-Outlook As threat to the Taj Mahal due to harmful gases emanating from nearby industries continue, green activists are now emphasising the need for implementation of a 'clean air action plan' to save the Mughal-era structure. Though environmentalists have been raising a hue and cry time and again, this time they have rung the alarm bell by flagging concerns over emissions from vehicles due to uninterrupted flow of traffic. Industrial pollution is increasingly...

-The Hindustan Times The Yamuna Expressway may well turn out to be yet another worry for the Taj Mahal, already battling pollution and signs of decay. The expressway — opened on August 9 — has almost doubled the weekend visitors to the Taj, pushing the Archaeological Survey of India into asking the National Environment Engineering Research Institute (Neeri) to conduct an environment-impact study pending since 2006. Earlier, around 15,000 to 20,000 people...

-The Hindustan Times The parliamentary standing committee on rural development is slated to submit on Thursday its report on the much-awaited land acquisition bill — with suggestions for tough norms that would make it very difficult to acquire land for industry. The committee, it is understood, has suggested that ‘public purpose’ be clearly defined to prevent profit-making industries from taking advantage of the law under the guise of producing public goods...

Jatav residents of Ramgarh in U.P. resist attempts by members of a powerful community to grab their land by violent means. IN what could be considered one of the worst incidents of vendetta against Dalits in the National Capital Region (NCR), members of the Dalit Jatav community were beaten up brutally by some members of the dominant Gujjar community in Ramgarh village in the Greater Noida area of Uttar Pradesh...

-The Hindustan Times   The Allahabad high court verdict on Noida and Greater Noida land acquisition cases has fuelled hopes of a better deal among the farmers of Yamuna Expressway, the third industrial development authority in Gautam Budh Nagar district. Many of the 30-odd villages along the Noida-Agra toll road have moved court, seeking increased cash relief, regularisation of abadi land and allotment of developed plots. In the first phase, the high court had...