'Scaling Up' – essential reading – revolves around the life and work of Romulus Whitaker, an American-born wildlife biologist, who adopted India and its reptilian fauna back in the 1960s. It is told by Zai, Whitaker’s partner of many years.

Ghazala Shahabuddin describes her and her peers' efforts to understand how Himalayan birds cope with the twin threats of land-use change and global warming.

The government's focus on exact population numbers where none exist, dismissal of habitat development and deceptive allocation of funds is letting India pretend it's helping its tigers.