South Korean steel maker Posco may have to start its bid to enter India from scratch, letting six years of preparatory work go to waste. A top tribunal has cancelled environmental approvals given by the government last year for the company’s $12 billion (around Rs61,440 crore today) steel plant in Orissa and ordered that the Environment Ministry review the entire project afresh. The tribunal said environmental clearances have been accorded in...

Korean steelmaker Posco’s bid to build a 12 million tone integrated steel complex in Jagatsinghpur, Orissa received a major jolt today after a two-judge bench of the National Green Tribunal suspended the environment clearance granted to the project in January 2011.   "The environment clearance granted on January 31, 2011 to the project shall remain suspended till such review and appraisal is done by the ministry," a bench of tribunal comprising Justice...

Weather events such as extreme temperatures and drought caused global agricultural losses of 11.4 billion dollars in 2011, while 12 million hectares of farmland are lost to land degradation every year, and unsustainable agricultural practices contribute to the emission of greenhouse gases. These and other data provided by a report released Wednesday in London by leading scientists from 13 countries raise the question of how to curb the environmental crisis, guarantee...

This month, two women’s stories, told courageously, helped to underline the reality of domestic violence in India. Nita Bhalla, a journalist, wrote for the BBC about being physically assaulted by her partner. Meena Kandasamy, a poet and writer on social issues, wrote movingly in Outlook, a national newsmagazine, of surviving a violent marriage: “My skin has seen enough hurt to tell its own story.” Both Ms. Kandasamy and Ms. Bhalla are,...

India, like other Asian countries, has focused its climate change adaptation strategies on rural and urban areas while neglecting the urban fringes, say experts. Peri-urban areas are characterised by haphazard, accelerated expansion and are farthest from basic urban services and infrastructure, according to United Nations-Habitat’s ‘The State of Asian Cities 2010-11’. By 2020, of the projected 4.2 billion urban population of the world, 2.2 billion will be living in Asia, many...