-The Hindu Draft Cabinet note on NIB not sent to me, he says Infrastructure projects that come up on forest land must comply with the Forest Rights Act (FRA), Union Tribal Affairs Minister Kishore Chandra Deo has said. No land in a Fifth Schedule area should be handed over to any industry if it violated the Panchayat (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act (PESA), Mr. Deo said, responding to a query whether he agreed...
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Jayanthi assails investment super committee proposal -Shalini Singh
-The Hindu Proposed NIB would be illegal, she says Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jayanthi Natarajan has expressed “very serious concern” at the setting up of a National Investment Board to fast-track clearances of major infrastructure projects, saying the “concept is unacceptable,” documents exclusively obtained by The Hindu reveal. In a five-page letter sent to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on October 9, Ms. Natarajan said the proposal would upturn established procedures...
More »There is no ‘foreign hand’-Amita Baviskar
-The Indian Express Conspiracy theories are a handy standby when one wants to avoid the effort of critical thinking. So Tavleen Singh would rather rely on “the foreign hand” — that old bogey out of Indira Gandhi’s box of tricks — than examine facts that reveal uncomfortable truths. Lamenting the closure of the Vedanta aluminium refinery at Lanjigarh, Orissa (‘Why India could remain forever’, IE, September 30), Singh asserts that, if...
More »Greenpeace Slams MoEF for Allowing Mining in MP Forests
-Outlook A green NGO today alleged that the Environment Ministry has given its nod to divert the Mahan forests in Madhya Pradesh for a coal block and described the decision as "appalling". Greenpeace India campaigner Priya Pillai alleged that the Environment Ministry's decision to grant forest clearance to the Mahan coal block in Singrauli district is "appalling". "The communities living in the forest have written more than once to the Ministry on the...
More »‘Biodiversity norms for green clearances coming’ -Priscilla Jebaraj
-The Hindu “Environmental impact assessment tends to ignore wider impact on biodiversity” In a move that will bring cheer to wildlife lovers but could dismay industry lobbyists already complaining about the difficulty in obtaining green clearances, the government plans to add biodiversity conservation as a new criterion to grant environmental and forest clearances. “There is no biodiversity clearance till now,” admitted Union Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan, speaking ahead of the United Nations summit...
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