Vedanta’s plans to source bauxite from Niyamgiri hills in Kalahandi district of Orissa appear to have run into trouble with the Attorney General opining that the ministry of environment has the powers to stop diversion of forest land till rights of tribals under the Forest Rights Act are settled. After the Environment Ministry kept on hold clearance for the Vedanta project, questions were raised on the mandate of the department...

In the summer of 2006, I travelled with a group of scholars and writers through the district of Dantewada, then (as now) the epicentre of the conflict between the Indian State and Maoist rebels. Writing about my experiences in a four-part series published in The Telegraph, I predicted that the conflict would intensify, because the Maoists would not give up their commitment to armed struggle, while the government would not...

EVEN as the fate of Bt brinjal hangs in balance, the parliamentary standing committee attached to the agriculture ministry has started examining the pros and cons of introducing genetically-modified food in India, with a panel of experts coming out in favour of setting up a regulatory mechanism to monitor their implications. At the first meeting of the parliamentary panel on the sensitive subject here this afternoon, three experts, including Delhi...

Thousands of poor village youths can now hope to become BPO workers with Ignou training. The Indira Gandhi National Open University will train an estimated 45,000 rural youths from below-poverty-line (BPL) families in the areas of telecommunications, business process outsourcing (BPO) and security. It will also teach them soft skills — such as basic spoken English and etiquette — to make easy their shift from agrarian backgrounds to an industry environment. At the...

IN APRIL this year, the Supreme Court directed the Ministry of Environment and Forests to conduct a probe into French cement giant Lafarge’s limestone mines in Meghalaya. Lafarge was alleged to have been operating on forest land without proper clearance. Now it turns out the allegations against the Paris-headquartered multinational are graver. Bangladesh-based Lafarge Surma Cement Ltd — a joint venture between Lafarge Group and Spanish cement company Cementos Morlins —...