-The Hindu “Environmental impact assessment tends to ignore wider impact on biodiversity” In a move that will bring cheer to wildlife lovers but could dismay industry lobbyists already complaining about the difficulty in obtaining green clearances, the government plans to add biodiversity conservation as a new criterion to grant environmental and forest clearances. “There is no biodiversity clearance till now,” admitted Union Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan, speaking ahead of the United Nations summit...

-The Economic Times The government appears to have developed cold feet over implementing Kelkar panel's recommendations to slash subsidies drastically at a time when it is facing backlash for raising diesel prices and capping subsidised cooking cylinders. The report, which has been put out for public comments, warns that India is on the edge of a fiscal precipice. A senior finance ministry official has said that the report has not been accepted...

-Outlook Goa government has constituted several teams to inspect and quantify the iron ore stacked at various points in the state before allowing it to be exported, a senior official said today. The state government, in its order dated September 10, had decided to allow only the already extracted and ready for transportation ore to be exported, thus discouraging fresh extraction. The teams comprising officials from the mines and forest departments and Goa...

-The Economic Times When the country was growing at more than 8 per cent for about a decade, services and manufacturing were the darlings of policy-makers, investors and talking heads. Agriculture, a segment that employs nearly half the hundred crore population of the country, was hardly mentioned even in passing. This year, thanks to a poor monsoon, suddenly the farmers are the centre of India's growth story, or the lack of...

-Al Jazeera New report from UN's telecommunications agency breaks down international internet usage statistics. About one-third of the world's population now has access to the internet, but more needs to be done in order to achieve internet penetration targets as set out in the Millennium Development Goals, the International Telecommunications Union has said in a new report. Currently, 20.5 per cent of households in developing countries have access to the internet, which the...