-The Hindustan Times India's ailing economy has found a new scapegoat - environment and forests. For most things that go wrong these days, from power shortage to slow growth, the blame is tossed at the door of the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF), the paradigm being that forests, wildlife and green laws are hurdles to development. So much so, that a Group of Ministers established to 'rationalise' coal mining in forests...

-The Telegraph Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh today expressed surprise over husbands of women mukhiyas and women sarpanchs running the rural parts of the state, unlike elsewhere in the country. Ramesh was on a visit to Rohtas district to review bariou development schemes undertaken in areas that have suffered because of ther Maoist violence. During his meeting, he could not find any woman mukhiya or woman sarpanch with whom he could interact...

-The Telegraph Jamshedpur: Work is underway on turning former Maoist hotbed West Singhbhum’s Manoharpur block into a hub of model villages sponsored by Union rural development ministry, a separate project that will operate simultaneously with the much-hyped Saranda Action Plan (SAP). The ministry headed by Jairam Ramesh has asked the state forest department to study all the 56 villages of the block and chalk out an integrated development project under the banner...

-The Telegraph Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh will try to persuade the Centre not to allow any more private mining companies to operate in the mineral-rich Saranda forests, a former Maoist stronghold that is now the focus of a massive rejuvenation plan. If the minister, who toured the West Singhbhum forests yesterday, has his way, at least 20 companies, including steel behemoths like ArcelorMittal, Tata Steel, Jindal Steel & Power Limited...

-The Telegraph The Jharkhand government is uneasy, a bit tense even, about tomorrow’s visit to Saranda by Union minister Jairam Ramesh who has time and again made public his displeasure at the slow implementation of his development initiative in the former Naxalite hub of West Singhbhum. In his latest missive, sent to chief minister Arjun Munda on June 18, the architect of the Saranda Development Plan highlighted a number of “worrying” issues,...