WFD 2025: Mass Fish Death in Indian Rivers

November 22, 2025November 24, 2025 SANDRPLeave a comment

(Feature Image: Thousands of fish found dead in Mula-Mutha river near Naik Bet, a river island at Bund Garden in last week of Dec. 2024. Source)

Indian rivers continue to witness mass fish death incidents all through the year 2025. Most of these incidents we were able to track have occurred in urban rivers across the country including Mula-Mutha in Pune, Yamuna in Delhi, Gomti in Lucknow and Varuna in Varanasi. Mass fish mortality cases have also happened in streams passing through Nalagarh & Pithampur industrial areas of Himachal Pradesh & Madhya Pradesh. These streams are part of Sutlej-Ghaggar-Yamuna-Chambal river basins & have been facing large scale fish death for years.

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Fish, Fisheries, Fisherfolk

WFD 2025: Struggle & Resistance of Fisherfolks in India

November 21, 2025November 22, 2025 SANDRPLeave a comment

(Feature Image: Boats of small fishers in Hooghly river in Haldia. Credit: Rahul Singh/ Mongabay India)

The theme for World Fisheries Day (WFD) 2025, “We have not caught anything, but at your word I will let down the nets” aptly resembles the plight of lakhs of fisherfolks both inland and coastal in India whose livelihoods have apparently been undermined by various development projects. However, amid growing uncertainties they keep up the resistance against the destructive projects to reclaim their rights as the top ten stories of past one year compiled here signifies. This is the fifth part of our annual overview on the subject and in first four parts we have highlighted the positive developments on fisheries, impact of dams on fish diversity and habitats, important studies and new fish species discovered in India during past one year.

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Fish, Fisheries, Fisherfolk

WFD 2025: New Freshwater Fish Discoveries from India

November 21, 2025 SANDRPLeave a comment

(Feature Image: The new species of cyprinid from the Brahmaputra River. Source)

Amid rising threats, the researchers continue to discover new freshwater fish species in India mostly from North East and Western Ghats as shows this overview, prepared on the occasion of World Fisheries Day (WFD) 2025. This is fourth overview and we have covered positive developments, impact of dams, important studies on the subject taking place during the past one year in first, second and third parts of the series.

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Fish, Fisheries, Fisherfolk

WFD 2025: Important Studies, Reports on Freshwater Fish Species, Habitats

November 21, 2025November 23, 2025 SANDRPLeave a comment

Marking World Fisheries Day (WFD) 2025, we present some of important studies and reports highlighting the growing threats over freshwater fish species in India and across the globe. The multi-taxon global freshwater fauna assessment for The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species published this year is among most concerning report revealing looming extinction threats over 24% of freshwater fauna worldwide. This includes the hump-backed mahseer, subterranean snakehead and peninsular hill trout found in rivers and waterbodies of Western Ghats.

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Dams, Rivers & People · Fish, Fisheries, Fisherfolk

WFD 2025: Impacts of Dams on Inland Fish, Fisherfolks

November 20, 2025November 20, 2025 SANDRPLeave a comment

On the Occasion of World Fisheries Day (WFD) 2025, SANDRP shares the top ten reports underlining the growing impacts of river obstruction projects on freshwater fish species and dependent fisherfolks in India. Indeed, damming free flowing rivers has become the single biggest reason behind growing extinction rate of aquatic life by severely disrupting their migration routes. The iconic hilsa and mahaseer fish in Ganga and Narmada have declined sharply due to construction of Farakka and Sardar Sarovar dams respectively, among others.

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Fish, Fisheries, Fisherfolk

World Fisheries Day 2025: Top 10 Positive Stories from India

November 20, 2025November 22, 2025 SANDRPLeave a comment

Recognizing the fisherfolks’ valuable services to the society, the annual World Fisheries Day (WFD) will be celebrated on Nov. 21 with the theme “We have not caught anything, but at your word I will let down the nets”. On this occasion SANDRP compiles top 10 positive developments that took place during last one year regarding protection of inland fisherfolks’ rights and also protecting the habitats of freshwater fish species in India.

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Dams, Rivers & People

DRP 171125: A Senior HC Lawyer speaks up about poor track record of Judiciary on Environmental issues

November 17, 2025November 17, 2025 SANDRPLeave a comment

(Feature Image Source: Question of Cities)

In an interview (see below) to Question of Cities, Senior High Court Lawyer Gayatri Singh explains, giving examples from court cases, why she has a negative sense of the Judiciary and how courts are passing conflicting orders. She showed how slum dwellers were forced to live in polluted areas, detrimental to their health. She shows examples of how judiciary interprets environmental laws differently for the powerful sections and differently for the poor people and citizens.

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Beas · Climate Change · Dams · Disasters · Himalayas · Hydro Disaster

Himachal Pradesh: Sainj HEP Remains Out of Operation for over 4 months

November 16, 2025November 16, 2025 SANDRPLeave a comment

(Feature Image: Outlet of Sainj HEP powerhouse tunnel buried under silt in last week of June 2025. Source: Hariram Chaudhary, Sainj)

The Sainj Hydroelectric Project (HEP) in Kullu district of Himachal Pradesh has been out of operation for over the past four months. The 100 Mw project of the Himachal Pradesh Power Corporation Limited (HPPCL) is the fourth HEP which was severely affected by flash flood in Jiwa nullah on June 25, 2025.

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Climate Change · Himalayas · Hydro Disaster · River Valley Projects

2025: Hydro Projects Accidents & Disasters in Himalaya

November 15, 2025November 16, 2025 SANDRPLeave a comment

The accidents and disasters occurring particularly during monsoon months have affected several Hydro Electric Projects (HEP) both built and under construction in Himalayan states of India. In this overview, we put together information about such disasters to underline their increasing vulnerabilities to climatic disasters endangering the lives of workers and local people living in the vicinity of these projects.

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Floods · Monsoon · Yamuna River

2025 South West Monsoon in Upper Yamuna Basin

November 12, 2025 SANDRPLeave a comment

(Feature Image: Screenshot of IMD River basin wise cumulative rainfall map dated 30.09.2025 showing the Yamuna basin)

This report presents monthly rainfall figures during South West (SW) monsoon season 2025 for 16 districts located in 4 states of Himachal Pradesh (3 districts), Uttarakhand (3 districts), Haryana (5 districts), Uttar Pradesh (5 districts) which forms parts of the upper Yamuna basin. The India Meteorological Département (IMD) has divided Delhi in 10 divisions which entirely comes in upper Yamuna basin and the report has rainfall figures for entire Delhi area.

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