Jairam Ramesh's order of May 6 rescinding his earlier stop-work notice with regard to the Maheshwar dam surprises many. ON May 6, Jairam Ramesh, the Union Minister of State for Environment and Forests, made a confession while responding to a questioner at a public meeting. He said he had been under “pressure” to overlook environmental violations while clearing certain projects. “Regularisation of illegality is a peculiar Indian characteristic. First you...

-The Economic Times   With the land acquisition work for Posco project near Paradip picking up gradually, Orissa government had decided to renew the lapsed MoU with the South Korean steel major before June, official sources today said. The state government would renew MoU with Posco before end of June, Orissa Steel and Mines minister Raghunath Mohanty. "We have decided to hold a meeting soon to take final decision on the...

The two most important national level committees responsible for wildlife conservation in India are increasingly being turned into rubber stamps for whatever officialdom wants done. The National Board for Wildlife (NBWL) has become a forum to greenwash a host of ‘development’ projects that threaten wildlife habitats, while the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) continues to steamroller a blinkered model of conservation. In both, civil society members have been reduced to either...

Construction related projects in the state are facing a huge problem of labour shortage. Labourers are not available even at higher wages and as a result, ongoing projects, including many realty projects, are progressing at a snail's pace. The labour intensive real estate and infrastructure industry is worth nearly Rs 50,000 crore and depends heavily upon migrant labourers from Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Bihar besides Panchmahal and Dahod districts of Gujarat. "Infrastructure...

-DNA   The Pune district administration will issue notices to Lavasa Corporation Limited and others after 10 adivasi farmers on Tuesday staked their claim to get back their land which had been transferred to the Lavasa hill city project. The Maval sub divisional officer (SDO), Sanjay Patil, held a hearing attended by the 10 farmers. Spread over 100 sq km, the Lavasa project is 65km from Pune in the seven hills in...