-The Hindustan Times In June 1992, Manmohan Singh, then finance minister in the Government of India, delivered the Foundation Day Address of the Society for Promotion of Wastelands Development (SPWD). He spoke on the topic ‘Environment and the New Economic Policies’. In his talk, Singh urged “objective standards industry-wise for safeguarding the environment, asking industry to certify compliance with these standards, institution of an effective system of verification and industry audit...

-The Hindu The perils of the system of rat-hole mining that thousands in Meghalaya routinely engage in were in stark focus over the past week. After a fruitless search that yielded no survivors or bodies in a flooded coal pit in the South Garo Hills, a rescue team of the National Disaster and Rescue Force has called off its operations. This means the 15 miners who were believed trapped underground are...

-PTI Goa cannot have unlimited mining given its ecological sensitivity, the Mashelkar Committee said, demanding that the cap should be such that it will protect the environment and social well being of the state Panaji: A committee of experts constituted by the Goa government has recommended a cap on extraction of iron ore in the coastal state to 20-25 million metric tonnes (MMT), which is almost half the existing exports, reports PTI.   The...

-The Times of India The attack on three environment and RTI activists across the country in less than two weeks has brought to the fore how environmentalism is a dirty and sometimes violent game in the hinterland unlike the soft, candle-lighting tiger-loving green activism in big cities.  Akhil Gogoi in Assam, Bharat Jhunjhunwala in Uttarakhand and Ramesh Agrawal in Chhattisgarh - green activists who used RTI to their advantage - were attacked...

-The Indian Express An intriguing paradox of contemporary Indian politics has been insufficiently noted: corporate India finances India’s elections, substantially if not wholly, but it is unable to determine election outcomes. Money matters, but it is not always electorally decisive. The recent Uttar Pradesh elections provide the clearest illustration of this proposition. As is well known, the Congress, BJP and BSP were all better financed than the SP which, especially after the...