NC Saxena , the influential former bureaucrat who is a member of the National Advisory Council, has raised the ineffectiveness of government programmes among tribal people in a paper that will come up for discussion before the Sonia-Gandhi headed council. The government relied on a report by Saxena last year in denying clearance to a large mining project by Vedanta Resources in Orissa’s Niyamgiri hills . This had attracted international...

The Right to Information (RTI) Act and activists who pursued the Adarsh case as early as 2008 are emerging victorious in the battle over the cooperative housing society. The RTI Act was instrumental in not only revealing the names of the 103 approved members of the controversial society, but also in bringing to light the links between politicians and various officials, including those in the government, military and defence estates...

Faced with full demolition, the Adarsh housing society today said it would challenge the “mala fide” order in the high court even as it slammed environment minister Jairam Ramesh for his tearing hurry. “Right from day one, even before the show-cause notice was issued to the society, the minister has been saying the building would be demolished. It is a mala fide order. The minister seemed to be in a tearing...

There is more trouble in store for South Korean steel maker Posco’s Orissa project. Shoreline surveys have found the state’s coastline to be highly erosive. Worse still, 50%, that is 4.8 km of the 9.3 km coastline along the proposed captive port site at Jatadhari is eroding. This is likely to put a spanner in the works for the South Korean company, which has been insistent on a separate captive...

‘Akshardham, CWG Village on Yamuna bank shouldn't have got nod' Neither the Commonwealth Games Village nor the Akshardham Temple should have been allowed to be built on the banks of the Yamuna, according to Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh. He proposes to issue a River Regulation Zone notification to protect riverbeds from such harmful constructions in the future. “The manner in which the Yamuna riverbed has been devastated by constructions should be a...