A swarm of stink bugs and a river of rats: why India’s flowering bamboo causes a crisis for humans

Every few decades mass blooming in Mizoram’s forests causes a rodent boom – and devastation to crops. The cycle is well-known, so why aren’t farmers and authorities better prepared? In the hills of Mizoram state in north-east India, the first thing that farmers notice are the swarms of stink bugs, known locally as thangnang. It can mean only one thing: the rats are coming. And with them, famine. As dawn breaks in Mamit district, Maunsanga, a 62-year-old farmer, walks across his plot, stoppin...

By Tauseef Ahmad and Sajid Raina in Mamit district, Mizoram