On December 29, the Supreme Court put in abeyance a contentious definition of the Aravalli hills which it had adopted just weeks ago.

Last month, the Supreme Court had accepted a government-led committee’s suggestion to define the Aravalli hills as landforms with elevations above 100 metres from ground level. A range would constitute two such hills falling within 500 metres of each other. The Court had taken up the issue to define the Aravalli hills on its own, to avoid “conflicting judgements” in two ongoing cases related to mining in the hill range.

The definition was widely criticised for being exclusionary and inconsistent with the range’s geological and ecological characteristics. Following a public outcry, on December 29, a bench led by newly appointed Chief Justice Surya Kant decided to revisit the matter and stay the contentious definition till “a fair, impartial, independent expert opinion” on the matter is sought.

The Court noted that the new definition left room for ambiguity, especially about whether the new definition broadens “non-Aravalli” areas and reduces the scope of protected areas. It also sought clarification about whether the “the widely publicized criticism” that the new definition would only protect 1,048 hills out of 12,081 in Rajasthan, was correct.

“Such an inquiry would involve the precise measurement of all hill and hillock elevations to facilitate a more nuanced and ‘measured’ assessment of the criteria required to maintain the structural and ecological integrity of the entire range,” the Court said, adding, “There is a dire need to further probe and clarify to prevent any regulatory gaps that might undermine the ecological integrity of the Aravalli region.”

The Court has tasked a new High Powered Committee “comprising domain experts” to critically assess the government-led committee’s proposed definition, and investigate five areas in particular: a specific enumeration of the specific regions covered by the new definition, the territories that would be excluded by it, an analysis of whether “sustainable mining” within the covered areas “would result in any adverse ecological consequences,” and an evaluation of the short and long term environmental impacts of the suggested definition.

Apart from experts, the Court has also instructed the Amicus Curae K. Parameshwar and the Supreme Court’s Central Empowered Committee to aid the assessment.

“This stay shall remain in effect until the present proceedings reach a state of logical finality,” reads the order, adding that in the interim, the Forest Survey of India’s suggested definition from 2010 should be adopted.

The Forest Survey of India recommends defining the Aravallis as hills with gentle slopes of three degrees or more, with a buffer of 100 metres around the slope’s downside.

Banner image: Aravalli hills in Pushkar, Rajasthan. Image by Vyacheslav Argenberg via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0).

Snakebite envenoming continues to pose a serious yet under-recognised public health challenge in rural India, according to a recent retrospective study from Raichur district in Karnataka. Analysing snakebite case records from a secondary healthcare facility from January 2020 to April 2023, the study sheds light on who is most at risk, how bites occur, and the gaps that exist in medical care.

Out of the 366 snakebite cases examined, one-third were found to be venomous bites, with young adults disproportionately affected. The average age of patients was just under 30, and nearly 60% were men, reflecting occupational exposure linked to agriculture and outdoor work. Most bites occurred during morning hours, when people were active in fields or around their homes.

The common krait (Bungarus caeruleus), a highly neurotoxic snake and recognised as one of the “Big Four” medically important snake species, emerged as the leading cause of envenoming. Neurotoxic bites are particularly dangerous as early symptoms may be subtle, yet can rapidly progress to respiratory failure if untreated.

According to one of the authors, Dr. Chandan N. of ICMR- National Institute of Traditional Medicine, one of the key highlights of the study is that some of the secondary medical facilities like Hutti Gold Mines Hospital where the study was conducted, keeps a robust record of snakebite envenoming which can be used to study gaps in dealing with snakebites. “It’s only in 2024 that the Karnataka government declared snakebite as a notifiable disease. Most envenoming data comes from medical colleges. The study, however, shows that some of the secondary medical facilities can also provide useful data to further medical research into snakebite envenoming,” he says.

Another critical finding of the study is the delay in accessing medical care. About one-third of patients first sought help from traditional healers, losing valuable time before reaching hospital. Such delays significantly increase the risk of complications and death, despite the availability of effective treatment in health facilities. “Almost 70%-80% snakebites are non-venomous which gets better through traditional healing which, in turn, boosts people’s faith in non-medical interventions,” he points out.

The study observed that while around 78% of patients improved with hospital management, nearly 17% required referral to higher centres. Mortality stood at 1.6%, underscoring both the lethality of snakebite and the life-saving potential of timely intervention.

The authors stress that snakebite should be treated as a public health priority rather than an isolated medical emergency. They call for strengthening awareness, timely administration of antisnake venom, and improved documentation to reduce morbidity and mortality from snakebites.

