The Planning Commission today decided in favour of pumping nearly Rs 14,000 crore into social and physical infrastructure building in some 35 Maoist-hit districts. The plan, formulated at the request of finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, will focus on the National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme, rural roads, health, rural electricity, universal elementary education, child nutrition and health and new residential schools called ashram schools. Later this month, the action plan will be placed...

Approvals pertain to bauxite mining, alumina factory, wetlands allocation for three thermal projects Union Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh has announced a probe into all kinds of permission given so far for bauxite mining, setting up of alumina factory and allocation of wetlands in Srikakulam for setting up three thermal power projects. He promised to withdraw all permissions if the report proved that they were given in contravention...

A law empowering Indians to seek information from government to promote accountability and transparency has brought change to urban India, but has largely left out the country's rural poor, social activists say. The Right to Information (RTI) Act - similar to the Freedom of Information Act in the United States - was enacted almost five years ago and is aimed at providing a practical way for all citizens to access...

THE Indian Bureau of Mines, in its Indian Minerals Yearbook–2005, notes that Chhattisgarh has 28 different types of minerals, with coal and iron ore being the most abundant. The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), in its comprehensive book Rich Lands, Poor People: Is ‘Sustainable' Mining Possible?, says that around 16 per cent of India's coal reserves, 10 per cent of its iron-ore reserves, 5 per cent of its limestone...

ALMOST all the maladies afflicting the Indian mining industry have manifested themselves forcefully in the mineral-rich State of Jharkhand. Indiscriminate exploitation of natural resources, large-scale displacement of tribal people, and the rise of a mining lobby with immense political clout are only a few of these. Of course, in the last decade the State has also witnessed the rise of a number of people's resistance movements against displacement and environmental degradation...