VidBodh
हिन्दी — Read in HindiLatest edition: September 2026. Covered from 1 June to 30 September 2026. Next edition, October 2026, publishes on 5 November 2026.
The monthly magazine
3 lead articles · 26 new articles · 3 updates
LeadPrelims and MainsForests, grasslands and mountain ecosystems
The Centre issued a seventh draft notification on the Western Ghats Ecologically Sensitive Area on 27 July 2026, after the sixth lapsed. It proposes 56,825.7 sq km across six States, and the States still do not agree on where the line should fall.
LeadPrelims and MainsElephants and other land mammals
The Supreme Court on 17 August 2026 ordered a fresh national survey of elephant corridors and held that no State may block a traditional elephant route. Five days earlier, on World Elephant Day, the government set out the result of India's first DNA based count: 22,446 wild elephants.
LeadPrelims and MainsLand degradation, desertification and drylands
The 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification met in Mongolia in August 2026, with drought at the centre. India presented its second Bonn Challenge progress report and launched its first guide to grasslands and other open natural ecosystems.
1.1.1The elephant in India: numbers, corridors and conflictLead
The Supreme Court on 17 August 2026 ordered a fresh national survey of elephant corridors and held that no State may block a traditional elephant route. Five days earlier, on World Elephant Day, the government set out the result of India's first DNA based count: 22,446 wild elephants.
1.2.1Pollinators and beekeepingNewPrelims and Mains
Pollinators are infrastructure for farming: the Food and Agriculture Organisation credits bee pollination with almost a third of global crop output.
1.3.1National Management Plan of Invasive SpeciesNewPrelims and Mains
The National Management Plan of Invasive Species is the plan meant to give India its first single national plan for invasive species.
2.1.1Kaziranga National ParkNewPrelims and Mains
Kaziranga National Park in Assam, on the Brahmaputra floodplain, holds the largest population of the greater one horned rhinoceros.
2.1.2Manas National ParkNewPrelims and Mains
Manas National Park and Tiger Reserve lies in Assam on the Bhutan border.
2.2.1Mining buffers around wetland reservesNewPrelims and Mains
A mining buffer is a belt around a protected area inside which mining needs prior approval.
2.2.2India's Ramsar sitesNewPrelims and Mains
A Ramsar site listing commits a country to the wise use of a wetland: it is a promise about how the wetland will be used rather than a fence around it.
2.3.1Marine fish stock accountsNewPrelims and Mains
Marine fish stock accounts apply natural capital accounting, which records natural assets and their depletion, to India's marine fish stocks.
2.3.2National report on deep-sea fishery resourcesNewPrelims and Mains
The national report on deep sea fishery resources is the Ministry of Earth Sciences' account of the fish in India's deep water, below the reach of light.
2.3.3Great Nicobar projectPrelims and Mainsnewly added
7 Aug 2026The Zoological Survey of India records a reef of 116 hectares with more than 100 species of reef building coral in Galathea Bay, while the 2023 coastal maps of the National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management show no coral there. A site with coral reef falls in the most protected coastal category, where a port cannot be built. The submission that the bay is a lower category was central to the National Green Tribunal dismissing objections in February 2026. Mains: a mapping decision, and not an environmental argument, settled what the project may legally do. Frontline, 7 Aug 2026: The coastal zone maps that cleared the Great Nicobar port show Galathea Bay as free of corals, while the Zoological Survey of India is planning to translocate the corals that are there. (opens in a new tab)
2.4.1Western Ghats: the seventh draft and the question of the lineLead
The Centre issued a seventh draft notification on the Western Ghats Ecologically Sensitive Area on 27 July 2026, after the sixth lapsed. It proposes 56,825.7 sq km across six States, and the States still do not agree on where the line should fall.
