-Down to Earth   Environment ministry has been delaying the process for past three years   The Supreme Court recently asked the Centre to set up by April 30 a national environmental regulator for undertaking independent, objective and transparent appraisal of projects for environmental clearances and monitoring of conditions as per the provisions of the EIA Notification of 2006.  The order came after the green bench headed by Justice A K Patnaik refused to...

-The Hindustan Times   Kokrajhar (Assam): Nearly two years after deadly ethnic riots led to more than 100 deaths and displaced over 4.5 lakh people in Kokrajhar region of Assam, fear and tension prevails. Communities - especially, the Bodos and Bengali-speaking immigrant Muslims - living in close proximity across the Bodoland Territorial Autonomous District appear to be completely polarised. In the small village of Joyma a few kilometres from Gosaigaon, around 150 Bengali-speaking...

-The Hindu   When an electoral system structurally discriminates against particular categories such as persons with disabilities, it is tantamount to a failure of the democracy as a whole The citizens of India are in the process of casting their votes in what is being widely hailed as the largest election in human history. By sheer size, the 16th Lok Sabha Elections signal a triumph not only for India, but for democratic exercises...

-Human Rights Watch New Delhi: School authorities in India persistently discriminate against children from marginalized communities, denying them their right to education, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Four years after an ambitious education law went into effect in India guaranteeing free schooling to every child ages 6 to 14, almost every child is enrolled, yet nearly half are likely to drop out before completing their elementary education. The...

-The Hindu   Dindori (Maharashtra): This constituency in Nashik district does not occupy a particularly significant spot on the election map, but it presents a neat battle of "status quo vs. change" between its elite wine-grape farmers and onion growers. While onion farmers are rooting for change, grape growers are largely status-quoist, favouring the Congress for fear that a Bharatiya Janata Party-led government will not encourage the nascent wine industry in the country. Dindori,...