-The Business Standard Forest Rights Act being reinterpreted to avoid amendment Led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's office, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government is discussing possible ways to do away with the mandatory requirement of securing consent from tribal gram sabhas (village councils) before cutting down their forests for industrial purposes. The deliberations, on among various ministries, are for zeroing in on such a way that the requirement is removed without...

-The Hindustan Times Former Union environment minister Jairam Ramesh set a cat among the pigeons, in his inimitable style, at a recent national conference on climate and sustainable development at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in Mumbai. He asserted that India would be "the last man standing at Paris", referring to the United Nations climate negotiations which will culminate in France in December 2015. India's current stance was "inflexible...

-Down to Earth   BJP thinks undoing labour laws will spur a manufacturing boom. Even now workers enjoy little protection or social security In recent weeks, the pink press has been singing paeans to a new star in the political firmament, one whom they see as a worthy disciple of the man who gave us the "Gujarat model" of development. The media's new discovery is none other than Vasundhara Raje, the Rajasthan...

-DNA The aim is to drive farmers out of agriculture and turn food production into industrial enterprise Some years ago, former President APJ Abdul Kalam was addressing students at an annual event organised by K Govindacharya's Bhartiya Swabhiman Andolan at Gulbarga in Karnataka. He exhorted students to work hard, educate themselves to become doctors, engineers, civil servants, scientists, economists and entrepreneurs. After he had ended his talk, a young student got...

-The Hindu Planning was a vision, a part of the nationalist movement and its history goes back to a many stranded dream of linking knowledge and power to serve society The old aphorism "old soldiers never die, they just fade away" might also be a story of the fate of most institutions. However, it was not true of the Planning Commission, which was terminated brusquely. This Independence day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi...