After a perilous wait of eleven years and four days for justice, 40 residents of Sangemarmar Apartments, which collapsed during the earthquake 2001, received their due from the builders responsible for the tragedy. Gujarat State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission ordered the builders of Sangemarmar Apartments, to pay varying amounts of compensations for the building collapse - around Rs 35 lakh each to residents of the flats who complained that the building...

The Supreme Court-appointed committee investigating illegal iron ore mining in Karnataka is tying up loose ends in Bellary district and will be submitting its final report early next month. The court's forest bench is to hear the case again on February 3.  The Central Empowered Committee (CEC), whose investigations prompted the Supreme Court to suspend mining in iron ore-rich areas of the state, affecting nearly a fourth of the country's production,...

-The Deccan Chronicle Henceforth if any government agency denies information under Right to Information Act (RTI), applicants need not wait for years for the intervention of the state information commission. Instead they can approach the district consumer disputes redressal forum. In a land mark judgment, II additional district consumer disputes redressal forum, of the city of Seshadripu ram has ruled that RTI applicants are also consumers and it is the responsibility...

-Express News Service   A dalit’s house was allegedly set on fire, leaving four of his teenaged children critically injured, in Kanpur while another dalit was allegedly burnt to death in Kannauj district, on Monday. Both incidents were reported to be fallout of the Land disputes. In Kanpur, DIG Rajesh Kumar Rai said a fire broke out in Hari Ram Gautam’s house at Sidhhanath Nagar locality early this morning when three of his...

Water, the most vital of all resources, has emerged as a key issue that would determine if Asia is headed toward cooperation or competition. After all, the driest continent in the world is not Africa but Asia, where availability of freshwater is not even half the global annual average of 6,380 cubic metres per inhabitant. When the estimated reserves of rivers, lakes, and aquifers are added up, Asia has less than...