-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Centre is hopeful that the bill to utilize close to Rs 40,000 crore currently locked in the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) will be passed by wide consensus in the forthcoming winter session of Parliament. The funds have been lying utilized following a 2009 order of the Supreme Court and the government intends to ensure that they are accessed by states and...

-Business Standard No 'smart city' will be created in the next five years, though a successful programme could see several smart colonies come up across the country The National Democratic Alliance government's ambitious Smart Cities programme will at best be able set up only 100 pilot projects in the first five years. Contrary to general perception, no 'smart city' will be created in the next five years, though a successful programme could...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: It's official: 92 acres in the Aravalis have been identified as a landfill site for garbage generated in Gurgaon and Faridabad. Since the area falls under the restricted zone where no non-forest activity is allowed, the Haryana government has started the process for exempting the huge land parcel from the legal provision. For the first time, the Haryana government has officially admitted in an RTI response...

-The Hindu Though outlawed in 1976, bonded labour lives and thrives in the State, as highlighted by the Sivaji Ganesan committee. However, the State continues to maintain an Ostrich-like attitude, failing to conduct periodic surveys and implement rehabilitation programmes The State of Karnataka in 2000 woke up to news about a certain medieval-era brutality being committed on bonded labourers, when the Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha unearthed the case of five labourers being...

-The Hindu The Compensatory Afforestation Bill has raised significant money, which must be used to restore existing forests rather than on artificial plantations On Parliament’s wooden desks, a Bill is knocking. The Compensatory Afforestation Fund Bill seeks to govern how forests will be raised, cut, and resurrected across India. It will be looking at how a fund of Rs. 38,000 crore, collected from cutting down forests, is to be used. Meant initially just...