-Business Standard Environment ministry also plans to cut the two-stage mandatory clearances under the Environment Protection Act to a single stage, shaving six months from the process   The central government is working to substantially cut red tape at the environment ministry by doing away with multiple applications for all the green clearances that a project developer requires. A single comprehensive application would soon replace the existing multiple-window system. The environment ministry also plans...

-Down to Earth Persisting with the current institutional arrangement will do more harm than good The manner in which the Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) of the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) has agreed to divert 4,578 hectares (ha) of prime forestland to construct the 3,000 MW Dibang multipurpose project (DMP) has yet again convinced me of the need to replace the present system of granting Forest Clearances. FAC, in its...

-The Hindustan Times Continuing with its business-friendly regulatory changes, the Narendra Modi government has brought in a key change diminishing the applicability of watershed Forest Rights Act (FRA) for seeking statutory Forest Clearance for projects. The environment ministry has exempted plantations, notified as forests within 75 years of the FRA coming into force on 13 December 2005 - and not having tribal population as per 2001 and 2011 census - from the...

-The Guardian The 3,000MW Dibang dam, rejected twice as it would submerge vast tracts of biologically rich forests, is to get environmental clearance - but huge local opposition could stall the project Six years ago, former Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh laid the foundation stone for the 3,000MW Dibang multipurpose dam project. The dam, to be built across the Dibang river, in the north-eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, will be the...

-The Hindu In many cases, Forest Clearance was not obtained, says committee The Supreme Court-appointed Central Empowered Committee (CEC) has found large-scale illegal mining of iron and manganese ore in the forest lands of Odisha. In its report submitted to the apex court in a public interest writ petition seeking a ban on illegal mining in Odisha, the CEC, quoting the figures of the Odisha government, said, "As per the details given by...