-The Indian Express Mining in India has come a long way in the last 50 years or so. From the Industrial Policy Resolution of 1957 to the National Mineral Policy (NMP) of 1993, and now to the NMP of 2008, it has shown a progressive shift towards bringing the private sector into exploration, mining and downstream value addition. However, the regulatory systems perhaps never managed to keep pace with developments on...

-PTI With the twin objectives of preventing corrosion of tracks and providing odourless toilets to passengers, railways are replacing existing ones with bio-toilets. "While some green toilets designed by DRDO are already being manufactured and fitted in coaches, we are committed to manufacture 25,00 bio-toilets in the current fiscal," said a senior Railway Ministry official. The problem of environmental degradation and corrosion of tracks due to night soil has been engaging the attention...

-The Times of India All tourist operations within 5km of all 600 plus tiger reserves, national parks, sanctuaries and wildlife corridors in the country will soon have to fork out a minimum of 10% of their turnover as " local conservation fee", which will be used not only to protect wildlife areas but also provide financial assistance to communities and people living around these green patches.  The Union environment and forests ministry...

-The Telegraph Environmental activists have criticized the outcome of the recently concluded Rio+20 summit as insubstantial. They are not wrong, but they have missed the main point. There was a very real danger that, far from registering progress, the summit would actually mark a giant step backwards for sustainable development. Rich and powerful countries made a concerted attempt to actually undo and reverse the advances that were achieved 20 years ago...

-The Hindu Commodification, commercialisation and financialisation of nature will produce a greedy, not green, economy Over 100 world leaders will meet in Rio de Janeiro this week for the U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development, popularly referred to as Rio+20 Global Earth Summit. It is being held amidst “‘a world running low on drinking water and productive land’ and set against the backdrop of accelerating global warming, climate change, chemical contamination of air, land...