Kalakkad during a strenuous trek. Illustration: Bruce Peck
The numerous examples in Scaling Up show the criticality of field-based research: that true ecological insights emerge during long and difficult hours in the field. As an example, the encyclopaedic Book of Indian Snakes is today taken for granted by naturalists who use it for species identification; it is easy to forget that it is based on thousands of hours of exploration, field observations and meticulous data compilation. In her own inimitable style, Zai Whitaker revisits the joys of scientific discovery and exploration that led to fundamental work on reptiles. Whitaker provides captivating accounts of animal behaviour and ecology. She writes of a nesting bout of the Olive Ridley sea turtle:
“We trotted up and flopped down by her side. I got a face full of sharp dry sand as she tossed it back with her hind flippers. Once she had shifted the upper layer, the systematic digging of the nest hole began and about thirty minutes after she had left the water, the half-metre-deep cavity was ready. This strenuous terrestrial activity made great demands on the stamina of the turtle and she breathed in deep gulps punctuated by short sharp whistles. The water from the lachrymal glands, which wash the eyeballs, streamed down, giving her a tearful look.”
Rules for hand feeding crocs (as demonstrated by Rom here) keep your fingernails short and your eyes on those jaws! Illustration: Bruce Peck
Yet, the success of long-term interventions such as those by the Romulus Whitaker and his team, can be measured not so much in numbers of species conserved or population increase of endangered species such as the gharial. What is more important is the legacy they have left behind in terms of the numbers of young people inspired, supported, trained and nurtured over the years, and the enhanced sensitivity to reptiles in the public at large. The institutions that they founded, such as Andaman and Nicobar Environment Team, Madras Crocodile Bank Trust and Madras Snake Park, have largely stayed true to their original mandate even after several decades. Yet, there is no getting away from the fact that genuine field conservation is extremely messy, complex, and often heart-breaking – when hard-won gains over years could be overturned in a day – and her candidly written account vouches for that.
Whitaker’s conversational style, tinged with wry humour and wit, also makes it an enjoyable read. I would rate Scaling Up as an important book for anyone concerned with wildlife biology and conservation whether in India or elsewhere. I recommend it highly for conservationists, biologists, policy-makers and forest managers.
Ghazala Shahabuddin is an ecologist working on anthropogenic impacts, land use change, forest ecology, ornithology and wildlife conservation policy. She is a Visiting Professor to the Environmental Studies, Ashoka University, and a Senior Adjunct Fellow with ATREE, Bengaluru.
An analysis of social media discussions reveals consumer shift to organic produce in wake of health concerns after the pandemic.
Americans are buying apples and spinach, Canadians have blueberries and raspberries on their list, Japanese can’t have enough matcha tea, and Indians are stocking up on turmeric.
These are just some global favourites from the organic produce sections.
As concerns around health, food safety and sustainability drive dietary choices in a post-pandemic world, the once niche market for organic foods has turned mainstream.
Social media has played a key role in precipitating this consumer behaviour, our research study that analysed 300,000 social media posts on platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, TikTok and YouTube, suggests.
These platforms serve as spaces where information, opinions, and health advice is exchanged, often leading to changes in consumer behaviour.
The analysis of consumer discussions on social media platforms between 2015-2024 reveals that they have indeed been instrumental in shaping food choices.
Niche to mainstream
Pre-covid, organic food consumption was growing steadily, but remained largely confined to niche markets.
Social media conversations were relatively stable, with spikes during festive seasons such as Christmas, or environmental campaigns.
However, when COVID-19 hit, there was a dramatic increase in social media discussions about organic foods, with mentions spiking from 12,000 to 40,000 per month, particularly during major waves of the pandemic.
The fear of infection, coupled with growing concerns about food safety and immunity, fuelled this spike.
Consumers became more aware of what they were eating and sought healthier options to boost their immune systems.
Organic foods, free from synthetic pesticides, genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and harmful fertilisers, offered a safer and healthier option.
The study found that 80 percent of post-pandemic social media discussions were positive, emphasising terms such as “immunity,” “protection,” and “boost.”
