IWN Report — Wednesday, 23 September 2026

India announced the launch of Project Rhino on Tuesday, a new scheme of central funding and technical support for the states that shelter India’s greater one-horned rhinos, arriving as Assam — home to roughly four-fifths of the world’s population — closed out 2025 with zero confirmed poaching deaths.

In a social media post marking World Rhino Day, the prime minister described the new programme as support “for protection, habitat management, genetic improvement and understanding population dynamics” across the country’s rhino-range states.

Assam’s own count, according to the Assam Forest Department, puts more than 2,600 rhinos in Kaziranga National Park and 40 to 50 in Manas National Park. The IUCN’s Asian Rhino Specialist Group estimates the global population, spread across India and Nepal, at around 4,075, up from 4,014 in a 2022 count.

Terai Comeback

In Uttar Pradesh, Dudhwa Tiger Reserve‘s own head count this July put the park’s rhino population at 53, up five on the previous year after three animals died. Officials there trace today’s herd back to seven rhinos brought from Assam and Nepal in 1984, the first attempt to re-establish the species in a landscape where it had been extinct for more than a century.

Ground Level

The occasion also brought a smaller, more practical gesture in western Assam. At Sikhna Jwhwlao National Park in Kokrajhar, the conservation group Aaranyak joined the Assam Forest Department‘s Ultapani Forest Range and the Evergreen Charitable Trust to mark World Rhino Day with a training session for frontline patrol staff. Officials from the Haltugaon Forest Division and Aaranyak’s Bibhab Kumar Talukdar spoke about coordinating logistics and training across the agencies protecting the park.

Aaranyak and the Evergreen Charitable Trust handed out rain gear, field shoes and rechargeable torches to the rangers on duty for the coming patrol season.

Sources: News On AIR · ANI · The Assam Tribune · ThePrint · The Shillong Times