-The Hindu     This was an eco-sensitive zone, involving massive infrastructure, they say Ahmedabad: Around 50 environmentalists from across the country have written to the Union Environment Ministry that Chief Minister Narendra Modi's pet project, Statue of Unity, envisaging a 182- metre statue of Sardar Patel inside Narmada river, 3.2 km downstream of Sardar Sarovar Dam and Shoolpaneshar Sanctuary, was working without environment approval. This was an eco-sensitive zone, involving massive infrastructure. Work had...

-The Business Standard Does the Indian government's loud voice in international negotiations lead to results? At the recent Word Trade Organisation (WTO) meet in Bali, the Indian government went, with all guns blazing, to defend the rights of the country's farmers and to secure food security for millions of poor people. It opposed the Agreement on Agriculture, which limits government food procurement to 10 per cent of the value of total...

-The Hindu Tamil Nadu: With the price of LPG gas cylinders going up, the need of the hour is technology that can provide cooking gas - an efficient fuel - that will help the poor, particularly the rural population. Vivekananda Kendra-Natural Resources Development (Vk- Nardep), an NGO in Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu, has come out with a low-volume fixed model Shakthi-Surabhi gas generating plant, aimed at solving the energy problems of the rural...

-Down to Earth State government yet to revoke ban on non-motorised transport despite repeated protests, calls from civil society and advisory from Union Ministry of Urban Development "I have been fined three times this month while delivering milk," says an angry Omkar Mandal. For over two decades now, Mandal has been cycling about 10 km every day to pick up and deliver milk. "Each time I have to pay Rs 120. How...

-The Times of India Shanti is a small, bird-like woman with unkempt grey hair, a wizened face and an innocent, trusting smile. The constant smile is remarkable because her life is unbelievably difficult. She lives in a mud hut in Katihar district of Bihar with her paralyzed husband. Her daughter has been married off and her son has "gone away somewhere to find work", never to return. She has no land,...