This shift in sentiment also translated into real-world behaviour, with a significant rise in sales of organic products globally. .
In countries such as the US, Germany, and Japan, demand for organic fruits, vegetables, and dairy products soared, reflecting growing consumer preference for organic foods.
The shift was not just a fleeting response to an immediate crisis, but reflected a deeper, growing awareness of health, sustainability, and environmental responsibility.
Sustainable consumption
Environmental concerns also played a crucial role in driving organic food consumption.
Consumers became more aware of the environmental impact of conventional farming, which relies on harmful chemicals that degrade soil health and contribute to climate change.
The research highlights a significant increase in discussions linking organic food consumption to sustainability, especially with respect to SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production) and SDG 13 (Climate Action).
The study also found notable differences in the geographic distribution of discussions on organic food.
Before the pandemic, most conversations were concentrated in North America and Europe.
Post-pandemic, however, there was a marked increase in discussions in Asian countries, particularly in China and India, where organic food consumption was not widespread.
The pandemic also broadened the demographic profile of organic food consumers, with younger generations and a more balanced gender distribution driving the trend.
High costs, limited availability
While the rise of organic food consumption presents a positive outlook for global health and sustainability, the study also highlights several challenges.
A significant issue is the higher cost of organic foods, which continues to be a barrier for many consumers.
Although organic farming has become more efficient, organic products are still more expensive than their conventional counterparts, making them less accessible to lower-income populations.
Moreover, supply chain disruptions caused by the pandemic led to shortages and price hikes, further exacerbating this issue.
Another challenge is the limited availability of organic products in certain regions.
While the US and Europe have well-established organic markets, developing countries still face challenges in terms of production and distribution.
This disparity underscores the need for policies that support organic farming and make organic products more accessible to a broader audience.
Despite the challenges, the future of organic food consumption appears promising.
As the world continues to grapple with the effects of climate change, there is a growing need for sustainable farming practices that protect the environment while ensuring food security.
The insights provided by this study are valuable for policymakers and marketers, as they work to develop strategies that promote organic foods and support the SDGs.
Possible solutions to overcome the challenges of organic food production and consumption include increasing government subsidies for organic farmers, improving supply chain efficiency, and launching public awareness campaigns to educate consumers about the long-term benefits of organic foods.
Social media, of course, will continue to play a crucial role in shaping consumer behaviour, making it an essential tool for promoting sustainable eating practices.
Dr Jolly Masihis Assistant Professor, School of Management, at BML Munjal University, Gurugram. Her research is focused on sustainable food consumption and consumer behaviour.
Cases of cancer are widespread in Punjab and Haryana where groundwater is contaminated by high pesticide use.
At 9.30pm every night, a poorly-lit, 12-coach train pulls out of Bathinda station in the Indian state of Punjab with passengers of all ages and genders.
With their meagre belongings and plastic packets containing sheafs of papers and documents, most talk among themselves in hushed tones.
The destination for an average one-third of the 300 passengers of this train is the Acharya Tulsi Regional Cancer Hospital and Research Centre in the Bikaner district of Rajasthan state.
The train covers about 325km before it reaches Bikaner around 6am. Sometimes the train is delayed by one to two hours. But the passengers do not lose hope.
Over the years, the Bathinda-Bikaner train has earned itself a grim tag as “Punjab’s cancer train” as it ferries hundreds of thousands of cancer patients from this northern Indian state for treatment for this dreaded affliction.
The reason for this interstate migration is the cost of cancer treatment.
The cost of a train ticket is free for any cancer patient while for attendants there is a 75 percent discount on the fare.
Most of the hospitals in the city of Bikaner are covered under Mukh Mantri Punjab Cancer Raahat Kosh Scheme through which patients can get financial assistance up to Rs 1,500,000 ($US1,787). Whereas the scheme is much harder for patients to access in Punjab.
Cancer Capital
The widespread prevalence of cancer in Punjab — and more recently the adjoining state of Haryana — has helped earn India the unenviable title of the world’s cancer capital.
