Over a month after the CBI cracked down on the alleged multi-crore kickbacks-for-loans scam, investigators are believed to have found irregularities in the loan files of at least eight companies, including Lavasa, DB Realty, Mantri Realty and Adani Group. In November, the CBI had arrested three members of Mumbai-based financial service company Money Matters and four others for their involvement in the alleged loan scam. The CBI, after going through loan...

Says the bank has also stopped refinancing farm loans Says no NABARD official has visited his office in a year Criticises Milma for deposits in a private bank Cooperation Minister G. Sudhakaran said here on Monday that the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) had not been taking the initiative to hold discussions on implementing the Vaidyanathan committee report on cooperative sector reforms and had stopped refinancing farm loans in the...

The Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act, 1993 enacted by Parliament prohibits manual scavenging. As per the Act, no person shall (a) engage in or employ for or permit to be engaged in or employed for any other person for manually carrying human excreta; or (b) construct or maintain a dry latrine. Contravention of these provisions is a criminal offence. So far, the Act has...

Has Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA), one of India’s best-known peoples’ movements, run out of steam? Or is it still relevant in its new avatar as a force to reckon with? After all, the NBA has failed to achieve its primary goal of blocking big dams on Narmada, including the Sardar Sarovar Dam in Gujarat. The short answer to the question of NBA’s achievement is that it has forced a paradigm...

The issues relating to the victims of endosulfan, sprayed in the plantations of Kasargod district in Kerala, have snowballed once again. “Earthworms emerged from the soil, and, subsequently, died. Then birds came to eat the earthworms and they died as well.”   “Some termites were killed in a cotton farm sprayed with endosulfan. A frog fed on the dead termites, and was immobilised a few minutes later. An owl which flew over...