Ahead of the visit of the Central team to the Posco site scheduled for August 27-28, the Jagatsinghpur district officials today held interactions with the villagers and village Forest Rights Act (FRA) committees to explain about the purpose of the visit of the team. Sources said, the district administration has formed seven village level FRA committees at Dhinkia, Gobindpur, Nuagaon, Gadkujang, Polang, Noliasahi and Baynalkanda. The officials are believed to have...

The Ministry of Environment and Forest’s decision to stall the Vedanta project in Orissa must be understood. The ‘story’ is about a powerful company breaking the law. But it is equally about a development puzzle in which the richest lands of India are where the poorest people subsist. The N.C. Saxena committee has indicted the mining conglomerate on three counts of breaking the environmental laws. One, it took over and...

The fact-finding team set up by the Union ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) last month to probe allegations of violations of the Forest Rights Act by Posco, the Korean steel major, for its proposed project in Orissa’s Jagatsinghpur district, will visit the site on Friday and Saturday. The team is led by Meena Gupta, a former secretary of this ministry and also of the tribal affairs one. The other members...

In the five years of the Right to Information Act, activists who use it have faced reprisal across the country. OCTOBER 2010 marks the fifth anniversary of the Right to Information (RTI) Act. The Act and its implementation have been described in both administrative circles and civil society as “revolutionary” , “a blow for transparency”, “a check on corrupt practices” and “a people's intervention tool with tremendous impact”. Social activists and...

India has rejected controversial plans by mining group Vedanta to extract bauxite in the eastern state of Orissa. The project had breached environmental protection acts and raised concerns for the rights of local tribes, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said. Vedanta's other ventures in Orissa were being investigated separately, he said. The company has yet to comment on the decision. It says it will bring jobs to the area - tribespeople say the plans...