-The Times of India NEW DELHI: In a move to involve private players more to clean Ganga, the govt is keen to allow corporates to spend their CSR fund without any interference of municipal bodies in 118 cities and towns along the river. Corporates would be allowed to undertake projects that contribute to this mission after getting easy approval from the municipal bodies. "The issue was discussed at a meeting chaired...

-The Hindustan Times For the second time in five months, the Supreme Court has pulled up the NDA government for the delay in cleaning up of the Ganga, a pet project of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Centre has now told the court it will finish the mega project to clean up the 2,525km-long river by 2018. Bringing up the slow progress on the three-decade-old Ganga Action Plan, the SC Wednesday wondered...

-The Hindu Though the Union Environment Ministry acknowledges its damage, Uttarakhand's hydroelectric project-driven development agenda remains unchanged Chaaen, a village atop a hill in the picturesque Alaknanda Valley, is infamous for getting a hydroelectric project into trouble. I first visited the village last year while covering the worst flood disaster Uttarakhand had witnessed. On June 26, 2013, as I stood at Narendra Singh's verandah in Chaaen, I noticed how the walls had developed...

-The Indian Express The Centre on Monday admitted for the first time that hydropower projects had "direct and indirect impact in the aggravation of floods" that hit Uttarakhand in 2013, killing hundreds and leaving thousands homeless. It also said that the projects caused "irreversible damage" to the environment and enhanced landslides and other disasters. Filing its affidavit in the Supreme Court on Monday, the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) conceded that "the...

-The Third Pole Villagers in India's Greater Noida district could be the latest victims of groundwater contamination with reports of increased cancer cases spurring investigations and concern about the situation elsewhere in the country The perils of groundwater contamination were again in the spotlight recently when media reports about drinking water causing cancer surfaced from five villages in an industrial belt on the outskirts of the Indian capital New Delhi. As medical experts...