Swati Thiyagarajan – Author, NDTV.com

Blog: The Shocking, Tragic Deaths Of 13 Gir Lions

Swati Thiyagarajan | Friday September 28, 2018

Lion fights are messy and injuries to their bodies would be immediately obvious. So it begs the question of why there are no definitive answers for the deaths when infighting is the main explanation given by the forest department. The department has admitted to the presence of an infection in the liver and lungs of some of the lions in their press release but have bla...

Blog: What The Thai Boys' Rescue Says About All Of Us

Swati Thiyagarajan | Thursday July 12, 2018

And what we have found, if we can just hold onto it, is that part of us that works with community, the part that puts someone else ahead of ourselves, the part that gives while asking nothing in return. It can change the world in the doing.

Blog: Why Delhi Will Have No Water At All In 2020

Swati Thiyagarajan | Monday June 25, 2018

This is not the moment to not know what we have lost till it's gone. This is the moment to do something.

Blog: When A Whale Dies From Eating Plastic Bags

Swati Thiyagarajan | Friday June 08, 2018

When we go on our wonderful, relaxing beach holidays,enjoying the sheer wonder of being near the ocean, do we imagine the reality of everything that is happening below her surface?

Blog: Salman Khan's Conviction Is A Victory To Be Proud Of

Swati Thiyagarajan | Friday April 06, 2018

For a lot of us who have been involved in some capacity in the wildlife and conservation scenario in India, Salman Khan's conviction came as a victory. Why? Because poaching is a heinous crime and whoever commits the offence should be tried and charged under the full extent of the law. Over the years, a lack of concern over poaching, low rates of conviction and cases ...

Blog: Cape Town's Water Runs Out On April 16. How We're Coping Now

Swati Thiyagarajan | Friday February 02, 2018

If Capetonians can grit their teeth and follow the water restriction plans, perhaps Ground Zero will be held off, but it is time for us to realize that we are dealing with the most precious resource and that some amount of restrictions are going to be the new normal. We can never go back to being careless people who leave our taps running.

Blog: You And I, We're Both Responsible For This Photo

Swati Thiyagarajan | Thursday November 09, 2017

Of course, we react emotionally to this photograph. But there is a bigger picture beyond this photo and the interpretations in the international media; the picture it forms for people around the world is in my mind not the whole truth.

Blog: At 11 Tonight, The Dinosaurs Arrived. Look What We Did

Swati Thiyagarajan | Saturday March 25, 2017

So for one hour tonight, at 8.30, people are asked to turn off their lights. It's Earth Hour, and in the last ten years, this initiative by the WWF is perhaps the world's largest environment event encompassing 7,000 towns and cities and millions of people. The initiative was started as an awareness campaign on climate change. While that is still the focus of Earth Hou...

Blog: What It Means To Declare River Ganga A Being With Legal Rights

Swati Thiyagarajan | Tuesday March 21, 2017

In an evocative order, the Uttarakhand High Court has declared the rivers Ganga and the Yamuna, "legal and living entities, having the status of a legal person with all corresponding rights, duties and liabilities of a living person". This means now the Ganga and Yamuna can represent themselves in court over any violation they face.The judges said that such a situatio...

Blog: Prayers In Maharashtra For Jai, Stunning Tiger Gone Missing

Swati Thiyagarajan | Tuesday July 26, 2016

Thanks to him, Umred forests have a future and new tigers who will continue to spread his remarkable genetic legacy, the only true way any living creature ever lives on forever.

Blog: Congratulations To Us, We're More Destructive Than An Asteroid

Swati Thiyagarajan | Monday June 06, 2016

We are in the middle of the sixth mass extinction. Species are dying out faster than ever before.

Blog: Uttarakhand Fires Should Not Have Surprised Us. Big F All Around.

Swati Thiyagarajan | Monday May 02, 2016

The real tragedy is that next year this time, we will be talking about fires and lamenting how unprepared we were.

Blog: The Trauma Of A Leopard At A Bengaluru School

Swati Thiyagarajan | Wednesday February 10, 2016

What is it about us as a people that when we know a wild animal is on the prowl in our streets or our buildings we actually gather to gawk?

Opinion: From 100 Beached Whales In Tuticorin, These Messages

Swati Thiyagarajan | Wednesday January 13, 2016

Maybe they are trying to bring us a message - simple truths about the importance of love, bonds with family and friends, the need for a cleaner planet and the ultimate truth that death comes to all the living and that some things are a mystery.

Blog: Gandhiji's Request To My Grandmother, MS Subbulakshmi

Swati Thiyagarajan | Friday January 01, 2016

My best memory of her is of her practicing her singing during long summer afternoons at home. Not a day went by when she did not practice. She would gently tune the tanpura, her graceful fingers running over the strings. She had the most beautiful hands, and the way she would move them or bring them together while singing was a wonderful sight in itself. She would clo...

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