When your neighbour is a tiger

The tiger-chasing superman of the Sundarbans

Reports of tiger attacks on humans in the Sundarbans do reach the mainland. But those who save the two and four-legged creatures from each other remain invisible. Here’s the story of one such unsung hero

August 28, 2025 | Arnab Dutta

A fateful triangle: tigers, humans and development

The summer of 2025 has ended, and Chandrapur district in Maharashtra counted fresh human casualties in tiger attacks, signalling the continuation and perhaps worsening of the human-tiger conflict

August 26, 2025| Jaideep Hardikar

Tiger tiger everywhere

At the Valmiki Tiger Reserve in Bihar, the tiger population has risen swiftly, and so have the deaths caused by human-animal conflict

May 22, 2025| Umesh Kumar Ray and Shreya Katyayini

Adivasis in Panna tiger park: dammed futures

First, they were moved to make space for tigers. Now it’s the Ken-Betwa river linking project that is grabbing forest dwellers’ land. The uncertainty about compensation, displacement dates and destination, is happening all over again

November 28, 2024 | Priti David

Dukkarwale mama is a man in a hurry!

Vitthal Badkhal is a godsend for farmers in and around Chandrapur district and the Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve. 'Dukkarwale mama' as he is called here, is a compensation crusader, educating and actively helping farmers file claims to recover the losses caused by wild animal raids

December 12, 2023 | Jaideep Hardikar

Chandrapur’s cultivators: farming in fear

Wild animals are attacking people working on land near forest, causing grievous injuries and even fatalities. This comes after price volatilities and climatic aberrations have already put the tiller’s survival here at risk. The bloody fallout of the man-animal conflict around the Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve (TATR) is linked to the growing success of Project Tiger

September 27, 2023 | Jaideep Hardikar

In the Sundarbans, a tiger-shadowed wedding

Priyanka Mondal recently got married in the Sundarbans' Rajat Jubilee village amid memories of her father, Arjun Mondal, whose death in a tiger attack in 2019 has left his family struggling with sorrow and finances

January 4, 2021 | Ritayan Mukherjee

https://ruralindiaonline.org/authors/ritayan-mukherjee/

Forced out of the forest and into uncertainty

The Adivasis of Talgaon, in the Panna Tiger Reserve's core area, had to give up their traditional livelihoods when they were relocated. They now live without land titles, rations and schools – fearing further eviction

December 12, 2018 | Maithreyi Kamalanathan

November 26, 2018 | Jaideep Hardikar

‘Where will the tigers go?'

Tiger landscapes in Vidarbha are shrinking, largely due to infrastructure projects, while the tiger population is growing. So the animals venture into villages, where attacks are increasing. And there's no solution in sight

November 20, 2018 | Jaideep Hardikar

Tigress T1’s trail of attacks and terror

Before the tigress was shot dead on November 2, T1 killed at least 13 people over two years in Yavatmal. Who were her victims? How did she attack, and, as many here describe it, ‘sucked the blood out of her prey'?

November 7, 2018 | Jaideep Hardikar

‘When I see him back home, I thank the tiger’

Though Shankar Atram, a terrified cattle herder in Yavatmal, fashioned a near-comical flimsy ‘body armour' against the recently-killed T1, for him and other villagers the problem could now be more displaced tigers

November 6, 2018 | Jaideep Hardikar

In tigress T1 territory: chronicle of a killing

On November 2, T1, a tigress believed to have killed at least 13 people, was shot in Yavatmal district. What happened in the weeks before this massive operation involving hundreds of officials and dozens of tactics?

November 5, 2018 | Jaideep Hardikar

Widowed by tigers, abandoned by the state

Every year, estimates indicate, around 100 men are killed by tigers in the Sundarbans. A bureaucratic maze then disallows their widows from getting compensation, forcing them to live in distress and penury

October 12, 2017 | Urvashi Sarkar

'This calf went missing after I took this photo'

N. Swamy Bassavanna, a farmer from Mangala village, says in this sixth in a series of six photo essays on life in a forest, ‘Everyone should be involved in farming and understand the challenges we face’

August 21, 2017 | N. Swamy Bassavanna

'That is where the leopard and tiger attack'

Indra Kumar, who works in Mangala village near Bandipur National Park, records cattle herders, leopard attacks, folk art performers and the harvest in this fifth photo essay in a series of six on PARI

August 14, 2017 | M. Indra Kumar

Close encounters with the Prince of Bandipur

K.N. Mahesha, a naturalist and cultivator who lives close to Bandipur National Park, brings images of fighting bulls, sensitive cows, work elephants and raptors, in this fourth photo essay in a series of six on PARI

August 7, 2017 | K.N. Mahesha

Flood, famine, Partition, riots, the promise of land and jobs drove early migrations to the Sundarbans. The settlers then battled disease, hunger and attacks by tigers, but eventually found a home

April 10, 2017 | Urvashi Sarkar

Jayamma Belliah, an Adivasi from Ananjihundi village in Karnataka, documents her life in a forest with a camera. An outstanding photo essay on PARI to commemorate March 8, International Women's Day

March 8, 2017 | Jayamma Belliah

The sting of bees and the tyranny of tigers

The ‘mouleys’ or honey collectors of the Sundarbans work without safeguards in dense and dangerous jungles – encountering crocodiles, tigers and the diktats of the Forest Department

September 23, 2016 | Urvashi Sarkar

Ferries, fish, tigers and tourism

All in a day's work on Bali island in the Sundarbans, in West Bengal's South 24 Parganas district

June 22, 2016 | Mahesh Ramchandani

Land of eighteen tides and one goddess

A documentary that looks at how the blended mythologies of Ma Bonbibi and Dakshinrai aid the coexitence of humans, nature and the wild in the Sundarbans

June 21, 2016 | Malay Dasgupta

Ma Bonbibi, mother to humans and tigers

The jungle goddess of the Sundarbans in West Bengal demands that Hindus and Muslims unite in upholding her pact with the animal kingdom

April 16, 2016 | Shatarupa Bhattacharyya