The Ministry of Environment and Forests (MOEF) has been the target of criticism from industry groups to the Prime Minister for allegedly holding up infrastructure and industrial development through its system of green clearances. But a recent analysis of 5 years of decision-making put out by an environmental group suggests why these attacks might be misplaced, given the ease with which every single of 262 proposed hydropower and irrigation projects...

-IPS News Officials at the World Bank are forcefully rejecting a new internal evaluation that is highly critical of the institution’s decade-long Forest policy, expressing their “strong disagreement” with some assertions in the report. The assessment, written by the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG), the World Bank Group’s auditor, warns that expectations for poverty reduction as envisioned in the bank’s 2002 Forest Strategy “have not yet been met”. The report is particularly critical...

-The United Nations The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) today called on countries to boost efforts to promote agroForestry, a practice involving the combination of trees with crop or livestock production, stressing it can help millions of people escape poverty and prevent environmental degradation, making it crucial to ensure food security in the future. “In many countries the potential of agroForestry to enrich farmers, communities and industry has not been...

-The Indian Express A series of arrests has helped investigators establish the links between some of the most high-profile terror cases involving Hindu extremists—from Malegaon 2006 to Modasa 2008. RAHUL TRIPATHI looks at what the investigators have found so far—and what they haven’t One cold December morning, Rambalak Dash left his ashram in Chitrakoot on the UP-MP border for a puja he had been called upon to do at a house in...

-South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers & People   The Expert Approval Committee has zero rejection in six years The Union Ministry of Environment and Forests’ (MoEF) Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) on River Valley and Hydroelectric Projects (RVP) has considered a total of 262 hydropower and irrigation projects in close to six years since April 2007 when the new committee was set up to its latest, 63rd meeting in December 2012. An...