The Critically Endangered Cantor's giant softshell turtle Pelochelys cantorii is a freshwater turtle found in South and Southeast Asia. Its population is declining because of habitat destruction and alteration, and hunting for its meat. Data on the species’ ecology, behaviour, population size, distribution and threats are limited, and previous surveys undertaken in India have failed to detect individuals in the wild. This lack of data hinders strategic conservation planning. Ecologists and conservationists increasingly utilize local ecological knowledge to determine the status and gain insights into the ecology of threatened and rare species that are difficult to detect in field studies. To examine the historical and current occurrence of Cantor's giant softshell turtle, we conducted community interviews along the Chandragiri River in Kerala, India. With data from these interviews, we identified multiple sites where the species continues to occur. Older respondents and those that used the river for fishing and irrigation were more likely to report sightings of the species. Our findings also improved knowledge about the turtles’ seasonal and diel activity patterns. A network of key informants identified through the interviews provided information on turtle bycatch, sightings and nesting. This network is being utilized for the continued monitoring of the species and could help in devising evidence-based management strategies for softshell turtles in India. These methods can also be adopted more widely for other threatened species of freshwater turtles globally.

This article focuses on the everyday practices that make the place of the neighbourhood – social control, legitimacy and support, while also looking at how gender is produced in everyday life in the neighbourhood. In doing this, the discussion underlines the tremendous social and cultural influence of neighbours and the neighbourhood and argues that neighbourhoods need to be seen as a social formation as important as caste, class, ethnicity or religion. This is particularly important given that a strong focus on identities in recent decades has tended to eclipse social formations such as the neighbourhood. This ethnographic discussion is based on fieldwork carried out in neighbourhoods in two towns in India, Thalassery in Kerala, South India and Bikaner in Rajasthan, North India.

The lack of electoral success of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the South Indian state of Kerala is often explained through the idea of Kerala ‘exceptionalism’, a broad term used to explain the unique historical, political, and developmental trajectory of the state. However, such explanations do not adequately address the systematic and concerted attempts by Hindu nationalist organizations to transform the cultural sphere of Kerala into a fertile ground for its future electoral politics. Through an ethnographic study of three Hindu nationalist organizations in the civil society sphere of Kodungallur, a multi-religious town in central Kerala, this article explores the politics and implications of their cultural interventions. The article argues that, peeved by an ‘absent Hindu atmosphere’ in Kerala, these organizations are trying to construct new forms of sociality and subjectivity and a grassroots public sphere embedded in Hindu nationalist ideology in Kodungallur. Often described by these organizations as ‘apolitical’ and ‘cultural’, these interventions are indeed a critique of the Kerala public sphere which is characterized by religious pluralism and secular sociality. Hence, the attempt to create a ‘Hindu atmosphere’ by these organizations is a deeply political endeavour aimed at creating an exclusivist Hindu hegemony in the cultural sphere, which they assume will pave the way for their electoral hegemony in Kerala in the long run.

Kerala is a well-recognized ‘model’ of human development in the world. In this article, I look at a crucial aspect of this development, which is often approached in a positivist fashion of statistical aggregation alone: consumption. Instead, there is a need to study the meanings that surround it. I delineate the many forces, particularly the new material infrastructure, that have driven consumption in the last three decades, especially the last one. With increasing integration into global market forces through migration and investment, and cultural imaginations, I show that there is a tectonic change in consciousness about consumption, marked by fantasies, desires, and, contrarily, feelings of excess and ambivalence. I argue that the non-market sector has also played an important role in consumption. There is an increasing generalization of certain ideas about consumption as well as disenchantments across classes. But critically, I contend, there are caste, class, and gender disparities in consumption as well as differences in the meanings attributed to it. Thus, consumption is a socially meaningful, but discrepant, space. This article is based on fieldwork conducted in a town in central Kerala, supplemented with quantitative data.

Animals which migrate by flying should be subject to selection for optimal wing characteristics that maximize energy efficiency during migration. We investigated wing shape and wing area variation in the Globe Skimmer Dragonfly Pantala flavescens, which has the longest known migration of any insect. Wing shape and wing area differences between individuals in southern Peninsular India, and migrating individuals at a stop-over site on the Maldives, were compared. Results suggest that individuals which successfully reached the Maldives, on their way from India to Africa, had a broader wing base and an overall more slender wing shape than individuals in southern India. Contrary to our expectations, wing area did not differ significantly in most of our comparisons between southern India and the Maldives, suggesting that wing shape is more important than wing area for successful migration in P. flavescens. The results provide indirect evidence of natural selection on wing shape in a migrating dragonfly.

The feminisation of ageing observed across the world is a significant challenge in many societies. Women's greater longevity is associated with the increased likelihood of age-related disability and morbidity. Furthermore, gendered disadvantage and poverty can make access to health care increasingly problematic in later years. Among the Indian states, Kerala has the highest number of residents above the age of 60 and many are older widows. Given this context, this paper explores what promotes access to health care for older widows living alone in the south Indian state of Kerala. Thirty-two in-depth interviews, eight focus group discussions and eight units of participant observation were carried out among widows, health-care providers and key informants. Applying a reflexive inductive approach to our analysis, the main barriers to access that emerged were altered family structures and loneliness, whilst enablers included good social networks and access to neighbourhood clinics. Our participants’ social networks were drawn from three levels: family, neighbourhood and the wider community. The ability to form a personal community from their social networks and the quality of relationships within this community strongly predicted the capacity to access health care. Efforts to improve access to health care for older widows requires a response that is rooted in the socio-cultural context of the community. Comprehensive social protection policies that promote initiatives to engender social capital among the older population, decentralised primary health-care services, and the training and sensitisation of health service staff would be key to promote equitable access for older widows.

