-The Times of India All tourist operations within 5km of all 600 plus tiger reserves, national parks, sanctuaries and wildlife corridors in the country will soon have to fork out a minimum of 10% of their turnover as " local conservation fee", which will be used not only to protect wildlife areas but also provide financial assistance to communities and people living around these green patches.  The Union environment and forests ministry...

-Down to Earth   Punjab has been in the grip of cancer for over a decade but the government has ignored the threat.  It all started with a knot in her left breast. Within no time it grew to the size of a tennis ball. In pain, 40-year-old Raj Rani went to the doctor in her village in Punjab’s Ferozepur district. Finding no relief, she started doing the rounds of government hospitals in...

-The Telegraph On a full-attendance day at a business process outsourcing centre in a village in Uttar Pradesh, 40 boys and girls work on computers, each of their desktops powered by rooftop solar panels that turn sunlight into electricity. Their workplace, a two-storey building, is the only structure in Sonari, a village of about 1,700 people and located about 50km from Lucknow on the road to Sitapur, where electricity is guaranteed nine...

-Down to Earth Food safety authority approves scientific panel's recommendations for regulating honey quality India has inched closer to regulating antibiotics in honey with the apex food safety body of the country approving the recommendations of its own scientific panel and committee on fixing rules for antibiotics in honey. The recommendations put forth by the scientific panel, which says antibiotics should not be used at any stage of honey production, has been...

-The Times of India The iron and steel industry might be recording an impressive 8% annual growth, but it is struggling to meet environmental norms, the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) concluded while rating its performance.  The results of the study were released by Union environment and forests minister Jayanthi Natarajan and Planning Commission member Arun Maira here on Monday.  After a two-year study, the Delhi-based green NGO concluded that Ispat Industries...