http://newsdesk.tjctv.com/ This week on Up Close, we’re taking you on two voyages of discovery, and the mix of pessimism and hope we find along the way.

News anchor Imran Garda, covering the past few years for Al Jazeera and other networks, has seen an Arab Spring flow into a refugee crisis. His novel travels around Africa and beyond to bring us a story in the midst of the story, with "The Thunder That Roars."

And then, Meera Subramanian visited the land of her father to explore the way the world's largest democracy was coping with environmental problems, and how some Indians hope to forge a new path. She tells her story in "A River Runs Again: India's Natural World in Crisis, from the Barren Cliffs of Rajasthan to the Farmlands of Karnataka."