This article describes the author's discovery of mindfulness and its method and describes the bias against mindfulness even at the beginning of the 21st century. The short essay also throws light on recent developments in mindfulness training and practice in the world and in the state of Kerala in South India.

Nipah virus (NiV) outbreak occurred in Kozhikode district, Kerala, India in 2018 with a case fatality rate of 91% (21/23). In 2019, a single case with full recovery occurred in Ernakulam district. We described the response and control measures by the Indian Council of Medical Research and Kerala State Government for the 2019 NiV outbreak. The establishment of Point of Care assays and monoclonal antibodies administration facility for early diagnosis, response and treatment, intensified contact tracing activities, bio-risk management and hospital infection control training of healthcare workers contributed to effective control and containment of NiV outbreak in Ernakulam.

Two new species, Begonia bracteolata and Begonia keralensis, are described from the Western Ghats of India. They are placed in the newly created Begonia sect. Flocciferae, along with B. albo-coccinea Hook. and B. floccifera Bedd. Lectotypes are designated for three names within this section. Colour photoplates, illustrations and an identification key to Begonia sect. Flocciferae are also provided.

The mineralogical status of ilmenite from a prominent modern placer deposit of India is illustrated using different techniques. Compositional, powder XRD, TGA and SEM analyses prove that consistent low temperature alteration took place in Chavara ilmenite leading to the formation of a pseudorutile-hydrated-ilmenite stage. Except for the indication of a geochemical zonation at the southern tip of the deposit, the Chavara ilmenite points to a common origin throughout its 22 km stretch along the coast. We advocate a major segregation activity by marine factors to the accumulated sediments in the shelf zone in order to originate such a huge deposit of homogeneous composition.

In southern Kerala, India, chrysoberyl occurs in granitic pegmatites in association with quartz in alkali feldspar and is thought to crystallize earlier than beryl and sillimanite. The pegmatites are thought to have derived from the residual melts of granitic liquids formed by partial melting of the khondalites. In the absence of pyrometasomatic, desilication or aluminium-contamination processes, the genesis of chrysoberyl is explained by the CO2 activity in residual melts. This model is at variance with the known concepts and may also explain the genesis of chrysoberyl in Sri Lanka where it is still controversial.

The study assessed: (1) the prevalence of exclusive use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), exclusive use of modern medicine and combined use; (2) the factors associated with exclusive CAM use; and (3) the expenditure for CAM use among type-2 diabetes patients in rural Kerala. We surveyed 400 diabetes patients selected by multi-stage cluster sampling. Exclusive CAM use was reported by 9%, exclusive modern medicine by 61% and combined use by 30%. Patients without any co-morbidity were four times, those having regular income were three times and those who reported regular exercise were three times more likely to use exclusive CAM compared with their counterparts. Expense for medicines was not significantly different for CAM compared with modern medicine both in government and private sector. Patients with any co-morbidity were less likely to use CAM indicating that CAM use was limited to milder cases of diabetes.

Eriocaulon biappendiculatum, a new species of Eriocaulaceae from the southern Western Ghats, India, is described and illustrated. The new species is close to Eriocaulon nairii but differs in having 5–17 peduncles, free male sepals, and both continuous ribbon-like and setiform appendages on the seeds.

The fasciolariid snail Granulifusus poppei was collected for the first time from the Kerala coast, India. The record of the specimen from the Arabian Sea shows the extended distribution of the species from Somalia to India in the western Indian Ocean.

The present study was conducted to document the rearing practices of village chicken production in the Northern midlands, agro-ecological zone comprising Kannur and Kozhikode districts of Kerala state, India. Data was generated from 65 and 63 chicken farming families of Kozhikode and Kannur districts respectively. The system of chicken rearing is extensive, with the provision of shelter only during the night. The birds are being managed mostly by women (89.06%). The decision on the sale of birds and eggs is made by women and the proceeds of sales go directly to them. It was found that as many as 43.75% of the chicken farmers in these areas have no other animal husbandry activities. The average flock size is 5.62 birds. Natural incubation using locally available materials as a nest box and sand as the nesting material is the common practice. The average number of eggs set under the broody hen for hatching is 10.41. Chicken coops are placed at an average distance of 5.45m from the house and elevated 0.39 m from the ground. The average floor area of the coops is 0.757 m2 and the night shelter provided per bird is 830.39 cm2. The walls and floor of the coops are made of wood and the roof with tiles or thatch in most of cases. Rice grain is commonly fed as supplementary feed with mostly no specific timing in feeding. Farmers depend on an array of herbs rather than chemotherapeutic agents and vaccines for the treatment and control of diseases. Most of the surplus males (59.38%) are discarded before one year of age, whereas females are less commonly culled (21.87%). The average culling age of males and females was 11.05 and 36.64 months, respectively. It was discovered that as high as 52.15% of the eggs and 59.38% of the cockerels produced are consumed in the home. When sold they attract at least a two-fold higher price compared to birds of industrial origin.