States
A sacred grove is protected by a village, not by a forest department
Patches of old forest kept intact by local prohibition survive across several Indian states, and the rules…
· 4 min read
States
What a region is actually like to travel in, month by month.
20 articles · page 2 of 2
States
Sanctuary, national park and tiger reserve are three different legal things
India’s protected areas sit in a ladder of designations with different rules about rights, access and…
· 3 min read
States
Eastern India’s plateau edge is where the rivers fall and the forest survives
The Chotanagpur and Eastern Ghats uplands end in a step down to the coastal plain, and that step explains…
· 4 min read
States
Half the Deccan is old lava and the other half is old granite
The plateau reads as one flat interior on a map, but its northwestern half is stacked basalt and its…
· 4 min read
States
A rock-cut temple was carved downwards and has no joints anywhere in it
Excavated architecture is subtraction rather than assembly, which decides how it was built, why nothing in…
· 4 min read
States
A craft town is a supply chain you can walk from one end to the other
Weaving, printing, metalwork and pottery cluster in particular small towns for reasons of water, material…
· 4 min read
States
India’s dry grasslands are recorded as wasteland, and the rarest animals live there
Open scrub and grassland have never had the protected identity that forest has, and that classification…
· 4 min read
States
A river confluence in India is a crossing, a boundary and a shrine at once
Two rivers meeting produces a defensible triangle of land, a natural place to ford and a site that Indian…
· 4 min read