Banner image: Common krait. Image by Manoj Karingamadathil via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Data revealed in Parliament shows a high number of pending cases in the National Green Tribunal, a specialised statutory body dedicated to resolving environmental disputes. Together, all five benches of the NGT have over 5,000 cases pending in the courts, Kirthi Vardhan Singh, Minister of State for Environment, Forests, and Climate Change told Parliament on December 15.

The NGT was set up in 2010 under the NGT Act for the speedy disposal of environmental legal disputes, to reduce the burden of cases in higher courts. It specialises in disputes related to environmental rights and protections, damages, and compensation, and has a presence across each region of the country.

The Principal Bench, based in New Delhi, reported the highest pendency from 2020 to 2025, with 1939 pending cases as of November, the data showed. The Western bench in Pune had the second highest pendency, at 1933 cases over the same time period, followed by the Southern bench in Chennai (846 pending cases), the Eastern bench in Kolkata (411 pending cases) and Central zonal bench in Bhopal (320 pending cases).

“In order to increase the disposal rate of cases, the Government has supported NGT to upgrade the digital infrastructure at their all Benches by facilitating the virtual court proceedings and e-filing of cases through a dedicated portal,” Singh told the Parliament in response to a question.

The Tribunal is led by a Chairperson who sits at the Principal Bench and includes at least ten and up to 20 judicial and expert members each, who play an equal part when it comes to making decisions to resolve disputes. However, the NGT currently has six vacancies for judicial member posts and four vacancies for expert members.

“In the absence of full strength of judicial and expert members in regional benches of the Tribunal situated in Chennai, Pune, Bhopal and Kolkata, the Principal Bench in New Delhi is hearing applications from other jurisdictions remotely by video conferencing to meet the needs of the litigants,” the FAQ page of the NGT says.

Banner image: A polluted river in an Indian city. Image by Jan jörg via Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain).

The President of India has approved a new rural employment and livelihood law. The Viksit Bharat—Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) (VB–G RAM G) Bill, 2025, was passed by the Parliament on December 18 and approved by the President on December 21, bringing it into effect and ending the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), that provides for rural employment and has been in force since 2005.

The new act guarantees 125 days of work to adult members of rural households who volunteer to take on unskilled manual labour. The erstwhile MGNREGA guaranteed at least 100 days of wages.

Employment generation, under the scheme, is integrated with infrastructure development through four priority verticals: water security through water-related works; core rural infrastructure; livelihood-related infrastructure; and special works to mitigate extreme weather events.

The Act also introduces a temporary pause period on the employment scheme, of up to 60 days in a financial year, to ensure enough people are available to work on farms during peak sowing and harvesting seasons.

It also requires states to share the financial costs of the employment scheme. Most states will have to contribute 40% of the total cost, while northeastern states will contribute 10%. The central government will determine state-wise normative allocations for each financial year, and any expenditure incurred beyond these allocations will be borne by the respective state government.

Critics argue that the way the scheme is designed can disempower workers. The decision-making authority remains with the central government, which can also decide when are where the scheme will be implemented, while the implementation responsibilities themselves are transferred to the state governments.

The bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha on December 16, followed by intensive debate, during which several opposition parties opposed the legislation. The main opposition party, Congress, which has played a crucial role in shaping the MGNREGA, criticised the new law stating that the Act was tabled without any consultation. Section 37 of the Act explicitly repeals MGNREGA. States such as Kerala and Tamil Nadu have also expressed their concerns.

Several international economists and experts have written to the Indian government in support of MGNREGA, warning that the shift to the new scheme, which devolves responsibility to the states without sufficient financial support, threatens the gains achieved so far under the current rural employment programme. The collective letter, compiled by the Levy Economics Institute, a public policy think tank, is signed by Olivier De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, Thomas Piketty of the Paris School of Economics and others.

Banner image: Workers desilt a village pond in Asir village, Sirsa district, Haryana, under MGNREGA, now replaced by the VB–G RAM G Act, 2025. Image by Mulkh Singh via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

P. Narayanan Unny, the third-generation farm er who rescued a near-extinct Navara rice and built the Navara Eco Farm to revive, organically cultivate and conserve the Indigenous rice variety, died at his ancestral home in Chittur, Palakkad, on December 9, 2025. He was 67.

Unny is widely credited with not only bringing Kerala’s ancient medicinal rice back from the brink of extinction but also in leading efforts to secure its legal identity and market. Under him, the Navara Eco Farm in his hometown grew into a global reference for Navara rice’s conservation and organic cultivation.

