-The Hindu The report of the Comptroller and Auditor General underscoring the blatant violation of conservation laws and Supreme Court orders in the diversion of forests for destructive non-forestry use confirms what former Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said about the system: it's a bit of a joke. The compensatory afforestation mechanism instituted to balance the devastating loss of natural forests has failed abysmally. The CAG's report is proof that India's...

-The Hindu     The draft policy on the use of forest land is at odds with sound conservation principles and fails to plug holes in current guidelines that work to the advantage of project promoters The Supreme Court in July 2011 while delivering the Lafarge Judgment laid down guidelines on forest clearance procedures. These were to operate till a new regulatory mechanism was put in place. Two years after the judgment, the Ministry...

-The Hindu     CAG report uncovers forestland scam, says government lost thousands of crores The Comptroller and Auditor General in its latest report has unearthed a massive scam involving forestlands being given over to industry without following laid down regulations - in violation of Supreme Court orders and forest laws - and involving large-scale misuse of funds leading to a loss to the government running into thousands of crores. The report blames some...

-The Business Standard The process prescribed in the law is so cumbersome and time consuming that neither industry nor landowner will benefit Fast economic growth in the last two decades has increased demand for land from many sources, such as infrastructure, industry, mining, and urbanisation, including real estate. Even when these activities are funded privately and are driven by profit motive, they serve a social purpose since employment generation per unit of...

-The Hindu The devastating landslips were caused by the undercutting of fragile hillsides for highways rather than by dams, which actually helped mitigate the floods The natural calamity of June 16 through 19 that devastated the whole of Uttarakhand and large areas of Himachal Pradesh and western Uttar Pradesh - an area of almost 20,000 sq.km. - was one of extremely rare severity among all the hydro-meteorological disasters to have struck India. Intense...