-The Hindustan Times The recent spurt in protests against projects from Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu to Mahan coal block in Madhya Pradesh to Tata’s Power Plant in Mundra, Gujarat, has raised a key question --- are American and European philanthropic groups supporting these agitations?   A conference organised by such groups from the two most developed regions of the world --- US and Europe --- in Istanbul this July provides an insight how...

-The Business Standard The rural jobs scheme can boost productivity in farm and textiles sector. There is mounting evidence that Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) of 2005, under which 100 days of guaranteed wage employment a year was to be provided to target households, is failing to meet its stated objectives. The total cumulative expenditure since 2005 under the MGNREGA is officially estimated to be Rs 1,50,000 crore, and the...

-The Hindu Tamil Nadu’s Solar Energy Policy can go a long way in addressing the supply-demand mismatch The State’s solar initiative can draw on the strengths of its robust wind power programme Is the sun the answer to Tamil Nadu’s power crisis? With the unveiling of the Solar Energy Policy last week, Tamil Nadu joins the long list of States trying to find a way of harnessing this source of renewable energy...

-The Hindu Legislative Assembly panel gives clean chit for transfer of Rogda reservoir land to private power company While there is an outcry in Maharashtra over disappearing irrigation water, in Chhattisgarh, an entire reservoir — the lifeline of four villages — has vanished. The 131-acre rain-fed reservoir has been leased out by the government to a private power company. However, an Assembly committee, recently constituted to investigate the ‘transfer’ of the reservoir, in...

-The Hindu Search on for another location for the proposed nuclear electricity park There is another wrinkle in India-Russia relations, besides the known differences over Sistema’s telecom investments, the delays in the commissioning of aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov and the applicability of the nuclear liability legislation to units 3 and 4 of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project. India and Russia are scouting for another site for a nuclear electricity park after the West...