Both Posco and the Orissa government said there were no tribals on the land for Posco’s 12 mn tonne steel plant. The presence of 21 tribals in the voters list has hit their credibility and probably the plant as well A 4-member environment ministry committee has recommended that the environmental clearances given to Posco be revoked for the violation of existing laws, for serious lapses and suppression of facts. As always,...

About three kilometers from this village, across dirt tracks and open scrubland, there is a settlement of seven mud huts bordered by millet and lentil fields. No electricity or telephone poles run to these huts. There’s not a satellite dish to be seen. In the dry, open land that surrounds the settlement — part of the great Thar Desert that dominates the western part of the state of Rajasthan — black...

PepsiCo India, the country’s leading food & beverage company, has announced the successful completion of its community water initiatives in Panipat, Haryana. The project has two legs—water recharge structures aimed at improving the water availability for the neighbouring community and direct seeding of paddy that helps reduce water consumption by one-third in paddy cultivation. According to company officials, the projects will benefit nearly 200 families in and around Panipat and save...

As millions of children around the world start school this month, many are discovering something critical is missing. It's not teachers or textbooks - it's toilets. Poor sanitation doesn't just cause high rates of illness and absenteeism, but it also affects a child's intelligence, aid agencies say, with research showing that diarrhoea and worm infestations can lower IQ. Sanitation is one of the most wildly off-track targets under the United Nations' anti-poverty...

With a gas-guzzler of an economy, India had been spending tens of billions of dollars annually to import petroleum. And so its 2009 policy on biofuels mandated that by 2017, India would have enough biofuel production to cover at least 20 percent of the country’s oil consumption. The government has in fact been encouraging the cultivation of jatropha curcas for the past seven years, believing that would be the fastest way...