The Comptroller and Auditor-General of India has found that the Naveen Patnaik government has ‘misused' the Land Acquisition Act for acquiring land for several big industrial projects, including the proposed mega steel plant by South Korean steel major Posco. “Emergency Provisions of Section 17 (4) were misused and applied arbitrarily even without indicating detailed justification for the same and without fulfilment of prescribed conditions,” the CAG has stated. The CAG report...

-PTI Central Information Commissioner Shailesh Gandhi has written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh opposing the proposed move to exempt nuclear regulatory bodies from the ambit of the Right To Information Act. In his letter to the PM, Gandhi opposed the proposals in the Nuclear Safety Regulation Act (NSRA) relating to introduction of new exemption clause in the RTI Act which will prohibit disclosure of nuclear Energy and radiation issues under the transparency...

-The Times of India   Terming exemptions to the RTI Act introduced through the proposed Nuclear Safety Regulatory Authority (NSRA) bill as "regressive", information commissioner Shailesh Gandhi and legal luminary Fali Nariman have urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to reconsider the amendments in the interest of transparency. Nariman said the amendments were "unnecessary" and against the letter and spirit of the Act. "I am distressed to hear that the government of India proposes...

-The Hindu Repayment of all cooperative crop loans to be staggered The State government on Tuesday announced in the Legislative Assembly that there would be waiver of land revenue collection in all the 123 drought-hit taluks encompassing 24 districts of the State, with immediate effect. Chief Minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda, replying to a discussion (initially sought to be taken up as an adjournment motion) on the drought which was brought on by deficient...

For local residents, most Himalayan peaks from Sikkim to Arunachal Pradesh are divine — their might flowing in the form of rivers capable of sustaining life and washing away their ills. One such river is Lohit in Arunachal Pradesh, where Parashuram, an incarnation of Vishnu, was believed to have cleansed himself after beheading his mother. Today, however, the Himalayas seem to be fighting a losing battle against India's hunger for electricity....