This project – a documentary – is an attempt to capture, on the one hand, the fragility and vulnerability of riverine environments, and, on the other, the stories of everyday life and ingenuity of the rural population in Majuli and its surrounding islands in Assam Brahmaputra valley. Furthermore, it will document sustainable rural practices, which are particularly significant in the context of climate change and the destabilization of the local ecological base.

The project aims to understand what kind of elected political representatives can influence environmental outcomes in India. In particular, it aims to assess whether an elected politician’s identity (i.e. gender) and quality (i.e. whether they are “educated” or have a “criminal background”) can have any effect on forest cover gain or loss. The focus is on forest endowments as forests are an important carbon sink and therefore forest cover loss can accelerate global warming, exacerbating the adverse impacts of climate change.

The project aims to develop new products and methods to study forest fires, lantana infestation, and forest understory and test positive feedback mechanisms between forest fires, climate change, and forest composition.

This project will initiate a collaboration with the Zoonotic and Vector-Borne Diseases (ZVBD) Research and Training Centre, a transdisciplinary research centre based in Shillong. It will conduct modelling studies to identify the burden and risk of zoonotic diseases and their relation to land use, climatic, meteorological, and other determinants.

The aim of this project is to create an archive of thought on plant life by writers, artists, philosophers and scientists from the Indian subcontinent over the last two millennia. Apart from collecting and curating this material into an accessible anthology, it also involves translation from the Indian languages into English. It will supply thinkers, writers, artists, teachers, students and institution-builders with an inherited living archive, supporting humanities-linked approaches to climate change and ecological sustainability.

The project aims to study the role of norms in influencing household crop residue burning behaviour, the role and limitations of awareness schemes in incentivising behaviour change, and modelling price mechanisms to incentivise behavioural change.

The overarching goal of this project is to establish Ashoka University as a role model in incorporating sustainability values across all aspects of the campus that includes but not limited to, planning, construction, governance, operations, research, education and public outreach.

The project aims to create a cost-effective and scalable one-stop system to monitor and assess air quality. It will provide users real-time local information, helping them make informed decisions regarding their exposure and will also allow the public to make their concerns known to decision makers.

The project aims to develop methods to determine the age of trees using DNA methylation on teak trees. If the method works, it can be applied to other species as well and can test the impact of climate and other variables on tree growth dynamics. This can also be used in forensics, certification, and enforcement for illegal logging.

In this era, where climate change impacts are already obvious, this project will synthesise ecological, economic and citizen sourced information to describe and quantify marine ecological changes from climate change and the corresponding human responses on the east and west coasts of India.