Shivangi Kaushish

For most of recorded history, the Arctic has been defined by its inaccessibility: a vast, frozen expanse at the edge of the navigable world. That definition is dissolving, rapidly and irreversibly. NOAA's Arctic Report Card 2025 confirms that surface air temperatures across the Arctic from October 2024 through September 2025 were the warmest recorded since 1900. The Arctic is warming at approximately four times the global average, driven by the albedo effect, receding ice exposes darker ocean...

One evening in Manipur, an ambulance carrying an elderly patient stopped at a checkpoint between two districts. The driver hesitated before moving ahead, uncertain whether the road beyond was safe. A journey that once took less than an hour had now become a passage through fear, suspicion and invisible ethnic boundaries. Around the ambulance stood armed security personnel, deserted shops and silent divided roads that had once connected the people. Since May 2023, Manipur has witnessed...

On a humid summer evening in a small town in eastern India, Madhav returned home exhausted after a day of construction work. His earnings for the day were barely enough to cover groceries and medicines for his ageing parents. His wife supplemented the household income by stitching clothes for neighbours, while their son had recently left school to work at a mechanic’s shop. Life moved from one uncertainty to another. A fever, an accident or the loss of employment could dismantle the family’s...