-The Hindu Farmers are opting for the real estate option due to poor agricultural conditions Pushed by unsettling agricultural conditions and pulled by lucrative real estate deals, farmers across the famed and fertile Cauvery delta in Tamil Nadu are selling their lands to real estate Developers. In Amma Chatram, Marudhanallur, Tirunageswarm, Mathur, and in a host of other villages in Thanjavur and adjacent districts, farmlands are being converted to residential plots at...
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PMO steps in, green light hope for roads -Sobhana K
-The Telegraph The Prime Minister’s Office is playing referee in the tussle between the environment ministry and the National Highway Authority of India over clearance for road projects. In a meeting of stakeholders held in the PMO today, the environment ministry agreed to relax norms for project clearance and issue fresh guidelines that would simultaneously address green concerns and not stall road development. The NHAI has also given an understanding that if clearance...
More »Forest panel to hold meeting flouting CIC orders -Nitin Sethi
-The Times of India The Forest Advisory Committee (FAC), under the ministry of forests and environment, has scheduled yet another meeting on Friday for clearing projects in violation of the Central Information Commission (CIC) orders. Earlier, the commission had pulled up environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan for a similar transgression. In February, the CIC had demanded that the ministry must share with public the details of projects to be cleared ahead of the...
More »Panel finds lapses in development of ‘first indigenous Bt cotton’ -K Venkateshwarlu
-The Hindu ICAR “shielding errant officials” by delaying the report In a damning indictment of the way some Bt cotton varieties were developed and commercialised in the country, a committee headed by Prof. S.K. Sopory, Vice-Chancellor of JNU, found that indigenous Bikaneri Nerma (BN) Bt cotton variety was contaminated by a gene patented by Monsanto. Having found lapses in the “BNLA106 event”, the committee has held as “invalid” the data obtained from bio-safety...
More »SC upholds land acquisition for urban complex project in Haryana -J Venkatesan
-The Hindu The Supreme Court has upheld the acquisition of 673.29 acres of land by the Haryana government in Panchkula district for the Kalka-Pinjore urban complex project. A Bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi and S.J. Mukhopadaya dismissed a batch of special leave petitions and lifted the stay on the construction by several Developers. The Supreme Court had stayed the project for over eight months. In its order the Bench said “it will not...
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