A group of villagers, affected by the stalling of the Him Urja Vidyut Pariyojna at Nandprayag and Vishnugad Vidyut Pariyojna at Pipalkoti, staged a symbolicchakka jam on the Rishikesh-Badrinath highway at Pipalkoti on Sunday, threatening self-immolation if the government didn't order the resumption of construction work there. Unhappy with the government for first promising power and revenue generation opportunities to the affected villagers while taking away their lands, and later Scrapping...

The National Green Tribunal's decision to suspend the environmental clearance given to Posco vindicates the project's critics. ON March 30, the Principal Bench of the newly formed National Green Tribunal (NGT) delivered a momentous decision suspending the environmental clearance (EC) given to the South Korean transnational corporation, Posco, to set up an integrated steel plant at Paradip in Odisha's Jagatsinghpur district. The former Union Minister for Environment and Forests, Jairam...

-The Economic Times   What's common between foggy movements of two army battalions, the government auditor's assessments of large notional losses to the exchequer and a letter from the army chief to the PM on his unit's preparedness for war?  The information in each of these instances in the past six months was marked 'secret' in official files, but screamed its way to the public, forcing the government into damage-control mode.  Information leaks in...

-The Pioneer After the withdrawal of quota in departmental promotions, the Dalit employees’ organisations are gearing up for a big agitation against the Samajwadi Party government. They plan to launch their protest by organising a state level conference in the state capital this month. The Arakshan Bachao Sangharsh Samiti (ABSS), an umbrella organisation of Dalit employees unions, has appealed its members to wear black armbands during duty hours to protest against the...

The Supreme Court has dismissed several review pleas filed by corporate houses challenging the decision to cancel 122 spectrum licences in the 2G case. The dismissed cases include those of Videocon, S Tel, Sistema Shyam Teleservices, Tata Teleservices, Idea Cellular, Unitech Wireless (TN) and Etisalat DB Telecom. The two-judge bench said that on April 13, it would hear in open court the government’s plea to review whether policy decisions can be overturned...