Then Clive Lloyd took over the West Indies cricket team, he knew he was no Garfield Sobers. Lloyd focused on infusing discipline and strategy sessions with the team. "Both exceptional leaders, Sobers led by example, while Lloyd built a team. I suspect Jairam Ramesh is more like Sobers," an environment analyst sums up his assessment of the minister. The Sobers analogy crops up, in explicit and implicit ways, in any...

Vikasa organisation, a wing under the National Child Labour Project (NCLP), has taken up a special drive to identify child labourers, in tribal and fishermen areas, and in areas where SCs and weaker section population lives in East Godavari. The identified children in age group of 7 to 14 years (both boys and girls) would be admitted to bridge schools run by NCLP, to equip them to join normal schools. The...

After wrangling with the coal ministry over green concerns, the environment ministry has cleared eight more CIL projects that have been stalled for about a year. The development comes close on the heels of Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh softening his stance on "no go" status for coal blocks falling in environmentally sensitive areas during the meeting of a Group of Ministers (GoM) on Coal last week, where he assured that...

To many, ecology clearances coming in quick succession first for the 12-million-tonne steel project, including a captive power complex and a minor port that the South Korean Posco is diligently pursuing for close to six years and then for SAIL’s three mining leases at Chiria in Jharkhand appear as history bending revolutions. This is because the ministry of environment and forests, led by environment zealot Jairam Ramesh was till the...

Investing around $1.3 trillion – or two per cent of global gross domestic product (GDP) – into ten key sectors can kick-start a transition towards a low-carbon, resource-efficient 'green economy' that can also help reduce poverty, says a new United Nations report launched today. The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) presented the report, “Towards a Green Economy: Pathways to Sustainable Development and Poverty Eradication,” to environment ministers from over 100 countries at...