Ahead of the July 24 National Development Council (NDC) meeting, the Planning Commission will come out with a report on the problems in the Naxal-hit areas and the issues being faced by tribals. "We are going circulate a supplementary report on the special problems of the tribal districts. This will also cover those districts which are in the grip of Naxalism," Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia told reporters in...

Such projects in upper reaches of Arunachal rivers may hit areas downstream in Assam The Assam Assembly's House Committee, which studied the impact of the construction of big hydro-electric dams in the upper reaches of the Brahmaputra in Arunachal Pradesh on the areas downstream in Assam, has recommended that no dam be allowed in that State without a proper comprehensive and scientific assessment. In its final report tabled on the floor of...

Social activist and Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) leader Medha Patkar on Wednesday led thousands of protesters in laying a siege to Deputy Commissioner (DC) Pratik Hazela's office here and blocking the busy Mahatma Gandhi Road for nearly two-and-half hours. They were demanding an immediate halt to mega river-dam projects in Arunachal Pradesh and other north-eastern States. The protesters, most of them NGO, Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS) activists, marched to the...

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Oxford University today launched a new index to measure poverty levels which they said give a “multidimensional” picture of people living in hardship, and could help target development resources more effectively. The new measure, the Multidimensional Poverty Index, or MPI, was developed and applied by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) with UNDP support, the two institutions said in a joint...

AS CONCERN for the ecosystem runs high all across the world, a small, mountainous state in India’s Northeast — Sikkim, has taken a step ahead and declared to go completely organic by the year 2015. What this means is the total phasing out of chemical inputs from agriculture. Sikkim has long been an ecologically conscious state with initiatives such as a comprehensive ban on plastic, bio-medical and chemical waste in...