-The Hindu Tamnar, Raigarh: Standing on the edge of a monstrous, black gorge 72 year old Kaniram, a Birhor tribal, stretched his left hand to point at the mud thatched house that he had in the hill slope. However, one could only see waves of unending charcoal coloured hills in the backdrop. The area - definitely not less than few hundred square kilometers - looks grey but Kaniram found the whole...

-The Hindu The Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC) will examine whether developmental interventions and constitutional safeguards - including Fifth Schedule provisions - have come to the aid of tribal people in Left Wing Extremism (LWE)-affected districts in central India. An NAC Working Group (WG) headed by tribal expert Professor Virginius Xaxa - who also heads the Prime Minister's high level committee that is to produce a report on the...

-AP STOCKHOLM: Scientists working on a landmark UN report on climate change are struggling to explain why global warming appears to have slowed down in the past 15 years even though greenhouse gas emissions keep rising. Leaked documents obtained by Associated Press show there are deep concerns among governments over how to address the issue ahead of next week's meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Climate skeptics have used the lull...

-Frontline Interview with Jairam Ramesh, Union Minister for Rural Development. THE passage of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, 2013, is being perceived as a major achievement by the United Progressive Alliance government. The Bill that has replaced the colonial Land Acquisition Act, 1894, went through several changes in order to arrive at a middle path, a term coined by Union Minister for...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Western Ghats may be in danger again. This time from a "drinking water" supply project. Yettinahole diversion project located in the ecologically sensitive zone as per the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel involves 8 dams inside the forests, 250kms long canals, 80kms and 50kms long raising mains, a reservoir that will submerge 1200 hectares of land and 2 villages according to a recent assessment by...