-The Times of India   NEW DELHI: The government on Thursday kicked off online environment clearances for industrial and infrastructure projects which have for long been hobbled by the slow pace of green approvals. As part of the transition to an e-window mechanism, for the next three weeks, project developers will be required to submit a hard copy of the application besides filing it online. From July 1, the system will be fully...

-Live Mint   Prakash Javadekar's environment ministry proposes reduction in parameters defining forests as inviolate New Delhi: On a day it took the environment approval process online, the new government proposed diluting the norms for allowing industrial units in forest areas, moving to clear a logjam in project mandates that industry groups allege has contributed to declining economic growth. Not only will it make the process of environment clearances easier, the norms, once changed,...

-The Business Standard     They were unimpressed by the UPA's misguided socialism, but they worry about the new regime's free-market orientation too Consider this paradox. The Congress Party-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) was decimated in the elections in spite of several years of good monsoon and rising agricultural production. Consider another paradox. This was the regime that implemented policies that were presumed to be pro-farmer: the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, the...

-FAO FAO publishes first global study of forest genetic resources Rome - FAO today urged countries to improve data gathering and research to promote the conservation and sustainable management of the world's forest genetic resources, which are coming under increasing pressure. According to the first-ever edition of The State of the World's Forest Genetic Resources report, half of the forest species reported as regularly utilized by countries are threatened by the conversion of...

-The Hindu   The World of Work Report 2014 catalogues the impressive strides developing countries are making to catch up with advanced nations. But the International Labour Organisation study also contains important caveats on the cost from continuing sharp inequalities. Per capita income has grown on average by 3.3 per cent per annum in 140 countries over the past three decades, as against 1.8 per cent in the advanced economies. But this...