The CAG indicts Uttarakhand for pursuing hydel power projects indiscriminately without concern for the environment. IN a severe indictment of the Uttarakhand government, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India said it was pushing the State towards a major environmental catastrophe by following a highly ambitious hydropower policy. In a report titled “Performance Audit of Hydropower Development Through Private Sector Participation”, which was released recently, the CAG substantiates the allegations...

A lot has been said and written about the visit of Barack Obama, the President of USA to India. The corporate media was in the usual over-enthusiastic drive to bring to its readers and viewers all minute details about his visit from where he stayed and what he ate to how many warships, planes and cars accompanied him and how a whopping $200 million was spent per day for the...

Unique features of the public wage programme turn it into a magnet for women More women than men work under the national programme that guarantees employment to rural people. In the current fiscal till October, women availed of more than 50 per cent of employment created under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). Their participation has been growing since the inception of the Act in 2006. This is...

Even as the Indian Network for Climate Change Assessment — dubbed “the Indian Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)” — released its first report on the impact of climate change in four regions of the country, it admitted that significant research gaps and lack of extensive databases were hampering Indian climate science. Long-term localised data was not available on vegetation and forest cover, socio-economic trends, farm inputs, pests and crop diseases,...

Frequent and unrelenting protests against land acquisition seem to have compelled political parties to take the issue seriously. The Centre has promised to introduce a redrafted land acquisition Bill during the winter session of Parliament. As per official pronouncements, the Bill will provide for higher compensation to the affected parties. Besides, acquisition for private companies will be restricted to less than 30% of the total land required for the project. However,...