In a report tracing Navara’s revival, Navara Rice: A Success Story, Unny recalled his early years of identifying and marketing the grain: “As rice cultivation in Kerala was a losing proposition for the farmers at that time, I made a plan to value-add and focus on cultivating Kerala’s specialty rice — the unique medicinal and health rice — Navara and the Indigenous varieties of Palakkadan Matta rice.”

While Palakkadan Matta remained popular, Navara had all but disappeared into the generic category of “red rice”. That gap in recognition, he wrote, marked the beginning of his “tireless efforts to revive the Indigenous variety and garner international recognition for it.”

Unny came from a lineage of rice specialists in Palakkad, and the 125-year-old family farm Karukamani Kalam, on the banks of river Shokanashini, had been nurtured across three generations. After his father’s passing in the mid-1990s, he took charge of the land and committed himself to conservation.

At the time, Navara cultivation had collapsed because of declining yields, loss of pure seed, and the widespread adoption of high-yielding hybrids. Unny responded with patient seed selection and purification  and the multiplication and distribution of clean seed. He also organised farmers, created demonstration plots, and worked closely with research agencies. The Geographical Indication (GI) protection eventually granted to Navara, anchoring it legally to Palakkad, became a turning point in his efforts.

“It was a path breaking effort which almost made me bankrupt. There was no revenue earning from the farm for the first five years when I took up the Navara program. Some of my farmer friends advised me to stop this madness and return to normal farming,” he wrote. Yet he persisted, convinced of Navara’s medicinal value and cultural importance.

Over time, the Navara Eco Farm evolved into more than a cultivation site. It became an educational centre, hosting students, researchers, Ayurvedic practitioners and visiting farmers.

Reflecting on his mission, Unny wrote: “Navara was on the verge of extinction. Unless some real, sustained and focused effort is put in by someone, Navara was going to be a mere history rather than that in real life. Looking into the pros and cons of its not being a profitable venture but having utility in curing various ailments, I finally decided to revive its cultivation and popularisation.”

Banner image: Image courtesy of Navara Eco Farm.

In the Arabian sea well off the coast of Kollam district, Kerala, in March 2024, fishermen spotted a curious bycatch in their nets. It was collected by the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI) in Kochi city for a closer look. The specimen was damaged – possibly while dodging a predator – but it still yielded enough evidence for the description of Taningia silasii, a newly discovered giant deep sea squid species.

Published in Marine Biodiversity this year, it is the second species to be formally described from the Taningia genus, after Taningia danae, one of the largest squid species. Morphological and phylogenetic assessments revealed differences in traits such as the shape of the lower beak, cartilaginous structures, gills, from those of T. danae, confirming the distinction between the two species.

The finding was led by study authors Geetha Sasikumar, who primarily studies shellfish, and K.K. Sajikumar who researches cephalopods. CMFRI monitors fisheries catches, coordinating with fishing vessels like trawlers and gill netters, and frequenting coastal landing centres. The specimen that led to the description of T. silasii was collected from trawlers at Sakthikulangara harbour, situated at the confluence of Ashtamudi lake and the Arabian sea.

“Though this specimen was damaged and without several internal organs, it is very rare to capture a specimen of this genus – perhaps because of their mesopelagic (twilight zone) to bathypelagic (midnight zone) habitat, typically 200 to 2,000 metres deep,” said Sasikumar.

Though its stomach contents couldn’t be obtained, the study authors say that T. silasii is likely to be carnivorous, feeding on a diversity of prey like crustaceans and fish. The specimen – estimated to be a subadult – was 41.5 cm long, and weighed around 1.7 kg. Its sex could not be confirmed as various internal organs were missing. However, spermatangia implanted along the inner mantle (which contain the reproductive organs of a squid) suggest it may have been a female caught shortly after mating.

T. silasii was named in tribute to the late E.G. Silas (1928–2018), the former director of CMFRI who was one of the earliest scientists to study cephalopods in India.

“Taningia squids are very fast swimmers and generally don’t inhabit inshore waters, so it’s not easy to find even one, let alone track populations,” said Sasikumar. She adds that they inhabit the twilight and midnight zones (waters deeper than 200 m), down to the sea floor – depths that are difficult to study, requiring expensive remotely operated vehicles that ensure safe sampling while reducing harm to other species and reducing risk for humans.

Sasikumar said that CMFRI hopes to study more T. silasii individuals to better understand the species, its role in the ecosystem and factors influencing its population and presence. Studying deep-sea creatures needs large funds and expensive equipment, without which, research is slow.

Cooperation with commercial fisheries can help study the ocean and ensure sustainability measures, such as avoiding collecting specimens during breeding season, are adopted.

Banner image: T. silasii by Geetha Sasikumar and K.K. Sajikumar.