News stories by Athar Parvaiz

SRINAGAR, India, March 31 (IPS) - For the past few weeks, residents living in and around Dal Lake in Indian Kashmir have witnessed “a different phenomenon” as a green sludge has accumulated on the once pristine water. Photos circulating widely on social media triggered a public outcry.

CHENNAI, India, January 12 (IPS) - Despite early warnings reportedly reaching communities before the cyclones (Ditwah and Senyar) struck coastal regions in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia late in November 2025, over 1,500 people lost their lives and hundreds went missing even as millions were impacted by these disasters, which caused massive destruction. Scientists say that these disasters reflect a changing climate system, which is making cyclones more hazardous than what we considered “typical” in the past.

CLERMONT-FERRAND, France, December 4 (IPS) - During the Global Development Conference 2025, development experts and researchers kept warning that low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) were being pushed into a wave of digital transformation without the basic statistical systems, institutional capacity, and local context needed to ensure that AI and digital tools truly benefited the poor.

CLERMONT-FERRAND, France, November 26 (IPS) - Weeks after an international conference on inclusive and people-centric digital transformation organized by the Global Development Network (GDN) here, a new narrative is unfolding about the need for digital innovations to serve people first and narrow inequalities rather than widening them.

NEW DELHI, Apr 16 (IPS) - Late in February, India’s noted ornithologist and conservationist, Asad Rahmani, wrote a letter to a wildlife warden in north India expressing his satisfaction about the availability of water in four important wetlands in Kashmir, where migratory birds from central Asia and Europe arrive annually for wintering.

NEW DELHI, Nov 04 (IPS) - While India continues to rely heavily on coal, the south Asian economic giant is also aggressively pushing renewable energy production, especially after the costs of renewable energy production have fallen drastically in recent years around the world.

SRINAGAR, India, Feb 07 (IPS) - Saffron, the expensive spice from the Kashmir Himalayas, has been facing challenges for years, mostly related to yields and inadequate irrigation compounded by the climate crisis.

LADAKH, INDIA, Nov 29 (IPS) - While working as a doctor in the initial months of his medical career in southern India, a telephone call from his home in the Ladakh Himalayas convinced Nordan Otzer to involve himself with cervical cancer awareness.

BUDGAM, INDIA, Sep 13 (IPS) - It has been over a decade since 32-year-old Rafiqa (not her real name) was sold to a villager after being lured by the promise that she would be employed in the handicrafts industry of Indian-administered Kashmir.

SRINAGAR, INDIA, Aug 24 (IPS) - Sadiq Dar, 68, is surprised how the heavy siltation of Wular Lake has turned many of its areas into land masses. “When we were growing up, we would only see water in this lake. Now, we see cattle grazing in it while a large portion is also being used by children for playing cricket,” he tells IPS.