Jeff Joseph

As climate change-driven extreme heat threatens more and more of India’s massive population, ineffective advisories and undercounting of heat-related deaths leave millions vulnerable and unaware of the real risks.

Reporting for this story was supported by the DataLEADS as part of the Centre for Investigative Journalism’s Open Climate Reporting Initiative.

An investigation into cardamom cultivation in Kerala exposes how India is failing abjectly to regulate pesticide overuse and contamination in its spice production and trade

Reporting for this story was supported by Internews’ Earth Journalism Network.

India | Politics | Reportage

A ban on purse-seine fishing in Tamil Nadu has threatened thousands of fishers’ livelihoods – and they are refusing to give up without a fight

This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center.

“There were young people with degrees taking to purse seines because of the pay,” Karthi P said. “It was easy work.”

He was one of those. Having completed a diploma in mechanical engineering, Karthi, now 28 years old, got involved in purse-seine fishing in Nagapattinam, a seaside...

While the last decade saw the largest capacity addition in wind in the country, Tamil Nadu’s wind trajectory took a dip.

After decades of being the state with the largest wind installations in India, in 2023, Gujarat overtook Tamil Nadu in total wind energy installation capacity in India.

In this two-part series, I investigate the wind energy sector in Tamil Nadu to find out what went wrong and why.

In Part 2 here, I look at the challenges that the state faces in repowering its wind sites which are increasingly occupied by ageing and obsolete turbines way past their design lifetimes.

On a rainy October evening, Pradhu N sat in the verandah of his two-storey house in Puthenvelikkara, a village in Kerala’s Ernakulam district, poring over a bunch of documents. The mango trees in his front yard glistened from the recent rains, and the dark skies overhead signalled further downpours ahead. The overcast weather mirrored Pradhu’s mood as he raised his eyes from the documents to gaze at the surroundings.

“Will you flush your toilet into your neighbour’s well?” the 51 year old ask...

Politics
Millions of Nepalis are driven to migrate because of low agricultural incomes, only to return to farms faced with growing climate risks
Jeff Joseph is an independent journalist who reports on the intersection of resource conflicts, human rights, climate change and energy transition.
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“WE DON’T GET rain on time anymore,” said Purna Rana, a 51-year-old farmer in Sathikola village in mid-western Nepal. It was the middle of November 2023 and the winter chill was beginning to...

Manuguru, a small town in eastern Telangana, set a record in April 2022 collecting Rs.1.59 crore in property taxes. It even made it to the list of top performing municipalities in the State by achieving more than 95 per cent of its annual property tax collection target. However, the fact is that Manuguru, in Bhadradri Kothagudem district, does not have an elected body and its very existence as a municipality is questionable.

Until May 31, 2005, Manuguru was a panchayat in a Fifth Schedule are...

While the last decade saw the largest capacity addition in wind in the country, Tamil Nadu’s wind trajectory took a dip.

After decades of being the state with the largest wind installations in India, in 2023, Gujarat overtook Tamil Nadu in total wind energy installation capacity in India.

In this two-part series, I investigate the wind energy sector in Tamil Nadu to find out what went wrong and why.

In Part 1 here, I investigate the reasons behind the stagnation of the wind energy sector in Tamil Nadu.

As climate change-driven extreme heat threatens more and more of India’s massive population, ineffective advisories and undercounting of heat-related deaths leave millions vulnerable and unaware of the real risks.

"I have abandoned farming because we can't get electricity connection to irrigate our land," said Dharman, a resident of Kumbalam village in Tamil Nadu's Krishnagiri district. Dharman comes from an Irula family who were awarded titles to forest land under the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006. But Irula tribe members like Dharman fail to cultivate their land because Tamil Nadu does not recognise the FTA.

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Perumbavoor (Kerala): When illiterate mason Jalaluddin Shaikh sought a better life seven years ago, he journeyed nearly 2,500 km south from his home in Murshidabad, Bengal, to this riverine town in the greater Kochi agglomeration, known for its farm produce, plywood and sundry small-scale industries.

Jalaluddin, 40, had heard stories of the opportunities in prosperous Kerala, and nearly five years, he was happy, earning Rs 22,000 every month at construction sites, saving enough to send Rs 15,...

Located at the foothills of the Nilgiris in Kerala, Attappady block is known for its agricultural productivity and tribal communities. The block is home to 33,000 or 6 per cent of the state’s tribal population, data from Integrated Tribal Development Project (ITDP) showed. It is also the only block in Kerala where tribal communities have historically owned land.
However, they are now increasingly being labelled as “encroachers” on their land. Many of them are in fact embroiled in legal disput...

The Union Environment Ministry has asked the Wildlife Institute of India to seek the ministry’s approval before it publishes any documents.

Researchers and scientists both within and beyond the institute are wary that the move will undermine its academic and research integrity.

One bureaucrat said an institute report that had embarrassed the government in the Supreme Court could have been the l...

When her husband Maarappan died of Covid-19 in May 2021, Malli M decided to take a stand.
Malli is a resident of Guruthaddanur, a hamlet in Tamil Nadu’s Krishnagiri district, 90 km from Bengaluru. She is one of around 400 members of the Irula community in the village, which has a population of around 600.
Malli decided that she would bury her husband on their ancestral land. It was part of a larger patch of land that they and other members of the village’s Irula community once lived on and cu...

On April 20, after receiving a letter from the Delhi Bharatiya Janata Party chief Adesh Gupta demanding that they bulldoze illegal encroachments of “anti-social elements and rioters”, the North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) locked up residents in barricaded lanes and undertook an “encroachment removal” drive in Jahangirpuri, demolishing homes, shops and businesses, mostly belonging to Muslims.

Just four days earlier, on April 16, a shobha yat...