Velmurugan is a busy man. The 27-year-old is a senior software engineer at Trimble, an IT company in Tidel Park, Chennai. But he never fails to return on weekends to his humble hometown of Avarapakkam in Tindivanam district. Driven by a desire to give back to the land in which he grew up, the...
National Geographic Magazine has selected Parivel Veerasamy’s wildlife photographs a few times as best pictures. The reputed magazine for nature and wildlife lauded him for his photographic skills. But Parivel did not know anything about photography till he was 27 years-old. Parivel hails from...
The marine organism Porpita porpita known as Blue Buttons has been spotted in large numbers at Pattipulam coastal village near Mamallapuram last Sunday. The organism's usual homes are Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Ocean regions. They are not seen in the Bay of Bengal. Experts suggest that it...
On the evening of December 30, vehicles moving towards Chennai Central were slowly making their way from Saidapet on Anna Salai as blinding rain started pounding their windscreens. There had been no indication earlier of an impending deluge, but as they weaved and squeezed their way up to LIC,...
The campaign against a growing tide of plastic waste in Tamil Nadu, as elsewhere, is a road paved with good intentions and green messaging, but one littered with failed campaigns. Tonnes of plastic waste choke Chennai, smaller cities, towns and waterways. Annual monsoon floods in the capital...
Birds glide around the world’s skies as the messengers of ecological balance. Urbanization, destruction of forests, and water, air and noise pollution are threatening their habitats. Common people have a key role to play in protecting birds. International agencies have been working to promote...
An organization in Chennai is on a tree-planting spree and they have completed planting 3.5 lakh trees in Chennai alone. This is not the typical tree-planting drive with volunteers. This is raising small forests in a systematic way. The objective is greening degraded, barren and empty lands...
The spectacle of a saffron-clad Prime Minister Narendra Modi immersing fully in the Ganga in a ceremonial Varanasi ghat on Monday, keeping just a ‘kalasam’ above the water, has turned Chennai’s attention to lost rivers. Although a lot of money has gone into the Ganga rejuvenation plan under...
Veteran actor Kamal Haasan said in an interview to this writer soon after the launch of his political party, Makkal Needhi Maiaim, that he planned to use Big Boss as a vehicle of political communication. He was responding to a question whether it is possible to do the sort of political...
Statistics show that the number of areas that get flooded in Chennai during rains has increased several times over the years. This shows that the problem is only mounting. Can floods be prevented? Are there solutions? Water expert and retired professor at Madras Institute of Development...