There are many reasons for poor health among Punjab’s population but environmental degradation and water, soil and air pollution are known to be the most common causes of cancer in India.
Cancer cases in the country are at an all-time high, after public officials shared in Parliament earlier this year that there were 1,496,972 cases in 2023 up from 1,461,427 in 2022. There was a record 300 percent rise in cases between 2017 and 2018.
Studies indicated that 1.4 million people had cancer in India in 2020 and the case numbers may rise to 1.57 million by 2025. The reason for this spike may be due to changes in food consumption patterns, increased genetic predisposition to the disease as well as negligence in seeking medical attention at the onset of cancer.
Another report indicates that Punjab saw a four-time rise in cervical, oral and breast cancer cases among people over 30 in 2022.
A Forbes India report indicates that Haryana and Punjab have shown moderate economic growth, notching up per capita net state domestic products of Rs 325,000 ($US3,879 ) and Rs 195,000 ($US2,327) respectively in the financial year 2022-2023.
So rising cancer cases may not be directly linked with economic hardship.
Green revolution’s hidden dark side
Beginning in the 1960s, Haryana and Punjab were two of the prime beneficiaries of the “Green Revolution“ that solved India’s food security problem.
The primary outcome of this scientific and agricultural reform was improvement in crop yields. But this transformation relied extensively on increased use of fertilisers and pesticides.
This excess use of pesticides is known to be the major cause of cancer cases in Haryana and Punjab.
Cancer occurs when a cell keeps on growing and dividing uncontrollably, unlike normal cells which ultimately die. Biochemically, humans have natural protection against cancer through tumour-suppressor genes.
Exposure to certain chemicals can mutate tumour-suppressor genes, switching them off.
Chronic exposure to pesticides can thereby increase people’s risk of developing cancer.
Consuming a staggering 5,270 metric tonnes of pesticides annually, Punjab is the third largest user and has the highest per capita consumption of such chemicals in India.
This high usage results in the accumulation of pesticides in groundwater, drinking water and food. Such contaminants then end up in the human body.
Recent research found pesticide traces in the breastmilk of lactating mothers in Haryana.
Another study showed that in 6.9 percent of cow’s milk samples from Ludhiana in Punjab, the concentration of harmful pesticides such as hexachlorocyclohexane, dichloro-diphenyl trichloroethane or DDT, endosulfan, cypermethrin, cyhalothrin, permethrin, chlorpyrifos, ethion and profenophos were higher than acceptable limits.
Other research indicates the presence of metal pollutants such as arsenic, lead and uranium in the groundwater of Punjab’s Malwa, may also have played a role in the high incidence of cases in the region.
The cancer cost of agricultural chemicals
This raises a dilemma: whether the use of such chemicals for improving agricultural production should be prioritised given their impact on people’s health and quality of life.
This cancer disease burden also comes with an economic cost.
In 2017-2018, Punjab’s per capita health expenditure was around Rs 1,086 ($US13), lower than the national average at that time. On average, people covered around 69.4 percent of their out-of-pocket health costs, which was higher than the national average of 48.8 percent.
One way of addressing this serious issue is through a One Health approach.
This concept focuses on looking at human health not separately but as part of an integrated and unified whole alongside the health of animals and ecosystems.
An integrated pest management programme complies with this concept and can help address the issue of pesticide overuse by using ecologically sustainable methods to control pests.Agricultural land can be made ecologically inhospitable for pests, requiring minimal pesticide use.
This will reduce the chemical footprint of agriculture and won’t pollute air, water or soil with pesticides.
Such interventions could encounter major challenges from farmers who are used to chemically-intensive agricultural methods and practices, which is why it’s important to understand the ecological conservation behaviour of farmers before implementing such solutions.
But they could be the first step towards a lasting solution to the problem of cancer caused by excessive pesticide use.
Professor Abhiroop Chowdhury is Executive Dean of the Jindal Global School of Environment and Sustainability at O.P. Jindal Global University in Sonipat, Haryana, India. His research interests include blue carbon sequestration, mangrove restoration, climate change ecology, soil pollution assessment and environmental social work.
