-The Hindu   The Ministry has established a “disastrous precedent” The environmental clearance granted by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) to Lavasa is illegal as the MoEF is not a competent authority to grant the clearance, a petitioner argued during the hearing of the Lavasa matter in the Bombay High Court here on Monday. Suniti S.R., a petitioner who filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) against the project on behalf of the...

Protestors AND supporters of a range of issues find a chance to voice their opinions at Jantar Mantar, reports Priyanka Jantar Mantar is busy readying itself for Sunday, when activist Anna Hazare will go on a token one-day fast to protest against the government's version of the Lokpal Bill. The day before, the venue is already packed with a few hundred people, with not one but four protests going on simultaneously over...

The Chhattisgarh High Court has directed that no further action be taken towards granting environmental clearance to a coal mine operated by DB Power Ltd, a subsidiary of DB Corp, one of India's largest media corporations. The respondents have been given three weeks to reply. A writ petition filed in the court accuses the company of adopting “deliberate, illegal and manipulative” measures to influence the outcome of a public hearing held...

The Supreme Court on Friday asked the Central Government to consider the plight of nurses working in hospitals who are victims of the allegedly illegal practice of bond, including the retaining of their original certificates to prevent them from leaving the institutions. A three-judge Bench comprising Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia and Justices A.K. Patnaik and Swatanter Kumar, without issuing notice on the petitions highlighting their problems, asked Solicitor-General Rohinton Nariman to...

-The Economic Times   US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday said at the Ministerial Conference on Internet Freedom at The Hague in Netherlands that a regulation on internet in some countries has made an environment where ideas are being blocked and conversations are being stifled.  Clinton cited the examples of Syria, Iran and recently Russia where bloggers and internet activists are being targeted. Without naming India, she said that some governments...