A forest panel examining any potential violation of forest laws for a proposed steel mill by South Korea's POSCO in Orissa has recommended temporary withdrawal of existing permits, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said on Monday. The long-delayed plant in India's eastern state of Orissa has been stalled by protests and environmental reports spearheaded by Jairam Ramesh, who has Scrapped many big-ticket projects including some by London-listed miner Vedanta Resources Plc. POSCO is...

Farmer leader Manveer Singh Tevatia on Monday announced that he along with his supporters will sit on a fast unto death at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi from December 1 in support of their demands to amend the Land Acquisition Act 1894 and to implement UP government's new land acquisition policy with retrospective effect from 1997. The demands also include right to decide the rate of the land-to-be-acquired should be...

Under unrelenting pressure to act against corruption, the government on Monday swung into action. It said it would slap show-cause notices on 85 licence holders asking why their licences should not be cancelled for violating eligibility norms. It will also ask the ministry of corporate affairs to check if Swan Telecom acted as a front, as alleged by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India. The companies facing show-cause include Uninor,...

The Bombay High Court at Goa on Friday quashed the allotment of land on lease by the State-owned industry promotion body to the promoters of seven Special Economic Zone(SEZ) projects upholding the State Government's power to Scrap the SEZ policy and the projects in public interest. A Bench comprising Justice A. S. Oka and Justice F. M. Reis, inter alia ruled that that there was lack of fairness and transparency in...

The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to the Union Ministry of Environment & Forest (MoEF) to file its reply on whether the proposed cement plant by Nirma Limited in Mahuva taluka of Bhavnagar district would pollute or adversely affect the water body on the site. A three-judge SC bench comprising Chief Justice S H Kapadiya, Justice Swatanter Kumar and Justice K S Radhakrishnan issued the notice while hearing a Special...