When Sangita Iyer, a multiple award-winning nature and wildlife journalist and filmmaker,  and the founder of Voice for Asian Elephants Society, VFAES,  brought to fore the plight of temple elephants in Kerala—a tropical southern coastal state in India—through her award-winning documentary Gods In Shackles, it was definitely a wake-up call, and one that urges to take up the cudgel and lead the wagon. The distress of captive elephants is a veiled tale of injustice in many temples across South In...

Kerala—the tropical strip of a state in India’s south with its alluring palm-fringed beaches, lush rainforests, mountain ridged valleys, tranquil backwaters, exotic Ayurveda, and rolling hillside plantations—is, by all means, God’s own Country. Yet, the most abiding image of the landscape is the sad faces of the caparisoned temple elephants. Their agony has taken the sheen off the festivities so enmeshed in the cultural ethos of the land. In Kerala, cultural festivals involving elephant pageants...

The tourism industry has long used the visual trope of riding an elephant to be the ultimate vacation signature. But the trend may be slowly seeing its way out, as campaigners condemn holiday adverts featuring elephant rides and shows, with calls for a ban gaining momentum across the world.Southeast Asia is a major tourist hub, and every year a good number of people travel to countries like India, Thailand, Cambodia, and others to explore what makes these places exotic. So elephants, by default,...

Do elephants say "I love you?" Do they do it any better than humans? How do you know when they’re in love? How intense is their passion? What makes an elephant romantic? The curious part of the story, however, is that the elephant heart is not as tiny as it looks in the puzzle, but rather the round-shaped heart makes up about 5% of its body weight at 26-46 pounds. Also, instead of having a heart with a single point, an elephant’s heart has two points at its apex, an unusual trait among mammals.P...