A social impact assessment report has slammed the 9900MW Jaitapur nuclear power park proposed in coastal Konkan, saying it would have a negative social and environmental impact on nearby villages. The 40-page report, compiled by a disaster management centre of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, has analysed the social impact the project would have on seven villages where the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd will acquire about 968 hectares. The...

Jairam Ramesh, India's environment minister, will make a decision in the next week that could define the future of the country: whether to approve a $12 billion South Korean-owned steel plant, the largest potential foreign direct investment ever on the subcontinent. The plant, proposed by South Korea's Posco, has been in the works for years. It already has been cleared by the environment ministry, which Mr. Ramesh runs, and endorsed by...

“Inside the mine everything is very fragile. Even the falling of a small rock can cause death sometimes. People from outside cannot imagine what the hell is inside the mine!” These are the words of 16-year old Muzzammal Haque who works in a coal mine in the Jaintia Hills, Meghalaya. He is yet another example of the bonded child labour in the various coal mines in the Jaintia Hills on...

Finance minsiter Pranab Mukherjee has favoured a balanced approach on the issue of displacement of tribals due to mining projects, saying that solution does not lie in stopping these projects altogether. “Answer does not lie in the companies stopping mining activities. Answer lies in providing alternatives to those displaced... in what form we can compensate them and make them beneficiary of economic development,” Mr Mukherjee said at a coal summit on...

The minister for environment and forests, Jairam Ramesh’s order stopping Vedanta Aluminum Ltd and the Orissa Mining Corporation from mining bauxite in the Niyamgiri Hills to feed the company’s adjacent Lanjigarh aluminum refinery plant located in one of the country’s poorest districts in the name of tribal interest tends to miss the wood for the trees. It is based on the report of a four-member expert group under N C...