Bhasker Tripathi

R. Mahadevan, a shrimp farmer in southern India, is considering something no farmer wants to say out loud: stopping production.

Having already seen his monthly income shrink in recent years due to rising costs and stagnant demand, he said U.S. President Donald Trump's planned tariffs on Indian exports may push him to the brink.

As climate-fuelled disasters become more frequent and intense, companies and countries are experimenting with new models of insurance and financial help to manage risks and losses, among them, parametric insurance.

Parametric policies pay out a pre-agreed amount if certain parameters, such as rainfall or wind speed, are met, if damage has occurred. This allows for quicker payouts without needing damage assessments.

Using a carbon market-like tool to control air pollution can help developing countries such as India where the standard approach of limiting the emissions with policy making is falling short, a new study has found.

Air pollution is one of the most pressing health issues in India, where the country's 1.4 billion people breathe air exceeding the World Health Organisation's guidelines for particulate matter (PM).

As climate-fuelled disasters become more frequent and intense, companies, countries and aid workers are experimenting with new models of insurance and financial help to manage growing risks and losses - among them, parametric insurance.

Parametric policies pay out a pre-agreed amount of money if certain criteria - such as an amount of rainfall or wind speed - are met, the assumption being that damage will have occurred under those conditions.

India is pushing to add more biofuels to its fuel in a bid to shift to cleaner energy. Its target of a 20% ethanol blend in its gasoline by the end of this year aims to reduce both tailpipe pollution and the country's reliance on imported oil and natural gas.  

Biofuels, produced from organic matter like plants, crops or waste, are seen as a greener alternative to the planet-heating fossil fuels that power more than 90% of global transport.

After years of low rainfall devastating soya bean crops on his central Indian farm, Dileep Patidar last year planted the pulse urad as it needs less water and he counted on the government's crop insurance scheme to cover him if it did not work out.

But the gamble failed and he lost nearly half his crop. Then the insurance money never came.

As the world rushes to secure minerals critical for rapidly-expanding clean energy technologies, India is joining the fray to try to meet its ambitious green energy goals.

India said in January the government and state mining companies would spend 343 billion Indian rupee ($3.94 billion) to boost local production, recycling and imports of critical minerals in a bid to secure enough for its energy transition, in an initiative coined the "National Critical Mineral Mission."

Indian music producers and publishers are seeking to join the news agency ANI in suing OpenAI, accusing the maker of ChatGPT of copyright infringement in the company's second biggest market after the United States.

The case could have serious implications for how India, an emerging key player in the global AI landscape, regulates generative AI (GenAI).

Farmer Jitendra Singh stopped flooding his rice fields in the northern Indian state of Haryana so they produce less polluting methane and he could get paid for the greenhouse gas emissions he saves, but three years on he has not received a single rupee.

Allowing companies to buy credits from projects that lock carbon away and use them to offset their emissions is seen by many environmental experts as an important way to help developing countries and custodians of the land like Singh protect the environment.

Countries around the world are producing more biofuels as a way to tackle climate change, but are they really greener than fossil fuels?

Biofuel production increased nine-fold between 2000 and 2020, and in 2023 G20 nations launched the Global Biofuel Alliance to try to expand the use of sustainable biofuels.