Are India’s new fuel-efficiency rules slowing the shift to electric vehicles? The CAFE III norms could allow automakers to meet emissions targets on paper without substantial investment in EVs. Anumita Roychowdhury (@AnumitaRoychowd) examines how regulatory discounts and compliance credits risk protecting conventional vehicles at the expense of cleaner technologies. 🔗 Read the full analysis: downtoearth.org.in/air/prote… #CAFEIII #ElectricVehicles #EVPolicy #CleanMobility

By Sorit Gupto

On August 26, an ice-and-rock avalanche struck Nepal, wiping out settlements across hundreds of kilometres and pushing the death toll past 1,300 people. Could better monitoring and early-warning systems have given people crucial time to evacuate? The disaster underscores the need for better sensors, cameras, weather monitoring and data sharing, not just in the Himalayas, but across all landscapes vulnerable to extreme weather events.  Down To Earth explored these gaps in 2023, and narrowing them now seems more urgent than ever. Subscribe to read the exclusive analysis:  downtoearth.org.in/subscript… Support us here: downtoearth.org.in/contribut… Photograph courtesy: Nepal National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority

EDITORIAL: Himalayan blunders and beyond Nepal floods is not simply a natural disaster. It is a warning about climate change, reckless development and our belief that nature can be controlled, writes @sunitanar downtoearth.org.in/natural-d…

WATCH | In the latest episode of The Sunita Narain Show, @sunitanar takes us back 2 decades. 📌In April 2005, Narain had been asked by the government of former prime minister, Manmohan Singh, to chair the Tiger Task Force and draw up an agenda for the conservation of the flagship species of India’s wilds, the Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris tigris). 📌This came on the heels of an investigation by intrepid journalist @mazoomdaar, who had broken the story that the last tiger had disappeared from Sariska National Park in Alwar, Rajasthan. 📌In August 2005, the panel handed over the Tiger Task Force report to Dr Singh. 📌In the decades since, tiger numbers have rebounded in India. The All India Tiger Estimation (2022) places India’s tiger population at 3,682. Of the 13 tiger range countries across Asia from Russia to Indonesia, India accounts for nearly 70% of all wild tigers globally. 📌 But, says Narain, this increase has largely been within the “enclaves” of tiger reserves. The real work now is to build a conservation programme that secures tigers and people. We need a strong co-existence agenda that safeguards rising tiger numbers while securing the livelihoods of local people. The agenda for conservation is about wild animals and people. Watch the full video here: youtube.com/watch?v=ZuDyNI06…

IN MEMORIAM: 📌Climate change experts and activists in the country have called the passing of @makrishna, a Professor at the Centre for Atmospheric Sciences (CAS), Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi (IIT Delhi), a ‘major loss to Indian climate science’. 📌AchutaRao was a ‘pillar of climate science in India’, whose contributions to attribution science and championing the rights of communities made vulnerable due to the rising threat of climate change would never be forgotten, they told @down2earthindia. @RockSea @AnjalPrakash @harjeet11 downtoearth.org.in/climate-c…

📌The Nepal disaster is a result of decades of an engineering mindset that assumed rivers and mountains could be re-engineered at will, @sunitanar, Director General, @CSEINDIA, said on September 2, 2026. 📌She was speaking at the 8th International Conference on Sustainability Education (ICSE) 2026, which opened at the India Habitat Centre in the national capital. The event brought together policymakers, educators, scientists, industry leaders and young people under the theme “Sustainability Education for Transformative Action.” downtoearth.org.in/environme…