2.4.2Forest firesPrelims and Mains
7 Aug 2026The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Technology, Environment, Forests and Climate Change found no study linking climate change to rising Himalayan forest fires. Its 412th report asked for an Indian geostationary satellite instead of the passes now relied on. Only about 12.5 per cent of FSI alerts in Uttarakhand were real fires, which risks alert fatigue. Mains: India treats fire as a disaster to be put out rather than as an ecological process to be managed. PIB, 7 Aug 2026: Parliamentary committee report on Himalayan forest fires (opens in a new tab)
3.1.1Extreme event attributionPrelims and Mains
30 Aug 2026World Weather Attribution found a South Asian heatwave this year three times likelier and up to 1°C warmer because of climate change. The Hindu set out the limits of blaming any one event on it. The Hindu, 30 Aug 2026: The limits of blaming extreme weather on climate change (opens in a new tab)
4.1.1BRICS as a negotiating blocNewPrelims and Mains
BRICS is an eleven country group in which a Global South position on climate and on trade is now written jointly.
4.2.1Sovereign green bondsNewPrelims and Mains
A sovereign green bond is what a government sells when it borrows for a green purpose, such as a solar park, rather than for anything else.
4.3.1The forest carbon sinkNewPrelims and Mainsnewly added
India's forest carbon sink is the additional store of carbon in forest and tree cover that its sink target counts from 2005, reported in tonnes of CO₂ equivalent.
5.1.1Reuse of treated wastewaterNewPrelims and Mains
Reuse of treated wastewater means sending sewage, once treated, to a farm or a factory instead of letting it into the river.
5.1.2The JojariNewPrelims and Mains
The Jojari is a river of Rajasthan that carries Jodhpur's industrial effluent, rather than sewage, to the Luni near Balotra, as the Bandi carries Pali's.
5.1.3Hexavalent chromium in the Kanpur regionNewPrelims and Mains
Hexavalent chromium, chromium (VI), is a toxic form of chromium, and around Kanpur it has reached groundwater from decades of waste dumped by factories making chromium sulphate for tanneries.
5.1.4Namami GangeNewPrelims and Mains
Namami Gange, launched in 2014 and run by the National Mission for Clean Ganga, is the programme to clean the Ganga: it pays for sewage treatment in the Ganga basin and for the surveys of the river's fauna.
5.2.1Dynamic Ground Water Resources AssessmentNewPrelims and Mains
The Dynamic Ground Water Resources Assessment is the Central Ground Water Board's yearly stocktaking of groundwater with the States, made unit by unit rather than for the country as a whole.
6.1.1Solid Waste Management Rules, 2026NewPrelims and Mains
The Solid Waste Management Rules, 2026 govern how municipal solid waste is separated, collected and processed, and replaced the 2016 rules from 1 April 2026.
7.1.1Land restoration and drought: UNCCD COP17Lead
The 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification met in Mongolia in August 2026, with drought at the centre. India presented its second Bonn Challenge progress report and launched its first guide to grasslands and other open natural ecosystems.
7.2.1The Green India MissionNewPrelims and Mains
The Green India Mission is the national mission written to improve the forest that already stands as much as to add new cover.
7.2.2Other Effective Area-based Conservation MeasuresNewPrelims and Mains
An Other Effective Area based Conservation Measure (OECM) is land outside the formal protected area network that still conserves biodiversity in situ over the long term.
8.1.1Ecotourism in forestsNewPrelims and Mainsnewly added
Ecotourism facilities inside forests are governed by the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, under which an ecotourism facility inside a forest counted as a non forest use and needed diversion approval.
8.1.2The Agasthyamalai evictionsNewPrelims and Mains
The Agasthyamalai landscape of Tamil Nadu covers the Kalakad Mundanthurai and Srivilliputhur Megamalai tiger reserves and the Kanyakumari Wildlife Sanctuary, and lies within the Agasthyamala Biosphere Reserve.
8.2.1River linkingNewPrelims and Mains
River linking is the transfer of water from a basin in surplus to one in deficit, an inter basin transfer.
9.1.1Brahmaputra BoardNewPrelims and Mainsnewly added
The Brahmaputra Board is a body set up under the Brahmaputra Board Act, 1980 to prepare master plans for flood control, erosion and drainage, and it remains advisory.