-The Hindu Instead of opening a debate on the Gadgil panel's report on the Western Ghats, the government has chosen to sideline and replace it with another by an alternate group This is a challenging time in India's development history where a number of tenets of environmental governance are being questioned by the imperative of growth. Environmental governance in India is under assault, and is thus in need of both fresh thinking,...

-Economic and Political Weekly The Saradha group's collapse has possibly bankrupted lakhs of small investors robbing them of their life svaings, and has rendered thousands of its agents jobless. The scam highlights the failure of the government and its regulatory agencies to reign in the mushrooming chit fund companies in West Bengal. It also brings under the scanner the Trinamool Congress' proximity with the tainted group. In the wake of the...

-The Hindu   Explain how minors are getting into Facebook and Google, Delhi High Court asks govt. The Delhi High Court on Thursday asked the Union government to explain how it was allowing children below 18 years to open accounts in social networking sites such as Facebook and Google. A Division Bench of Justices B.D. Ahmed and Vibhu Bakhru asked the Centre to respond within 10 days when counsel for the former BJP leader,...

-The Indian Express Kolkata: Saradha Group CMD Sudipta Sen has sent an 18-page letter to the CBI containing names of several key politicians, officials and legal experts who allegedly milked the company for money. The letter, which reached the CBI in Delhi as Sen remained at large, was forwarded by the agency to its office in Kolkata, and it was subsequently referred to the Bidhannagar police commissionerate. Bidhannagar police commissioner Rajeev Kumar received...

-Down to Earth Inadequate sewage treatment and disposal in the national capital territory is contaminating city's groundwater Delhi residents who depend on groundwater for their drinking water needs be warned. The latest data of the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) shows that groundwater samples taken from observation wells in the national capital are getting contaminated because of their unhygienic catchments and untreated sewage, which is discharged in the open and into drains,...