Eco-activism has Punjab’s polluters in a tizzy Operation Clean-Up     * Industrial and organic pollution from the Sutlej and the Beas is affecting southern districts of Punjab and parts of Rajasthan     * A popular movement straddling both states and helmed by eco-activist Baba Balbir Singh     * Seechewal has the election-bound state government worried     * Seechewal organised a massive exercise to prevent the Kala Sanghian, a highly polluted Sutlej tributary, from draining...

The Orissa government on Saturday deferred land acquisition for the proposed mega steel project of Posco till Monday, as pressure mounted on it for withdrawal of armed policemen from three gram panchayats in Jagatsinghpur district. The authorities announced the postponement owing to bad weather, hours before social activist Swami Agnivesh visited Govindpur to express solidarity with the agitating villagers who have formed a human barricade at the entry point to their village, with...

-PTI   It is force versus children in the battle for land to set up South Korean giant POSCO's proposed mega steel project in Orissa's Jagatsinghpur district where the anti-displacement stir has entered the decisive phase. While a determined state government has accused the POSCO Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS), a body spearheading agitation, of using the children as a "shield", the villagers sought to differ. "We involve children in the agitation to counter...

The omnipresent Common Man scripted the tale of the nation Symbiosis International University of Pune on Saturday instituted the R.K. Laxman Chair in the faculty of media, communication and design to honour the legendary cartoonist for his contribution to communication and media. Mr. Laxman, whose health is delicate, was represented at the ceremony by his wife Kamala Laxman. SIU founder S.B. Mujumdar; the former Union Minister, Mohan Dharia; Vidya Yeravdekar, principal director...

Brinda Karat, Rajya Sabha member and Communist Party of India (Marxist) Polit Bureau member, has protested against non-inclusion of disabled persons in the automatic inclusion category for the 2011 below the poverty line (BPL) census being conducted by the Rural Development Ministry. In a letter to Rural Development Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, she has drawn attention to the May 2, 2003 Supreme Court order, in which the disabled have been listed in...