-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Backed by villagers and displaced people from different states, members of 200 NGOs from across the country on Monday slammed environment and forests minister M Veerappa Moily for ignoring environment and social concerns while granting speedy clearances to mining and infrastructure projects. Alleging that recent clearances pointed to "high corruption", the groups wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. They also demanded immediate rollback of the...

-PTI NEW DELHI: The workforce in agriculture and allied activities has come down by 11 per cent during the last decade, signalling rise in secondary and tertiary sectors, self-employment and regular jobs, according to a study. "The number of people depending upon agriculture and allied activities for their livelihood has come down from over 60 per cent to 49 per cent between 1999-2000 and 2011-12," the Assocham study said. "The number of...

-Outlook The real story of a ‘decisive' UPA blowing away the eight-year cloud around Posco's project Bend It Like Moily Seven reasons why UPA's pre-poll green clearance for Posco is more about spiel than steel Posco got green clearance after the sudden removal of MoEF Jayanthi Natarajan, who was reluctant to sign on the file. The nod came days before South Korean President Park Geun-hye's visit;...

-The Financial Express Veerappa Moily says environment will be protected but won't be biased against industry. After Posco and Tawang, environment minister M Veerappa Moily has cleared the state-owned NHPC's 520 MW Teesta-IV hydro-electric project in Sikkim, thus having approved three big projects in three days, which were stuck despite having clearances from all other statutory and related bodies. Veerappa Moily, who approved the Teesta project on January 9, said at the Express...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Supreme Court today overruled the Centre and directed it to set up a national regulator to deal with the mandatory environmental impact assessment processes for forest-related projects that can range from mining to industrial ventures. The implications of such a watchdog for industry were not immediately clear in the absence of specific modalities but a clearance logjam blamed on the environment ministry was seen as one of...